What's happened to the Topfield Forum?

[mikeathome]

Lots of links to it in here but I can't get the TF forum to work - anyone else have a problem or is it me?

[tonymy01]

Because Topfield don't want people to go there I think, breaking the default.aspx in their webserver.
So, the link is now:
http://forum.itopfield.com.au/default.aspx
(you will notice lots of links to the forum without the default.aspx, including from the Topfield webpages themselves).

[mikeathome]

I tried the link - still can't connect, same message as all day yesterday. If you have been able to connect I assume there is an issue with my browser.

[Vortical]

I can't access it at all either it's definately been down since yesterday.

Prior to that Tony's link did work though.

[mikeathome]

I rang TF support and was told the site would be down for at least 6 weeks. Managed from Korea, ouside the control of people in Australia. Hard to believe though.

[Vortical]

I rang TF support and was told the site would be down for at least 6 weeks. Managed from Korea, ouside the control of people in Australia. Hard to believe though.

That's quite a long time to be down for.
Anyway thanks for ringing and letting us know.

Edit: The itopfield website and forum is hosted in Korea but as for why the 6 weeks + outage for the forums only has occurred we're all in the dark on that one.

[mikeathome]

Yeah, I expressed what I thought was an appropriate level of surprise/incredulity and the chap that I was speaking to went and checked with someone else to make sure. It was when I asked why fixing whatever the problem was needed to take so long that I was told that the website etc was managed from Korea and was beyond Australian control/influence. Also hard to believe.

Its a pity for TF sales though - after months of grizzling on the forums about the firmware it seemed to me that most of the users of the latest version were reasonably, if not completely, happy with it. Just the time to be looking for the positive publicity I would have thought.

[tonymy01]

Whoops, sorry for not checking earlier.   It is just many try to get to the forums via the Topfield webpage which lists http://forum.itopfield.com.au which stopped working a long time ago, so I posted the correct link without confirming it was up.
Wow, 6 weeks!

[Vortical]

Yeah, I expressed what I thought was an appropriate level of surprise/incredulity and the chap that I was speaking to went and checked with someone else to make sure. It was when I asked why fixing whatever the problem was needed to take so long that I was told that the website etc was managed from Korea and was beyond Australian control/influence. Also hard to believe.

Its a pity for TF sales though - after months of grizzling on the forums about the firmware it seemed to me that most of the users of the latest version were reasonably, if not completely, happy with it. Just the time to be looking for the positive publicity I would have thought.

What I'd like to know is where they pulled this 6 weeks+ figure from?
With that sort of timeframe I'd expect it's getting a complete overhaul. 

[tonymy01]

Might be to take the heat off them a bit with the Freeview stuff going out, wouldn't want to slow down the initial sales with a forum full of complaints...

[Vortical]

Might be to take the heat off them a bit with the Freeview stuff going out, wouldn't want to slow down the initial sales with a forum full of complaints...

There is always DTV Forums & Whirlpool for that 

The sad thing is (like Mike mentioned above) the current 7100 & 7000 has pretty much been stabilised and the forum had become very quiet after the last public release.
Even a few of the people with major problems had noticed their boxes suddenly become reliable.

Both my 7000 and 7100 are rock solid with the latest firmware since it was released in Mid March 2009.
No freezes, no missed timers both Ice & FTA, FTA EPG is fixed in my area and it's done everything I've thrown at them both.
But mine have always functioned very well and I've never had any major problems

[mikeathome]

I am skeptical of the 6 weeks. There is no business reason that I can see for taking the forum down - it worked most of the time and as far as I can determine consumed little in the way of TF staff resources - it wasn't monitored (according to TF staff and I don't recall seeing any feedback from them) and, being pretty bog standard forum software, should not have required much maintenance. There could be a technical justification for a short break (as the service is clearly not deemed business critical) such as change of server or change of forum software, but there's no way this should take 6 weeks so it should be up sooner. But the decision might be political - in which case it might never come back.

[austini]

Hi Gang,

Despite reading all the problems on the iTopfield forum people were having I purchased a Topfield 7100 on Saturday because it has the functions I want in a PVR.  However the first unit wouldn't even boot.  So back I went to Harvey Norman and got a replacement on Saturday afternoon.  It worked fine until Sunday until it started rebooting ever hour or so to begin with and then deteriorated until by Sunday afternoon it was continually shutting down and rebooting. 

Note that the units we got have the Firmware dated 17 March 2009.

Firstly I went to the forum for help yesterday afternoon but it is no longer there.  So last night I tried to send an email from iTopfields support webpage but it doesn't work.  Then about 9.30am this morning I tried to ring their 1300 number but it will not accept calls either.

This all seems very suspicious to me.  To be honest I'm starting to wonder if something more serious might be up. 

Hence I'm now wondering with the 2nd unit now having failed combined with not being able to get the wireless networking to work whether I should just give the 7100 a miss and purchase a TIVO even though it doesn't do all the things I want.  I will be just happy to have a reliable working PVR.

Look forward to any feedback.

Cheers - Gordon

[tonymy01]

Does the Beyonwiz DP-P1 have the features you need?  It is a more substantial number of features than the Toppy, but more reliable it seems, especially for its core function, as a PVR.

[austini]

Hi again,

I finally got through on the phone this morning.  Apparantly they were having problems with their phones.

Support assistance was great I must say.

So back out to Harvey normal to pick up a third unit and will keep my fingers crossed.

Gordon