Receiver locking up (1 Viewer)

[Ken Wagner]

My receiver has been freezing lately. It is okay when on but when it is off over night of for a time and I turn it back on the picture is frozen on the last channel it was on. I must mention that I leave the power on all the time. When I unplug it and then turn it on it is okay until the next time we shut the TV off. Weird?? I haven't had the time to do a reboot yet. Just wondered if anyone else had this happen.

 

[John Schmiedt]

Ken,
Let me guess - you have an RCA.
This is happenening to me too. And it's not the first time. I went through this maybe a year or so ago with another RCA receiver in my basement. I got & tried lots of advice from people including how to call DirecTV to get them to send me a new access card. Do a soft reboot, do a hard reboot, make sure the receiver is plugged in to a phone line, etc. Nothing helped. I could see if I still have all the old 'helps' from people, but nothing helped me. Reboots would help for a time and then it'd come back again.
What I finally did after maybe 4 months of work & many phone calls was to go to Circuit City & buy a cheap $49 receiver. Problem gone.
Now it is also happening to my main upstairs RCA receiver. I have learned my lesson. I've even had it freeze while watching - it just freezes on a scene. I went out & bought a new Sony HD100 HDTV receiver. The freezing was a great excuse to spend money on a new toy.

Sorry, but that's my experience. Something happens to 'em and they just freeze up. Unfortunately those of us who have these problems seem to be a minority that no-one cares about. I suspect it may be a heat problem. The new Sony has a fan and though slightly annoying it may actually help in the long run.
John

 

[Ken Wagner]

Thanks John. You were right on the money it is an RCA. I have two just like you and the cheaper one is working fine. I like your idea of upgrading as I have thought of this myself. My Elite 610 is just crying out for an HD signal. Anyway thanks for your input.

 

[John Schmiedt]

Ken,
Check this out:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...threadid=87247
John

 

[JoshWB]

I too was having this problem with the toshiba HD receiver. Everytime i called, the only answer I could get was to unplug for 30 seconds and reset the box. Finally I had had enough. I went and bought the Mitsu HD box, and it is like a kid in a candy store. No problems at all. So I put the Toshiba box in the bedroom, and of course problems still. So i return it, and get the cheapest box they have, and of course problem solved.

 

[Ken Wagner]

Thanks for the link John. Sounds like a major problem that may be Direct TV related if they admit it or not. Why would it all of a sudden crop up at about the same time on many receivers. Mine started about the same time as the others posted but I just ignored it for a while. I would be really mad if they were causing this by trying to catch hackers as someone posted. Of course if the Dish/Direct TV merger goes through we all lose. I'll be interested to see if anyone comes up with a solution.

 

[Tim Kilbride]

Hey Guys...
I find this kinda funny too...both my receiver and my folks unit is freezing up lately (both are RCA units). Just started within the last 3-4 months. I've never had this problem before, neither has the folks. It really sounds like a DirecTV thing IMO>
TK

 

[JoshWB]

I dont think it is Directv related, rather that RCA makes awful receivers. Mine locked up a while back. I talked to the people at RCA in Indianapolis, and they told me that there might be a recall on the unit.

 

[Tim Markley]

My upstairs receiver also started doing this a few weeks ago. Doesn't everyone find it awfully strange that we all started having this problem at the same time??? I have no doubt that it was being caused by DirecTV since the receiver that was having problems was my original RCA receiver with one of the old hacker friendly access cards. My downstairs receiver, which is also an RCA, hasn't had any problems. I had another receiver that I had bought with my eliptical dish so I just swapped receivers and the problem was solved. Of course when I called to activate the new access card the idiot customer support person deactivated the wrong card and I was without my main system for 3 days while waiting for them to send me a new card.

At least I ended up getting a free month's worth of service because of it although I had to complain to a 'supervisor' to get the free month.

 

[John Schmiedt]

Believe me after all we went through last year on this exact same problem, this is directly related to something that DirecTV does that only affects some RCA units. Just like last time, a whole bunch of us had the same problems occur at the exact same time to the exact same model numbers. No, no way is this just a coincidence.
But we're pretty much powerless to get anybody to admit it. Certainly the poor CSRs who answer the phone are kept in the dark. I got really really mad last year at some of them, but then realized that they're being lied to just as much as the rest of us are.

 

[Ken Wagner]

Do you think it would do any good to go to Direct TV's web site and send emails to them? It's hard to believe this is just a coincidence.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!!!!!
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!!!!!
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!!!!!
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!!!!!

 

[John Schmiedt]

You can try, it didn't help last year. I never got any reply or satisfaction other than the mindless, do you have good signal strength, do you have a phone line plugged in????? They're clueless. I'm sure someone knows they are to blame but they ain't coming forward to help us out.

 

[Lisa]

I hate to be the one to break the news but I have an old Sony receiver which has also been freezing up on us. This has only happened since we starting using "the" card. But that's not my only troubles. Sometimes I won't receive all of the transponder signals! So channel 50x will work but maybe not 20x. I ordered a new receiver and will let you know if that will "fix" the problem or not. I'm beginning to think it will only fix the transponder problem!
:frowning: