maverickman:
Interesting. Here's what's happened to me after swapping for a second NB 3, My reason for swapping was that I'm constantly getting audio drop outs.
Problem 1:
Last night, I tried to set up a recording of a series of CTV News At 6. I entered all the usual stuff (record every day in the same time slot, etc.). After I saved it, there were no recordings scheduled at all. I went into the guide for that channel (518), and there was no recording indicator set for any day of the week. I tried scheduling 1 episode for the next day and that worked fine. I then tried modifying it to record the series instead, and got the series icon beside tomorrow's recording, so I figured all was good. Wrong. There was nothing scheduled beyond tomorrow. I have lots of other series set up for recording and they all work fine.
Problem 2:
I recorded a movie a couple of days ago. When I went to watch it last night, it got as far as showing the TMN introduction, where it shows a spinning graphic for a few seconds before starting the movie. The box froze during the spinning graphic and would not advance past it no matter what I did. I did a reboot, but it didn't help, so I deleted the recording because it was useless.
Problem 3:
Last night, at about 9PM, the box showed DNLD in its display, which I have seen before. I wasn't watching or doing any recordings at the time, but powered it on to see what showed up on the screen. It had a message saying it was downloading something and that it might require a reboot. It went on for quite a long time, which was unusual. Normally, when I see DNLD in the display, it completes very quickly. That aside, what I was really surprised about was that Rogers would be pushing something to the box at 9PM. Really? Surely there's a better time of day than that.
Problem 4:
Last night, I was getting the this service is unavailable message for almost every TMN/HBO channel that I watch. That was before I saw the DNLD message. Just checked today, and they are still "unavailable". I will try yet another reboot to see if that fixes it.
I'm pretty much at my wit's end with the NB 3. I'm taking it back to the Rogers store where I rented it and am going to tell them it's unsatisfactory. I rented it with the 3 year option to purchase, so I expect some hassle about canceling the rental because renting it actually created a 12 month commitment to the cable service, which I didn't realize was the case until I received my email from Rogers about the change to my cable account.
I have a perfectly serviceable 8300HD PVR, which I set aside when I got the NB 3. The 8300 is 9 years old and still works perfectly. I never got audio drop outs, which is the biggest issue I have with the NB 3, and I know for a fact that my signal strength is good because I monitor it in the Service Menu. All readings are normal, according to a Cisco document I found that explains how to interpret the Service Menu screens. I’ll be much happier when I get my 8300 reauthorized. I had it unauthorized when I got the NB 3 because I thought I would eventually sell it. I held off, though, because of all the issues I’ve had with the NB 3.
Edit: Rebooting fixed the service unavailable problem, but I'm still unable to do a series recording on channel 518. After the long DNLD last night, I was hoping Rogers had pushed a software update, but no such luck. My box was manufactured in July 2013 and the hardware and software versions are still from then. I understood from someone else on this forum that he has a more recent software version. Also noticed that there's a huge difference on some channels between high and low signals, which are measured in dbmv. I'm seeing some as low as 4 and others as high as over 13. The low readings are in white, which means they're supposedly OK, but I've never seen this before. The high readings are yellow, which means they're slightly too high.
RogersDarrell
