Housekeeping update message on TV

[mascf1]

Today at around 4:15pm EDT all of my services went down after this message appeared on the TV screen "you caught us in the middle of a housekeeping update, we will be done in a few minutes".  This took out down of my Rogers services, not just the TV.  Rogers support has no clue what this is about, they've never heard of this on screen message before and could not see any update being pushed to my modem or TV.  My TV box is set to only allow updates between 4am-6am.

Has anyone else experienced this?

***Edited Labels***

[gatoronto]

It really is kind of sad. Not unexpected for Rogers, but sad just the same. It may be just a handful of people lodging the same complaint, but someone should actually move their you know what and look into it.

[mebe]

I don't have Ignite, but this problem has been occuring for years.
Since Shaw and Rogers both use the Comcast technology, both providers have subscribers reporting the problem.
One Comcast subscriber had multiple boxes, but only had the problem with one box, so he finally decided to reset his router, then he reset the Tv box to "fix" the problem. Your guess is as good as mine if it stayed fixed or not.
Others speculate it might be power spikes or modem failures.
During one of these household updates, if you can access the guide and then select a channel, you'll probably get a streaming code error, however, if you can still access On Demand, see if the box lets you watch something that way (without a streaming error).
If you can't fix the problem, at least you know you are not alone.
If the problem was happening to me, I would be tempted to cancel, or at least start recording anything that I was watching Live (that's not later available via On Demand), just in case that household update hit me. Not practical or beneficial if you are running out of storage space, or are in the middle of using your Internet for a business meeting.
Misery loves company, but companies that are causing that misery need to reboot themselves. 👢

[-G-]

@mebe  This is not a really big issue, not for me anyway.  Even a legacy Rogers Internet modem will get pushed a firmware update and will need to reboot immediately.  Again, I have only seen the Household update message something like 3 times in all the years that I have had Ignite, and I have only seen it at 4 AM, when I really should be sleeping anyway.  However, if this were to happen at a very inopportune time, and you lose Internet connectivity right when you need it the most, I can understand why some people would be very upset... and be even more frustrated when Tech Support has no idea what you are talking about when you call asking for an explanation.

[mebe]

@G: I recently went 11 or 12 days without a Rogers legacy box reboot. I finally had to do one myself because while I was watching a finished PVR recording, it eventually didn't let me FF, stop, RW or have access to any function. The remote still let me do a few other things, but even trying to turn the box off with the Power button on the box itself, failed. I had to pull the plug twice, because the first reboot didn't show the program I recorded, nor the backup SD recording I made of that same show. The second reboot restored both shows and they played perfectly. So much for trying to break a no-reboot record. By the way, I also get the option countdown message to delay (I think it's a 30 minute delay) a "forced" Rogers reboot if I happen to be up at 3am or 4am (I usually am). I think there are two other warnings before the box won't let me delay the reboot. I love the new system, as opposed to the old way of having no option to delay the reboot.
You mentioned in this thread that you got a household update at 3:45 am, so if you didn't choose to have your regular updates between 2am-4am (perhaps back then you did), that would be an unexpected update.
Still, since you are a Resident Expert, perhaps once a system is setup and watched closely, the household updates occur less often ... Unless you've just been lucky enough to have great equipment, and/or live in a less problematic area perhaps?
Hopefully, those experiencing this annoying problem now, will soon get blessed with a magical fix by Santa Claus himself.
Merry Fixmas! 🎁

[-G-]

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@mebe wrote:

You mentioned in this thread that you got a household update at 3:45 am, so if you didn't choose to have your regular updates between 2am-4am (perhaps back then you did), that would be an unexpected update.
Still, since you are a Resident Expert, perhaps once a system is setup and watched closely, the household updates occur less often ... Unless you've just been lucky enough to have great equipment, and/or live in a less problematic area perhaps?

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The "Daily Update Time" that you configure on the set-top box (and the update associated with that) is different from the Household update that is being discussed in this thread.  When software on the STB updates and requires a reboot, you lose TV for about a minute.  No big deal.  Recordings are not even impacted because they are all done "in the cloud".  However, when the Household update occurs, it is more disruptive because you lose all Internet connectivity.

[mebe]

Yes, I understand that the daily updates allow you to pick from various time choices (just like technicians promise to come between such and such a time), that they will occur, however, the other two updates mentioned in this thread, that unfortunately happen outside of the scheduled update time period, are: Quick Household updates (that you first posted about), and Housekeeping updates.
It's also true that because cloud recordings don't get interfered with, regardless of how many updates occur, that assumes that you are recording something that you are perhaps casually channel-surfing back and forth to.
I'm not saying that a legacy digital box doesn't occasionally have a rogue Rogers reboot at 10am, or 1:30pm, or whenever, it's just that those rogue or surprise updates/reboots are very rare. They would also have the potential to be even more damaging for legacy users if they interrupted current recordings (not cloud recordings for legacy).
So I'm thinking of the frequent household or housekeeping updates that some Ignite users get, as rogue or surprise updates that might be showcasing a bug in their systems or areas, rather than a credible or necessary update. If however, you just get the odd update outside of the expected daily update time period, those should be considered as more credible and necessary.
It could also mean that some equipment setups require more frequent housekeeping updates than others. Does it matter whether bridge mode is used with certain routers, or is the area or building somebody lives in to blame for the frequent surprise updates? Beats me, but if all the Resident Experts and subscribers with years of experience setting up systems started to get frequent updates at odd times, that would really get me curious as to what's going on.

[mebe]

I believe it's possible that there are two different "House" messages that Ignite users get. The perhaps more common one is "Household" but "Housekeeping" also appears in a 4-year old Reddit post from a Comcast Satellite user.
The Comcast satellite user had 4 wired boxes. Another user had the same problem with his box when it was set to wireless. Sometimes a box reset fixed the problem for the wireless user, but he eventually had to replace the box.
The 4-box satellite user had his main box replaced by Comcast, but then each time he turned on any of the other 3 boxes (which are tied to the main box), he would see the housekeeping message. The Comcast tech thought it was a signal or box synchronizing error, but it turned out that there were some glitches noticed by Comcast that the tech fixed elsewhere, and thus the 4-box satellite user no longer saw those "house" messages anymore.
So, if any of you keep getting those house messages, try a wired hookup to see if that stops the messages. If it does, perhaps there's a component in your modem or tv box that is ruining your wifi connection.
Regardless of your setup, call Rogers tech support to have them send your box a signal to see if that solves anything.
Something is most likely rotten in your Denmark households, so either change your setup, call Rogers to send you a signal, or see if you can get a free tech visit to perhaps check what's going on.
You can tell I don't know what I'm talking about, however, I'm hoping that somebody will eventually find the bugs in your equipment or signal, perhaps partially caused by Comcast software issues. 📺🔨

[-G-]

Sorry!  Wherever I said "Housekeeping update", I meant "Household update", the message that I posted here , which I copied, verbatim, from an actual picture that I took of my screen.   (I got "housekeeping" from the topic subject and the initial post, that gets shown at the top of every page.)

@CommunityHelps , could you please edit my posts here and here and change 'housekeeping' to 'household'?  Thanks!