grahamlthompson – 21 minutes ago  » 

Mark W – 3 minutes ago  » 

Fallen over for me again today. Factory reseat and then works straight away. Don’t want to have to do this every week though

Has your box got a reserved IP Address allocated to it’s mac address, setup from logging into your router ?

Has it changed it’s address since the last time it worked ?

Yes , it’s reserved on DHCP , the lease is daily and it always gets the same IP. So it’s not dhcp renewal. This is the only device on my network that has issues, but I repeat it is connected to the network, I can get iplayer through channel 901 and also fire it up from the freesat app on my tablet on the box. Other network apps also work. The only issue is the on demand tab just starts to say in demand is unavailable and back epg also stops working . This now happens about once a week. Factory reset is the only way to sort it out .

I want to try and set a static IP and a static DNS but that method to turn off dhcp doesn’t work for me. It just fails to connect but never gives me the option to add an IP manually

Mark W – 11 hours ago

I want to try and set a static IP and a static DNS but that method to turn off dhcp doesn’t work for me. It just fails to connect but never gives me the option to add an IP manually

not too sure if you’ve the 1000 or 1010S; however if it’s connected via cable, plugging it into an old hub with nothing else connected or using a cross over cable into a laptop or similar and rebooting the Humax you should get it to time out and let you assign a static address. Most people wouldn’t have these lying around so alternatively, once you know which static address to give it, physically switch off the Humax, switch off dhcp on the router, reboot for good measure, wait 5 minutes or however long the router needs as most need a good few minutes, switch the humax back on and it should time out and allow manual ip

obviously, other connected users to your local network will be affected and although it’s worth trying, I’m not sure it will make much difference unfortunately.

damian – 7 minutes ago  » 

JamesB – 11 hours ago

Freesat do tinker with their servers from time to time – often, it seems to me, on a Sunday. Those are the only times I’ve ever experienced this problem.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head and found a pattern. My isp used to reboot their routers in the wee small hours over the weekend.

However; I don’t think Freesat tinker on Sundays, it’s highly likely that Sunday is the busiest period for them and they simply fall over, i.e the servers/connection gets overloaded and fails.

The problem has clearly been clouded by software issues and some user difficulties, but if the problems only ever happen on a Sunday for you then I’d put money on their systems being overloaded; and something I’m sure they’d not admit to publicly

You may well be right. They were definitely tinkering at the time I experienced problems – they acknowedged as much, in their statements about the bug and their efforts to cure it. In the process, they caused Showcase and On Demand and the rollback EPG to come and go quite erratically, for some of us who had previously been unaffected. I haven’t had any trouble since they stopped doing that, but overloaded servers might be a continuing cause of similar problem, for some users.

Oh fiddlesticks, my on demand section is playing up.

Showcase works, roll back works etc, just cannot open players via the Home menu.

You should report this to freesat Customerteam@freesat.co.uk.

freesat specify these checks and how they should work.

I have no On Demand Icons this morning, but selecting the blank icon shows the correct info at the top of the screen and clicking OK loads the app as usual.

JamesB – 23 hours ago  » 

mutant_matt – 8 hours ago  » 

Looking at the link, it says you need the update from 19th November 2014, UKFSAA 2.02.01, to fix this problem, but I’m on UKFSAA 2.02.07 and have the problem (for the first time).

Hi Matt. That’s the correct version number (2.02.07). As I recall, 2.02.01 was the update that brought the problem, and 2.02.07 was a remedial update – which, as you say, clearly hasn’t entirely resolved the bug or bugs. See http://www.freesat.co.uk/help/freetime/boxes/software-update-19-nov for (limited) info on 2.02.07.

Quote:

What’s the best/correct way to report this to Humax as the bug clearly isn’t fixed (not that I ever saw it pre that firmware update).

As Repassac says, Freesat are the ones to report to. Be interested to hear what response you receive.

Thanks for the help/suggestions, guys. This may or may not be news to you, but this is what happened:

1. I called Freesat as suggested, explained the problem, was told that if I was on the latest firmware (I am, ish*), then I needed to call Humax.

2. I called Humax, and had a detailed conversation with them. The outcome was, and this makes sense, if you can access the internet well and reliably, which you can if you have a stable network and internet connection, and you can access iPlayer and ITVPlayer directly (Channel 901), that proves your connection and that the box is working (obviously).

If you then cannot access the OnDemand, Showcase and the reverse EPG, that connects to the Freesat servers to work. So, Humax are adamant that with an otherwise working box that can use the catchup services, on 2.02.07, the other problems are entirely the fault of Freesat themselves.

3. So, I called Freesat back, explained all this and they suggested that they send me the latest firmware via email, to load in via USB. Now, Humax have already told me that it’s not a firmware issue, the firmware update they previously issued was to fix the problem where some boxes were not reliably driving the network interface in the box, and the update fixed that instability. It cannot, obviously, fix any problems with comms between the box and the Freesat servers.

So Freesat seemed to back off on offering a new firmware (they couldn’t tell me which version it would be, either). I asked them to get their technical guys to contact me, as I’m not interested in beating them up, nor getting the menu working, without finding and fixing the root cause, as it will only happen again. I can use the box as is for now, and would like to help them figure out the real problem, presumably at their end, and get it properly fixed for all.

So, I’m waiting for them to contact me, I realise I may be on a hiding to nothing, and wasting my time. They may see me as a time waster, and inconvenience, or worse , or, they may see that I am willing to try and help them get to the bottom of the problem. We will see.

I’ll update here as and when/if I have anything to report.

If I can be bothered, I may setup some networking kit, to packet trace the network conversation, to see if it’s obvious what is going wrong, or at least get closer to understanding it. Does anybody happen to know what protocol the box is unsing (HTTP?) If it’s HTTPS then I would be probably, mostly, be wasting my time, but if it’s in the clear, it might be worth a go.

On that note, how do you get the network connection on the box manually setup (static IP etc.) and is there an option to use a proxy? (it would be so much easier to point it to my web proxy than to intercept the conversation by building a transparent proxy for it to go through!).

Cheers,

Matt.

* – I have 2.02.07 and the absolute latest is 2.02.079 but .079 is a single bug fix, for an ITVPlayer bug in .07 only.

Very interesting, thanks for the report.

Sounds to me like there may be non-technical reasons for the failure of Freesat to get this bug or bugs properly resolved. Maybe they’ve decided it’s not cost-ffective, considering most users don’t seem to be affected.

I sort of agree with Repassac’s analysis, except that I don’t understand why sluggish server response would affect a handful of boxes consistently, another handful only very occasionally, and most boxes not at all. User environment or usage must also come into it, or else some pretty weird hardware faults.