Magic TV 3600 random rebooting after upgrading to 3.18

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65 posts

Master Geek

#1263611 19-Mar-2015 18:13

We have been using 3.21 now for a while. Started with unmodified and now that we have 2 lost kiwi's version we have moved to that on three 3600's. On both version's and on all three 3600's, after two or three days, we find them powered off but the hard drive is still spinning and never stops. Have them set to auto standby and time shift set to auto as well. The only way to get them to operate normally once in this condition is a power reset with the switch on the back. Have changed the time shift to off to day to see if that helps. N

Bitfiddler

41 posts

Geek

#1264552 21-Mar-2015 13:34

For me, this happens on both 3.17 and 3.18. So, I dont think its the patched firmware - but it is possible.

The other unit that works fine was running standard 3.21. I have just put patched 3.18 on it. I shall report in a few weeks time if the rebooting starts on this one.

JefWright

85 posts

Master Geek

#1264598 21-Mar-2015 15:11

I would be surprised if we saw Pixel Magic put in a whole lot more effort to tidy up this obsolete PVR. It's mostly going to be up to us to understand what its weaknesses are and how best to mitigate or work around them. Fortunately we have several perceptive, clever people regularly sharing what they've found and some of the work-arounds have been quite inventive.

My 3600 is running 3.21 patched but might no longer be considered representative (given an un-specified duration operating without a CPU heatsink and now with a new HDD.

Last night I found it locked up and flashing a still image on the composite and component outputs. No HDMI connection, no response to any controls. I observed the same still image at the very beginning of 3 news when I fired up my TIVO. It seems that my 3600 woke from standby when it was expected to start recording the news but instead locked up. The power switch was the only way to get it going again. It immediately began recording (the last half of) the news after I cycled power.

Time-shifting was disabled and now I've turned off auto-standby again too.

Cheers, Jef.

theoldfarter

233 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#1264825 22-Mar-2015 08:24

After reading these later posts, observed that my HDD is spinning constantly as well. Using patched v3.21. I will go fiddle with the auto standby setting and see what happens. As the 3600 is now my secondary unit & relegated to the bedroom, it does not get used much & I can't say that it's HDD had not been spinning previously. Now that I am aware of it, I will check it often.

JefWright

85 posts

Master Geek

#1264867 22-Mar-2015 11:12

theoldfarter: After reading these later posts, observed that my HDD is spinning constantly as well. Using patched v3.21. I will go fiddle with the auto standby setting and see what happens. As the 3600 is now my secondary unit & relegated to the bedroom, it does not get used much & I can't say that it's HDD had not been spinning previously. Now that I am aware of it, I will check it often.

I think it is timeshifting that spins the HDD all the time (with a quiet tick, tick, tick all the time) because it can't know when you'll want to rewind live tv.

I'm just about to spend money on another PVR. If you don't mind my asking, what has relegated your 3600 to the bedroom and why?

theoldfarter

233 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#1264927 22-Mar-2015 12:32

As much as I like the 3600, it has a terrible Fast forward. The modified Firmware bypasses that. I have read that the 3700 F/F is not much better. I asked Pixel Magic if a new model was coming out any time soon, to which I was told no. As I have an old Panasonic DVD recorder(DMR-EH67) that recorded the Analogue TV signal, and have never had a problem with it, I bought the Panasonic DMR-PW530. It is a Blu-ray player with a 500GB HDD & twin digital tuners. The F/F is so good that I F/F the adds, count to 10, press play & on a four minute add break, am virtually at the start of the next segment of what I am watching. In my opinion, Pixel Magic has missed on an opportunity to capture a good share of the market, by releasing a unit that has as good a F/F, that Panasonic has.

wklie

191 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

MagicTV

#1266082 23-Mar-2015 18:45

HDD spinning during standby is a side effect of the reboot fix in firmware 3.21 and 6.08 beta and beta2.

If one can live with the reboot issue, firmware 3.20 should not cause the HDD to spin during standby.

LUMIN Network Music Player, Magic TV New Zealand and Australia firmware lead

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smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#1266329 23-Mar-2015 23:01

wklie: HDD spinning during standby is a side effect of the reboot fix in firmware 3.21 and 6.08 beta and beta2.

If one can live with the reboot issue, firmware 3.20 should not cause the HDD to spin during standby.

Good to know the cause of the HDD spinning during standby issue, as I updated mine to 3.21 recently and started noticing this. Also noticed it on occasions getting really sluggish to respond to anything - giving the impression it's locked up, but give it long enough and it eventually comes right. On a power-off on the weekend it took ages to actually get to standby, flashing 'Please Wait' on the front display for what must have been at least 90 seconds, before eventually going to standby - but then you could still hear the disc spinning in the background. Eventually this morning I did a full hard power-switch-off/on at the back to stop the drive spinning.

JefWright: I would be surprised if we saw Pixel Magic put in a whole lot more effort to tidy up this obsolete PVR. It's mostly going to be up to us to understand what its weaknesses are and how best to mitigate or work around them. Fortunately we have several perceptive, clever people regularly sharing what they've found and some of the work-arounds have been quite inventive.

Is the MTV 3600 really considered obsolete? I got mine four-and-a-half years ago, and with a list price at the time of $699, I'm reluctant to accept that a device of that cost could be considered obsolete in under 5 years? I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it frustrating, in the last 6 months or so in particular, that the box went from having very few issues for years, to suddenly requiring regular firmware updates over the last few months, which seems to be due to changes in the transmission stream. Isn't there (or shouldn't there be) some obligation on the part of the broadcasters and the providers of PVRs to ensure that once a box is certified that it stays fully functional (and bug-free) if changes are introduced to the transmission? Surely this isn't the only official MyFreeviewHD PVR device that's been affected by, and had to be issued with firmware updates etc, due to recent changes?

I do completely agree though that this forum is fortunate to have a number of people continuing to use this unit, and go to their own efforts to resolve or work around some of the recent bugs that have suddenly started occurring.

theoldfarter

233 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#1266417 24-Mar-2015 08:54

I also did a power off using the rear switch. Once rebooted, the HDD did not spin. I have observed it though 3 scheduled recordings and each time, it the HDD spun down when it switched off. Same goes after I manually switched on to watch something, the HDD spun down on switch off. Will continue to monitor it.

JefWright

85 posts

Master Geek

#1278738 8-Apr-2015 01:11

I'm running 3.21 (patched) and I've just replaced the HDD with a 2TB WD red NAS drive. Thanks heaps RingoTB for the Ubuntu USB-boot hint; I found a way to do it from a windows boot but I barely achieved 10MB/s so I had 10s of hours of copying. While I was copying my old disk contents the new disk ran much cooler than the old one (but the cat still finds the 3600 a pretty attractive perch).

Auto-standby works just like when it was new. It definitely shuts the disk off and it stays shut off. You can hear it spin up again when you press the power button.

The component output often lights up with live video and goes black again a couple of times in the first 10 seconds after return from standby (I haven't tried HDMI yet).

I'll leave it on 24/7 for now and see it it still slows down and crashes after a week or two.

JefWright

85 posts

Master Geek

#1281666 12-Apr-2015 23:05

JefWright: I'm running 3.21 (patched) and I've just replaced the HDD with a 2TB WD red NAS drive. Thanks heaps RingoTB for the Ubuntu USB-boot hint; I found a way to do it from a windows boot but I barely achieved 10MB/s so I had 10s of hours of copying. While I was copying my old disk contents the new disk ran much cooler than the old one (but the cat still finds the 3600 a pretty attractive perch).

Auto-standby works just like when it was new. It definitely shuts the disk off and it stays shut off. You can hear it spin up again when you press the power button.

The component output often lights up with live video and goes black again a couple of times in the first 10 seconds after return from standby (I haven't tried HDMI yet).

I'll leave it on 24/7 for now and see it it still slows down and crashes after a week or two.

Something definitely degrades over time. After 4-5 days of normal use my 3600 gets slow to respond to the remote and its recordings start to have drop-outs. Restarting restores normal operation.

Wklie - I guess that regardless of whether it's "right", you're probably not about to go looking for new memory leaks introduced into a 5 year old product by your recent repair efforts. How about adding an undocumented, timed reboot feature that we can use to automatically refresh our 3600s? I really don't want to have to operate my 3600 from a plug-in timer if I can avoid it and I don't know enough to hack into it and schedule a daily shutdown.

bfginger

1268 posts

Uber Geek

#1281972 13-Apr-2015 11:47

Is anyone else seeing "No synopsis available" for all Mediaworks programming on the EPG?

joshhill96

1512 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1281988 13-Apr-2015 12:07

bfginger: Is anyone else seeing "No synopsis available" for all Mediaworks programming on the EPG?

Some shows have the synopsis but the majority of the regular programmes do not. Freeview has been notified to investigate with Mediaworks

Formerly worked at iStore NZ (Rest in Peace), Sky Network Television, Freeview, Apple, Spark New Zealand Trading Limited, DISH TV Technologies.

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wklie

191 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

MagicTV

#1282114 13-Apr-2015 13:31

JefWright: how about adding an undocumented, timed reboot feature that we can use to automatically refresh our 3600s? I really don't want to have to operate my 3600 from a plug-in timer if I can avoid it and I don't know enough to hack into it and schedule a daily shutdown.

Why not just use firmware 3.20?

LUMIN Network Music Player, Magic TV New Zealand and Australia firmware lead

theoldfarter

233 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#1282270 13-Apr-2015 15:48

Since I loaded on the modified v3.21, I have had problems with the HDD spinning up when it should not. I went to modified v3.20 and so far, it has fixed that problem. On v3.20, all programs have 'names' & there has been no reboots after switching on. I don't use it enough to notice any sluggishness.

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