Hi Guys,
I hope the previous poster will forgive me for jumping in here just 3 days later with a completely different issue before they’ve received a reply to their own. But as a first-time poster to these forums I’m unfamiliar with the established protocol and I can see no other way of submitting this question in what seems to be the most appropriate place?
Apologies also for the length of this post but it’s a difficult problem for a “first-post-newbie” to explain and although seemingly a rare enough occurrence it has such a crippling effect on the box’s performance as to leave those equally less-knowledgeable as myself, pulling their hair out with frustration and suspecting that their box is now only fit for the bin.
It’s also an issue to which I can find only one other similar reference despite the wealth of information provided on this forum, and it took a good deal of time to locate that. So I thought it might be of benefit to others like myself, who have had the same difficulties finding any mention of this issue, and yet find themselves confronted with a seemingly ‘dead’ or ‘bricked’ Humax and are totally stumped by it.
I had Raydon’s custom firmware (v4.1.3) successfully installed over Humax factory firmware (v1.00.21) and running flawlessly on my
Foxsat-HDR for 2-3 weeks with the box left on standby every night, and as countless others have commented, the custom firmware is an absolute joy to use and congratulations to all concerned. I wouldn't be without it.
Then, out of the blue, without any changes in the set-up, one morning I found the display panel’s backlight lit but otherwise the panel was totally blank. No text, no red standby or blue indicator lights, and the box totally unresponsive.
In the course of an extensive trawl through the forum, (releases 1-4 inc.!) I tried power resets, disconnecting/re-connecting cables, disconnecting the HD, even checking the capacitors (although this seemed less likely for the Foxsat-HDR). Some of these attempts seemed to have worked. But only temporarily. And the problem inevitably recurred a day or two later. Regardless of what I tried (short of giving the box a retaliatory smack with a hammer!) it remained totally unresponsive for the rest of that day. Eventually (several days later!) when I seemed to have ruled everything else out, it occurred to me that there might be some sort of clash occurring between the custom firmware and the nightly 3am housekeeping.
Because when I analysed everything that I’d tried, it seemed that …
1. With a normal front panel display showing, when left on standby overnight, by the following morning everything had ‘crashed’, and for the rest of that day, the box was totally unresponsive and nothing I tried made any difference.
2. Quite by accident I discovered that with a blank display panel showing (everything already screwed up) and left in that state overnight, (because by then I was devoid of all energy and hope, couldn’t be switching it off, and had just about lost the will to live) one power reset the following morning restored normal standby mode and everything progressed normally from there on.
For the past few days I’ve tested this theory by re-installing the HD as a matter of course and deliberately powering-down the box and unplugging it EVERY night and it has functioned flawlessly since. So (at the moment) it does seem my suspicions may be correct.
Catch 22 for all Humax troubleshooting novices like myself is that if they neglect to leave a similarly affected, ‘dysfunctional’ box powered-on in ‘blank display’ mode overnight (which is somewhat counter-intuitive) and instead, take what would normally be seen as the ‘safer’ more ‘sensible’ option of switching off/unplugging any ‘dysfunctional’ piece of equipment, before going to bed, they will never see any hope of resolving the issue.
This particular aspect of things can cause endless confusion when trying to troubleshoot and pin down the exact cause of the problem. In retrospect, it would, for example, seem that whilst disconnecting the HD, may have ‘appeared’ to have had a positive result, this was pure coincidence and a complete red herring. Disconnecting the HD would have followed-on from the box being left powered-on in “blank display mode” overnight (as in ‘2’ above) and then being powered-down the following morning (to safely disconnect the HD) and powered-up again immediately afterwards. In effect mimicking (2.) which would have yielded the exact same result regardless of the HD being connected or not.
I also had no difficulty accessing all the files with the Humax drive placed in a USB caddy and connected to my Mac.
The only reference I could find on this forum to anything like this happening was on an old Feb 2011 thread which had a post entitled “I think I’ve bricked my Foxsat HDR” (!)
Foxsat-HDR FTP and telnet working
(post #359 and Raydon’s reply #361)
There’s also a 2 min. video on You Tube … (link blocked ...look for "Humax Blue Screen")
which seems identical to what I’m describing and although devoid of commentary or comments it did serve a purpose in suggesting that I wasn’t entirely alone!
Fortunately for that previous poster on this forum, (in the link provided above) the problem seemed to have spontaneously resolved (I presume permanently) following one simple power reset. So there was apparently no need for him to respond to the detailed instructions which Raydon provided to resolve the problem.
I’m satisfied after a few days testing, with the HD re-installed and the box powered-off every night, that in my case, overnight housekeeping may be at the root of this problem and in the absence of any other suggestions I’ll be following those same instructions from Raydon in the hope of resolving the issue permanently.
I did notice prior to installing the custom firmware that although the Humax factory firmware was up to date (v1.00.21) the Loader version displayed was (and still is) the previous version U7_52 rather than the current version U7_54 but any information I came across suggested that the only difference in that loader upgrade was in regard to diseq switches etc. which in my case didn’t need to concern me, so I just installed the custom firmware over the factory firmware precisely as per Raydon’s instructions.
Can anyone make any sense of my 'findings' or explain why overnight housekeeping may or may not be at the root of the problem?
I was careful to follow the original CF install instructions precisely (1GB USB stick etc.) and I can only assume that it installed properly since v4.1.3 always displayed properly prior to Boot and the box was functioning flawlessly for the first 2-3 weeks. But should I consider removing the custom firmware prior to reinstalling it?
And if the solution is to re-install Raydon’s firmware (as Raydon described to that other poster) would it be advisable in my case to first update the Loader to U7_54 followed by a re-install of the factory firmware v1.00.21, followed by the custom firmware v4.1.3? Or should a simple re-install of the custom firmware be sufficient to resolve this glitch?
Any advice would be appreciated and apologies again for the length of this post.
ps ...just to be clear .. the box
is functioning perfectly again, just as it is, so long as I remember to power it down every night to avoid 3am housekeeping.
Thanks.