Panasonic pwt-420 has stopped recording.

[Pagan Cidergod]

Hi. Last night my pwt-420 decided it would stop recording. The red light flashes on the front as though recording is about to start but it remains flashing rather than turning solid because no recording starts. There is no problem with connection nor with signal strength. There is enough space on the HDD and I have not reached the 999 title limit. Under troubleshooting no other possible causes are listed - it simply says etc, which is of no use to anyone. The only option I can possibly see, and I don't know if it would work, is a reset to shipping condition. The problem with that is that whereas the manual tells me that I will lose tuning info, which is easy to restore, it doesn't tell me if I would lose recorded programmes and I have no external drive on which I could back things up. HELP!

 

[Gavtech]

Welcome to the forum.

Firstly there is probably nothing wrong. The failure to record probably was a broadcasting failure.
The machine would be waiting for a record trigger which never came for any number of reasons.

Secondly, you will not lose any recordings by a shipping condition reset - but such resets are very rarely needed or useful.
A power reset is often more useful - ( ie disconnection from the mains for a few minutes)

Try that first.
If no difference, do a retune.

 

[Pagan Cidergod]

Thanks. I switched off at the mains for a few minutes and that did the trick. I feel a bit thick because despite having done that on other machines in the past it didn't occur to me to do so this time. In the past I've done that to solve the problem of equipment locking up completely but in this case it was only the recording function that was compromised. Many thanks for your help.