Cable Box gripes again...

[The8thst]

In the last two jobs I have done where TimeWarner is the cable company, the new cable boxes (Explorer 8000) just have to turn themselves Off during the night.

I know about managing power and sensing when the boxes are on, but using the CT600 to do the IR routing power sensing is a round about fix. So I figured I could set a wake up timer for 4:00am or so and that would turn the box on every morning.

This isn't working as all three identicle boxes are off every day. WHY??


I have since added power management, so the problem is fixed, but I still find myself obsessing over why the boxes suddenly decided to start turning themselves off every night and refusing to turn back on.



Three questions:
Has anyone been successful in getting the cable company to enable the "power on with numeric" option that SA writes into the firmware?
I was extremely close with one job, but it never actually happened.

Secondly, anyone have a copy of the firmware from a box with the option enabled? ;) probably won't work, but you know....

Lastly, what is causing the boxes to turn off and disallowing the timer to turn the boxes back on?

-Pete

Figure, I'll follow along as remind I'm awaiting verrrfiiicaaation.... like everyone else ;)

[MikeCAT]

The auto off feature is a new one added by SA. This allows the box to "rest and update" overnight. I about jerked a knot in the tech's head when he said this was a good idea.

By the way, I'm assuming this is in the DA forum cause you're using these boxes for music? Just curious

[The8thst]

Hmmmm.... funny, you'd think that disabling the auto off in the menu would do something like.... disable the auto off feature? maybe? bah.

Oh, and its in here because it didn't fit anywhere else really... there are two global DVRs for video and one global for audio. This was the only forum for anything distributed.

[MikeCAT]

Yeah, I thought the same thing on the auto off feature. I'm one of the few I'm sure that acutalll still had cable until a month ago. That auto off was killing me. Not to mention horrible picture and sound. But, the wife had her way. (until two weeks ago!! :twisted: )

[Kelly]

Last job I did this feature reared it's ugly head.

PIA for sure.

Wouldn't it be nice to have discretes for ALL devices......?

[Brijaws]

omg, iv been having the same problem with a far away client - iv been going crazy through my code to figure if im doing something wrong...

wow, these fourms are good for something ehh?

[MikeCAT]

Man, I about launched into the poor Time Warner tech on this one when I called in. Surprisingly, he understood me, and actually agreed with me, on having discreets, or losing the auto power off thing.

[Gary]

If you don't have a way to sense power state and control it through logic, you could always resort to Eric Johnson's BOB approach.

[Late_Night_Bill]

I have it on good authority that SA did this to keep the box from overheating, but calls it a 'feature'.

The fix is called the SA 8300. A better box, but still room for improvement.

[The8thst]

Well.... as it is right now I have someone working at the "main line" of TimeWarner, whatever that is, that found the "power on numeric" feature in the SA literature she had and is currently trying to turn the feature on with a couple test boxes in her office.
She seemed to understand why it would make my life easier and wants to try and get the feature turned on as a global function in the area since you still have to activate it in the menu.

Cross your fingers all.... If this goes through the discrete on would be [0 enter] wouldnt that be nice?

[vwpower44]

On installations with custom keypads, or programmable remote control buttonwe have a FIX button. The FIX button reruns the macro that was previously run, including the POWER command for the cable box. I picked up this trick a few months back, and it has helped tremendously. Still not a fix, but another way to try to tackle the problem.

Mike

[Gary]

On installations with custom keypads, or programmable remote control buttonwe have a FIX button. The FIX button reruns the macro that was previously run, including the POWER command for the cable box. I picked up this trick a few months back, and it has helped tremendously. Still not a fix, but another way to try to tackle the problem.

Mike

This is Eric Johnson's BOB approch...big obvious button.

[Toronto122]

Ok, funny thing...

The other night my wife and I were watching a movie (and recording another) on my 8300HD PVR when a pop up (!!) appeared. It said "This cable terminal will reset itself in five minutes"...10 seconds later...off it went. We just stared at eachother. I have no idea why this happened. And it hasn't happened since. Very strange indeed. Could this be part of your problem?

The other part of the problem is that THERE ARE NO DISCRETE ON/OFF CODES FOR THESE DAMN THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hint hint if anyone from Sci-Atl is reading!!! It's a basic firmware update folks!!!