Rebooting every 1 minute unless antenna cable pulled out

I connected a laptop to it via an ethernet cable.

The Humax is set to 192.168.1.195 and the laptop was set to 192.168.1.10 with a 255.255.255.0 mask. The usual stuff.

Now, there is nothing plugged into the ethernet socket so there is no network. Yet, the box reboots all the time, on channel #13 (and possibly others).

Some time ago, I had the Humax connected to the home LAN over wifi, using an Edimax wifi-ethernet bridge. The Edimax box worked when it worked but it was unreliable and eventually it was chucked out. A permanent wired connection is not practical in the house (due to distance etc) so I am happy to just give up on the CFW and just be happy to have a working recorder :) I could spend 20 quid on a USB-wifi dongle but to be honest we would just be happy to have a recorder which records the configured programme before it reboots :)

Yes I did work through that list - except for actions involving reformatting the HD or opening the box. We have lots of stuff recorded on there and anyway I don't believe it is a bad HD.

I will try setting factory defaults tonight.

I do not believe it is a bad sector on the HD. Why would it reboot only on some channels? To me (a hardware/software developer since 1975) it looks like there has been a change in some data structure which is transmitted OTA (maybe the EPG?) which crashes the Humax sofware, due to sloppy coding. So we may have to throw it away and buy a different (more recent) box - a waste of 300 quid after just 2 years.
 
You could spend a long time trying to troubleshoot this, and probably already have. I recommend a clean slate approach. If you still have the custom firmware installed, Telnet in to the box and run the set RMA procedure (srma): this will remove the custom firmware components from the hard drive. Then install the latest official firmware to remove the custom firmware flash components and return to a standard, non-customised state. I then recommend returning to factory defaults (installation menu) without the format HDD option. This will reset databases in the flash memory and will start the installation wizard after rebooting. Set up your box again from scratch: when it starts tuning, cancel this and don't save the channels. Finish the Wizard steps and you will be nagged to tune in some channels. I recommend manually tuning in one multiplex, for example the HD multiplex with BBC One HD. Then see how it behaves for a while. If it is OK, I would then tune in the other multiplexes and see how it goes.
 
I appreciate your advice, Montys (and others) but we can't actually do that. We are using it to watch TV and record channels. I already spend my evenings fighting with IT (took me a week to rebuild a blown up PC, restoring a RAID1 array from a defective DLT tape backup, etc, and I am going to waste this evening changing batteries in a UPS, and changing a broken DAT5 tape drive at work) and am simply not going to waste my evenings manually tuning in channels and see if it starts rebooting after a week or two. It's far easier for me to throw it away (or put it on Ebay for 50 quid, though nobody would buy it because I always do an honest description) and buy another box. Can anybody suggest a reasonably "girl usable" (in user interface terms) recorder of a different type?
 
I don't get it. A manual tune is only needed to ensure it locks on to the correct set of channels, and isn't necessary if after an automatic retune there are no services listed at LCN 800+. I always do a manual retune because I can pick up from three masts, and it only takes a few minutes (I keep a note of the right channel numbers to dial in, and they are easily found from HERE - click). It will be a lot quicker to try this out than to sift through all the alternatives for a PVR and then buy one - only to find it has its own drawbacks.
 
@peterh337. I don't want to do Trev out of a HDR-FOX, but the steps I suggested will take about half an hour or so and have a real chance of fixing your problem.
I can pick up two transmitters, both of which give quite good signals, so I tend to retune manually: this takes me less than 10 minutes, probably more like 5. I suggested tuning in one multiplex manually to see if you get a stable system. How often are you currently getting crashes and reboots?
 
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That's OK Monty. If he hasn't got the time/ can't be bothered, I've got loads of that kicking about.
 
The reason I think manual tuning is not a solution is because every time we re-tune the TV (which has a non-HD Freeview receiver) or the Humax, we get a different set of channels. Literally every time, and they are mostly very different. I guess we are located where there are several transmitters in range with approximately similar signal levels. And they keep changing. Every few months we lose a lot of channels and have to re-tune to get them back. Beyond that I don't know - one would have to be a serious anorak to keep tabs on which transmitters carry what, in what location. We live just north of the South Downs, so not in open flat country.

I've done the factory defaults (without the HD reformat) and will see how that goes. Currently Ch 4 + 1 (#13) is running and has not crashed for a few minutes.

The reboots, when it is doing them, were approximately once per minute. It is always the same: the picture freezes but the sound continues to work for about 10 seconds and then it reboots.
 
You really do need to sort out what transmitter you should be receiving from. The risk is that your various channels are tuned from different transmitters, and this could well lead to the kind of problems you are experiencing (and explain why other users do not have the same problems). Your aerial will be (or should be) pointing towards one particular transmitter; that there is sufficient signal from others could suggest your aerial is in fact pointing at the wrong one (or is the wrong type). Signals leaking into an aerial from directions other than where it is pointing are "side lobes", and it would not be a surprise if they came and went as reception conditions change.

It does not take an "anorak" to resolve this - it is necessary and appropriate. The resource I linked to in post 31 tells you what you need to know (it is also linked from the forum main index), and you should factor in the direction your aerial is pointing. An automatic tune will not get you where you need to be (all channels tuned from one transmitter and no services listed at 800+), but you need to start one and then abort it to clear the tuning database.

Get your installation sorted out and it may well transform your user experience (sorry Trev!). More info at Things Every... (click) section 2.
 
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Agree with BH, and of course chucking away the T2 and getting something else isn't magically going to change what signals your aerial delivers, so it's entirely probable the new box will make the same mess of tuning. You either live with it or put some effort into doing it properly. Throwing money at a new box probably won't achieve your desired end result.
 
But it isn't the tuning that the OP is having problems with, it's re-booting. Possibly caused by the tuning, or possibly a combination of tuning and T2, His TV which also has problems tuning doesn't reboot all the time. The new box possibly will make a mess of tuning, but if it doesn't reboot, job done.
 
No. I'm just pointing out to prpr that 'throwing money at a new box' probably will achieve his desired end results. He will probably have a shiny new box that doesn't reboot every minute.
 
The aerial was checked out earlier this year, because (during the fierce winter we had) the masthead preamp got ripped off. I spoke to the installer at length about this and he said the orientation is correct and he checked it with his box.

We then feed the signal into an 8-output Antiference distribution amp in the loft, which feeds several TV+FM sockets around the house.

I know a lot of these people are cowboys but this was a "reputable" firm and I assume they know which way the antenna is supposed to be pointing. I also asked him if there is a better one we can buy and to his credit he didn't try to take another 100 quid off me; he said we already have a good one.

The issue with the channels coming up differently on almost every retune has always been there. The Humax started rebooting only a few months ago. It was originally discovered only because programmed recordings did not get recorded (immensely irritating). It was later that we noticed it doing the "stopped video but sound running on for a bit". There are plenty of reports on google of this but no solutions.

Of course it is completely daft that a PVR should crash just because it isn't getting the "right" signals. It's crap software. But as stated above there has to be another factor in play otherwise a large % of the UK would be getting it too, because loads of people are potentially receiving signals from multiple directions. That (picking up sidelobes etc) has been a problem since the earliest days of analog TV.

The Sony 1080P TV (bought 2012) works fine, except sometimes the reception is not good (breaking up video). But lately it has been fine. We did notice the problems in the summer, mostly. Also its Freeview receiver doesn't do HD which is why we use the Humax as the receiver, and output to the TV via HDMI.

FWIW, I had hoped that the Humax would do its documented functionality a lot better. For example it never properly accessed the networked HD (Buffallo 2TB), on which I have stills (jpegs) and videos. It finds the jpegs but only some within a given directory (folder) so clearly there is something buggy in the file list enumeration code. Also its loading speed is painfully slow, on ~10MB jpegs. It could do load-ahead but it doesn't which makes it useless for a slide show. The only way to use it for that would be to generate custom-downsized files, say 1080 pixels wide, just for the slide show. It plays some video formats but not others; I know it can't do them all but all these boxes are based on a ripoff of Linux and you can get every codec going for that... I spoke to Humax about this and the guy was fairly honest and said that's the way it is... I got the impression they finished off the code and moved to the next project, leaving behind a load of known issues. It's a pity that if you are happy to use a (low-end) PC for a PVR, you can get superb functionality which is superior in every way to the Humax - except of course in packaging and straight out of the box working. We have not used the networking for anything of use, though lately with the CFW we were able to decode and convert to Mpeg some TV programmes which was a slick feature.

Sorry Trev - it did run for an hour this morning on Ch4+1, after the factory defaults :)
 
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