"NO SIGNAL outages and pixelation with loss of sound episodes increasing 17 May at Edmonton.

oolesky
Grasshopper

8pm to 10:15 pm MDT there have been 6 episodes of NO SIGNAL, please call  1 888-   etc, and they ask you to reboot.  However, after the first event, everything has eventually rebooted without unplugging anything and re plugging.  We have had 2 weeks of nightly events like this, but never this frequent.  What is going on?    

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I looked at Shaw's "outages" web-site, selecting "Norther...

mdk
Legendary Grand Master

I looked at Shaw's "outages" web-site, selecting "Northern Alberta", which includes Edmonton, but did not see anything relevant.

This is a user-to-user discussion forum. I recommend that you contact Shaw (online chat or telephone) to get help.

 

 

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Experiencing the same issue in the Calgary area.  Went do...

abdba
Grasshopper

Experiencing the same issue in the Calgary area.  Went down with no signal a few days ago.... after some reboots came back.  Tonight it's been down for a few hours.

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- you wrote about "tonight", presumably meaning May 21. P...

mdk
Legendary Grand Master

@abdba - you wrote about "tonight", presumably meaning May 21.

Please see Shaw's "outages" web-site, for: May 21 – Calgary (Howse and Livingstone) 

 

 

 

 

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Mine has been doing the same for like 3 weeks now also go...

TCole
Grasshopper

Mine has been doing the same for like 3 weeks now also got a new box still didn't fix the situation.

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I did check that website and my specific area was not lis...

abdba
Grasshopper

I did check that website and my specific area was not listed.  Called in and they said that there could be issues in my area even though it's not listed.

Symptoms:

  • EPG Download: failed
  • Resource Download: failed
  • Logs Upload: failed

 

This morning it still wasn't back.  Rebooted again and it came back (after about 12 hours of not working).

Diagnostics -> Hardware Status -> Shows "ATA Error Count 11" so I think that my HDD might be on its last legs and I'm really not sure if that is the issue or not.

Would need someone who actually knows the intricacies of these boxes (not the tier 1 offshore support I get when I call in) to know whether those download/upload failures and the SATA HDD error count indicates that the issue on May 21 was due to the Shaw system, my Gateway's HDD, or both???

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> I think that my HDD might be on its last legs and I'm r...

mdk
Legendary Grand Master

> I think that my HDD might be on its last legs and I'm really not sure if that is the issue or not.

I have an external "Shaw Expander" connected to my PVR. All my recorded programs seem to stored on this device, rather than the internal disk-drive. So, that suggests that adding something equivalent to the "Shaw Expander" may cause your PVR to avoid using the internal disk-drive (with its "ATA Errors"), and might bypass your problem. 

The "Shaw Expander" is no longer available, but similar devices (commonly used with multi-camera surveillance systems) can be used, because they support multi-stream recording that is needed.

> tier 1 offshore support

Are you calling TELUS Support? They are offshore (Philippines?) but Shaw support is "onshore" (if you ignore that their call-centre in Nanaimo is "offshore" from the Mainland of BC). When calling Shaw, I usually get a greeting something like "this is Beyoncé in Nanaimo". Is she lying about where she is, or is she honest?

Because my Shaw Expander has an eSATA interface, I can connect it to an eSATA port on my computer, and run the free "SPECCY" utility, to get a report from the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, giving details about various "errors".  Obviously, you should disassemble a rented PVR, to temporarily attach its internal disk-drive to a SATA port on your computer, and then run SPECCY to diagnose that disk-drive.  Too bad!

 

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Yes it was the HDD.  After failing again and not coming b...

abdba
Grasshopper

Yes it was the HDD.  After failing again and not coming back I swapped the internal HDD in my gateway with the HDD extracted from another gateway I got from a kijiji sale.  With the new HDD it came back quickly and seems to be working perfectly.  And the ATA error message is gone.

Now what I wonder: did I need to use a HDD from another Shaw Gateway or would any HDD do?  In which case I could have upgraded from 500GB to 1TB.

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> did I need to use a HDD from another Shaw Gateway or wo...

mdk
Legendary Grand Master

> did I need to use a HDD from another Shaw Gateway or would any HDD do?  

What is the labelling on the HDD that you removed?

Some HDDs are designed for simultaneous multi-channel recording, like surveillance video-camera systems, and inside the "Shaw Expander".

Given that the Gateway has multiple tuners, to simultaneously watch/record multiple channels, I think that you "got lucky", by swapping-in the correct hardware.

My guess is that a proper "surveillance" HDD, with a capacity up to 2 TB, could have been used.

[Computers that support HDDs larger than 2 TB require a smarter motherboard. Maybe, the same limit applies for the hardware inside the PVR. I have never experimented with such a configuration.]

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