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Aug/Sep 2022 - DVR + 3x remote boxes
Most mornings over the last six weeks or so, we awake to find "boot" on the DVR and no TVs come on. Only th "b" in boot is lit. the letters "oot" are dim.
When this happens, SmartHelp and manual online reboot will not work.
If you keep unplugging and plugging in the DVR and the remotes, at some point things work. This is usually after an hour or two.
Cox support is zero help. They had me take two of the remote boxes in for swap. One because that TV (remote) is the first one we try, so they said swap that. The second remote was swapped because it was an older model.
One of the two swapped boxes was DOA, so another trip back to Cox. The system worked for a day, then the exact same failure. Cox wanted to send a tech out, but I decided to take the DVR and move it to one of the remote TV sets. That was to see if the problem followed the DVR. After two days, same failure.
Is anyone else seeing anything like this?
I changed the Scheduled Daily Update Time to an earlier range of 10:00 pm - 12:00 am and scheduled recordings from 9:00 pm to 1:01 am. The first night the Daily Update started at 12:00 am or shortly after and when finished it rebooted the DVR successfully without it hanging. It's been a week and there have not been any more Daily Updates. Every recording finished without interruption and the DVR never was shut down. Thanksgiving was 6 days ago and I thought Cox might have suspended Daily Updates for a few days around the holiday but there have not been any Daily Updates at the start of this week. I'll let you know when the next update happens.
This morning, Friday Dec 2 the DVR was working and the recording from 12:00 am to 1:01 am showed it recorded 61 minutes, but when watching it it abruptly stops between 57 & 58 minutes with no message. I assume it must have done a daily update. If so, this seems odd since it is scheduled for 10:00 pm to 12:00 am and this was almost 1:00 am. I'll change the scheduled recordings to 9:00 pm to 2:02 am and see what happens.
My DVR box is about 5 years old. I've proved to my satisfaction that the morning boot problem is the result of the Daily Update - - after the update the reboot sometimes hangs and the most reliable solution is to unplug the DVR and then plug it back in. The problem is intermittent. The last rebooting failure was 2 weeks ago. Over the past 10 days there have been only 2 updates and the DVR finished rebooting after both of those. I'm thinking the Daily Update should be renamed "The When We Get Around To It Update." A few months ago the DVR was hung up rebooting almost every morning then it was OK for a couple of weeks, then started again. The circumstantial evidence points to a signal quality issue that causes the reboot to fail. It's not a loss of power - the mini-boxes are still working when the DVR is stuck rebooting. It was at its worst in Sept & Oct when we were having a heat wave and high humidity which could affect the wiring in my attic I guess. I've heard family and friends mentioning there's something loose upstairs.
Your issue probably does occur during an update and I agree the intermittent nature indicates a poor signal. If you haven't done so already, you should have your signal tested, including at the tap. Be sure to request a tech with a long ladder if your line comes in from a pole. If there's a signal issue between the tap and your cable box, you may need to replace some cable.
Thanks. Several years ago a tech replaced the line that comes from a pole across the street and everything in the attic. I don't remember why but it was probably when I switched the phone from AT&T. He tested the signal and it was OK but replaced the cables, amplifier, and splitters just to be safe. I'm just going to live with the annoyance since it's not every day unless the DVR won't reboot after many hours of unplugging - replugging. Cox is similar to the government in that any time they make a change it breaks something else. When they fixed the phone tools buffering problem they broke my call history and it is still broken 105 days later. It was while posting to the phone forum that I saw the TV Morning Boot problem and, hoping it might help, started sharing my experience which had been going on for several months, otherwise I would not have started a conversation about it.
A lot can happen over several years. Even if your cables are OK, there could be a signal issue with Cox's line. If that's the case, it probably won't get fixed any time soon unless you, or one of your neighbors with Cox service, requests Cox test the line signal. And, if the issue is with your drop line, your neighbor could get a strong signal when you don't. However, you may be charged for a service call if the tech doesn't find an issue on Cox's side of the demarcation point. (That's the first box on the side of your house that's the boundary between Cox's line from the pole and your cables). You have to pay Cox to test their own equipment, even when you're having an issue, unless it turns out not to be working properly.
You may have to "live with the annoyance" for a long time. Let us know if you get this issue fixed and what you did to fix it. Good luck.
With the Daily Update set to 10:00pm - 12:00 am, the DVR rebooted without warning at 11:51 pm while I was watching. It finished successfully 31 minutes later at 12:22 am. Another TV connected to a mini-box continued working without interruption. The 11:00 pm recording ended prematurely and the 12:00 am scheduled recording was delayed until after the reboot. For the first couple of minutes after the reboot it gave an error message when trying to watch it, but on a second try it played properly. This was on a Saturday night-Sunday morning which answered my question about whether updates are done on weekends. Other things learned from my month long test: daily updates don't happen every day, rebooting the DVR after an update may or may not fail, and if it is still rebooting in the morning a good solution is to unplug the DVR, plug it back in, and if it doesn't finish booting in 30 minutes do it again. The failure to finish rebooting is probably caused by a signal quality issue whether from within your building or at the Cox box outside from which the cable into your building originates (this may affect your neighbors also, if so ask them to call Cox to check things out). Checking the connections (cables, amplifiers, splitters) inside your building may fix the problem but the cause could environmental (heat, cold, humidity, alien death rays). My work here is done.