Did your service get interrupted somehow because of a billing problem? That'll cause something like this to happen, and even if you keep restarting everything from your RG forward, it won't do anything (RG will still look like everything's fine with all green lights).

Best thing to do is call in, and ask CSR to diagnose things from their end. They should be able to do a remote restart of your DVR ---- and if they can't make that happen, then they'll have to do some more digging.

Nobody likes to call and wait on the 800-line, but in your case, it looks like that's where your start should begin.

No, no billing related shutoffs. I pay my bill every month like clockwork and if they had, despite that, I'd be making some noise and looking for compensation. I did as you suggested. The Automated system was helpful, but completely useless. I waited an hour, called back and continued. Got a live person named Raud, who aside from talking a bit too fast was understandable and helpful. According to his tests and what my box is doing now. It's Dead, has been since my problems started. So he's sending me a new box that will arrive on Tuesday and I've to send the old one back within 10 days at a UPS store.

He said he'll be sending me the exact model I have, a silver Cisco IPN4320 DVR box, but I'm hoping for that newer model with the 500GB HDD.

While hardware like this failing wasn't exactly unexpected, the thing that irritates me and depresses me more then anything is the fact that with my box useless and a HDD full of shows. (3 series worth at least unwatched yet) 330 shows have bit the dust and there's nothing I can do to save my shows. (Though, I can rebuild my shows with time, this still blows) Things would be easier if I had the ability to save or rebuild shows between bad hardware. (Hope my TV series settings are still there or I'll have to rebuild those from scratch too. 200+ of them) or had the option of an external drive and saving things on that and then hooking it up to the new box and having my DVR'd shows available.

But all in all, my problem has been solved and my first 1800 CSR call went pretty well once I got a live person. I'll report back with what I find on Tuesday when the box is delivered

Well, if you're going to lose them w/a new DVR, might as well do a disaster recovery to see if the current DVR could come back to life.  Hold the Power, OK and Down buttons on the DVR at the same time until the lites flash on.

The gears and not the dots should appear on the TV and will take awhile.  If it seems not to complete, do a hard unplug/plugin reboot for 30 seconds.

Suppossedly recordings are not going to be erased under the latest software.  This way you should still be able to watch some of your recordings before the new DVR arrives.  Good luck

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, After he gets acct info, press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

Already tried that. Got zip for it and now box does nothing, doesn't even load any screens anymore. I'm not the only one with a STB that's wonko today. Talked to a friend of mine who has UVerse too. The box in her bedroom is going wonko too. Hers is slightly older then mine, by about a month.

And that's good to hear. Let's hope it's true. If there's nothing wrong with the HDD, then a reset shouldn't wipe out everything like I read of happening before. Now, what I'd love is an external drive option and being able to plug it into the new box and have most, if not all, of my DVR'd shows there.

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Chris313AllNight wrote:

No, no billing related shutoffs. I pay my bill every month like clockwork and if they had, despite that, I'd be making some noise and looking for compensation. I did as you suggested. The Automated system was helpful, but completely useless. I waited an hour, called back and continued. Got a live person named Raud, who aside from talking a bit too fast was understandable and helpful. According to his tests and what my box is doing now. It's Dead, has been since my problems started. So he's sending me a new box that will arrive on Tuesday and I've to send the old one back within 10 days at a UPS store.

 

He said he'll be sending me the exact model I have, a silver Cisco IPN4320 DVR box, but I'm hoping for that newer model with the 500GB HDD.

 

While hardware like this failing wasn't exactly unexpected, the thing that irritates me and depresses me more then anything is the fact that with my box useless and a HDD full of shows. (3 series worth at least unwatched yet) 330 shows have bit the dust and there's nothing I can do to save my shows. (Though, I can rebuild my shows with time, this still blows) Things would be easier if I had the ability to save or rebuild shows between bad hardware. (Hope my TV series settings are still there or I'll have to rebuild those from scratch too. 200+ of them) or had the option of an external drive and saving things on that and then hooking it up to the new box and having my DVR'd shows available.

 

But all in all, my problem has been solved and my first 1800 CSR call went pretty well once I got a live person. I'll report back with what I find on Tuesday when the box is delivered

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ARRGGGHHHH ....... don't hope for one of the newer 500GB Ciscos! Total piece of crap! (Look for the threads.)

If you're computer literate, you *could* try to clone the harddrive to a spare via a PC. Yeah, technically NOT something "approved" of by Mistress AT&T, but why not try to alleviate the Butthurt of a full DVR loss due to the Mistress' faulty equip. (Not for the faint of heart, wanna know, PM me for a walkthru.)

Your series and scheduled recordings will rebuild from the "cloud" once you get your new DVR.

Looks like I got the newer model, the ISB 7500. For better or for worse. (Hopefully better since I've read a few horror stories about this thing,)

Box booted up. 3 dots then the orange AT&T screen. Now it's just sitting here. Is it loading up, or will I have to call CS again?

EDIT: Client Initialization Error popped up on the new box for the first time. Quit client, box rebooted, let's try this again

Try unplugging the box for about 30 seconds and then plug it back in.

Nothing. Client Initalization Error and Quit client again.

Suggestions?

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Chris313AllNight wrote:

 

Nothing. Client Initalization Error and Quit client again.

 

Suggestions?

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Per the paper work included in the box, what is the activation date of the DVR?

2/14/12.  Today. But it also says 8 pm? For TV service? Really?

Right under that, it mentions things about waiting till 8 pm for UVerse HSI, which I don't have.

If you are sure that  you have everything connected correctly on the DVR, call Technical Support.

Yeah. I've got everything hooked up the way it was on the first box when it still worked. So, I guess it's off to CSR I go.

It could be that you will need to wait until 8 pm, but they should be able to tell you that.

According to the robot, my order is in progress and is set to be completed by the end of the day. Do I wait, or should I call back?

At this point, you might want to wait until after 8 pm, or you can call to see if the activation time can be moved up.

I think I'll wait and see. I've already made other arrangements to catch the few things I'll miss tonight because of this. But if this isn't fixed in the morning, someone's gonna hear an earful. But I need to step back and take a breather first, I'm a bit aggitated at the moment. My apologies.

Though, the whole activation thing as far as TV alone goes.  This was a replacement box, I consider the whole thing extremely weak. The box should've shipped activated and I should've just been able to plug and go.

And if this isn't fixed by the 8pm time, I'll be looking into getting me some credit for my downtime.

Thanks for all the help thus far. I'll be back with what I find.

Well, 8PM came and went. Nothing. Client Init Error again. Quit client and resume. Guess I'll be calling CS today.

Be back with what I find

Called CSR. Nice man named Shawn was helpful, but nothing helped. Tech time. 8-12 today.

Wonder if I got a bad box right out the box? It is one of those new models ISB7500 and I was cautioned on this model.

Will report back after the tech comes.

Ok, tech came. Was a bit stumped at my setup, apparently, he hadn't seen a Coax install before. According to him, the new box was misconfigured and he took care of it. Had a few problems getting recording programs to work, but by the time he left, things were working perfectly.

I have my service working again and now all I have to do is rebuild my recording collection. Too bad they can't rebuild those like they did my set recordings and series list.

Now, the only thing that's left is seeing about some credit for this debacle. Who would I talk to about that? Back to CS?

I think your problem all along was some sort of issue with the connection between your DVR and the RG or the line between your RG and the VRAD.  Your DVR probably didn't need replacing; it just couldn't verify that you could play back your recordings because it couldn't connect.  When you rebooted it, it couldn't connect to download the software.

Unless live TV was working at first (which I don't see mentioned here), I think the first step should have been getting a tech to look over your connections.  Or to run UVREALTIME.

Yes, that's exactly what it was. The tech I talked to that got everything rolling to fixed said the same, I think he used your exact word, too. It's sad that things went as far as it did, with my box replaced and recordings lost before I found out what the real problem was. It wasn't the DVR at all, but the RG I had for a little over a year. (2Wire 3800HGV-B) Worked fine, or so I thought. The port I had the DVR plugged into since the day of my original install went bad. Wish I could've done some testing. (Hindsight sucks, don't it?) The RG was going bad. By the time of your post, the 2nd tech had come since the first tech came the day before and fixed my setup, or so I thought. (He wondered about the RG, but I thought it was ok. Wrong. Later that night, I continued having problems, this time with a Gear and a red X), he walked in, picked up the RG, did something, didn't see what. (He simply switched ports, rebooted the DVR and things popped up like normal.) I was blown away. Didn't think of doing that in the beginning. (I've learned something new and will be doing that trick in my next trouble shooting problem. Let's hope both last for more then a year this time) We talked a few minutes and discussed permanent solutions, the switch was only working teporarily and I'd have continued having problems later.

He replaced the RG with a 2Wire 3801HGV and I was off. I have all new hardware now.  A Cisco ISB7500 DVR (Love the larger HD) and a new RG. 2Wire 3801HGV. I'm golden, both are running flawlessly (Despite the horror stories I've read about the new model DVR.) and I've been through a reboot of the box since Friday and it came up perfectly, better then perfect, actually.

And I couldn't say about live TV working. Once I did the reboot, trying to get my DVR recordings to work, I was already into the Client initialization error loop and my service was in the toilet.

As for running UV-Realtime, I had just got it working for the first time a few days prior to my problem starting. (It was dirt simple, cat 5 cable to one of the RG's 4 ports and the other end to an open port on my own router, put in the router address and I was getting stats from it easily. Wish I had done it a lot sooner. Aside from having a new toy to play with, it could have and did tell me about my upcoming problem. But since I was new to the program and my service looked to be working perfectly, I didn't pay attention. (Wish I had taken some previous screen shots for you.) In the error table, certain sections were filled with red errors (Really bad, right?) One of them, I remember had 2400+ Red errors listed. That was screaming at me my RG was bad, wasn't it? Well, now I know and I'll be running that program constantly now and watching, should I have any more problems, it'll show and I'll be back.

Speaking of problems, I do have a slight weirdness with the UV-R program since beginning with it. I'll be posting about that as well. It's nothing to worry about as I've already worked around it, but I'd still like an answer.

And speaking of the program, is that officially recognized by the techs or that something a fan made? (However, it seems to work quite well.)

Thanks for all the help thus far.

UVREALTIME is not officially recognized by AT&T in any way. 

UVREALTIME is recognized by the frequent posters of this (and other) UV forum as a godsend.  We thank SomeJoe7777 (who is not an AT&T employee, he's "just" another U-verse subscriber like us). for developing this.

In fact, with some techs it's best to mention it at all.  With others, they'll take all the information they can get to do their job.  YMMV.  Most of the information displayed by UVREALTIME is taken directly from information available on web pages on the RG (if you know how to get to them).

Usually it's best to tell AT&T what your service related symptoms are.  They can pull the info UVRT displays from the RG (and I think they can get information from the VRAD port that services you as well, which UVRT can't) so it shouldn't be necessary to tell them about UVRT results.  

I also ran into this recently on two STB's.  One connected via COAX, the other via Network cabling.  After an unhelpful session with ATT chat I found this site:

http://www.uverseusers.com/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=36&id=troubleshooting&do=export_raw

I first unplugged all unnecessary network cables from the gateway (2Wire).  I only connected the COAX connection and reset the HPNA setting in the gateway GUI.  After performing the Ok-Down Arrow reset, the gear came on screen and started to reload that box.  I plugged in the cables to attach the network connected one and did the same thing.  It failed to work, but I noticed on my 5-port switch that I didn't get a link light.  I replaced the network cable and tried again.  They both came up and everything is working great now.

I don't like to talk about tech-support....but restarting the STB's isn't really technical help.