Sony RDR HXD970 lost all digital channels 19 July 2013

[sonrjl]

My Sony RDRHXD970 lost all of it's digital channels last night 19th July 2013.

I could still watch programs that I had recorded, but although the digital channel guide showed channel titles, when selected each channel showed no picture. I tried rescanning and a factory reset, but each time after the channel rescan it said that it had detected no new channels, but did appear to show the correct ones whilst scanning. However, after scanning, pressing enter to continue the process, the unit appears to freeze, no picture displays and it shows "Tuning" on the front display, which does not change. Powered off/on it now shows "Update" on the display and no picture.

Given that this seems to have happened to a large number of people at the same time, this must be a bug in the firmware concerning the date or the Digital program guide (EPG) perhaps.

Given that Sony's reputation has taken a battering since the security breach in 2011, I would hope they would try harder now concerning good after sales and customer service. Hopefully  someone from Sony is checking these messages and investigating the issue and hopefully making a new software update available or other fix to solve the problem.

[pewrigh38]

I have erased my timer settings, used easy setup to select english language and france location and its working again, then set it to digital epg instead of guideplus, the epg is now empty and a different colour menu etc
when sony (or pioneer) issue a fix all the boxes need doing, all over the country

if yours is stuck in UPDATE mode, hold power for 5 secs, when it switches off quickly tap the power button a few times and it will wake up but no freeview channels will work, but you can access the title list or use the dvd player
I would set it to the france location for now until sony or pioneer fix it properly

[emorris84]

Very good news to find this stream of messages as like many people was just about getting to the stage of giving up and having to buy new.

Just tried the comment from couple of messages ago where you power off for 5secs and then press the on/off button quickly after which seems to have cancelled it and got me to a good place. Great news. have lost anything recorded yesterday but other than that all looks to be ok.

Now to try and record something again to check all ok before loose out on programmes tonight.

thank you for the above advice and fingers crossed holds out and Sony sort out the issue!!

[stevied]

Hasn't anyone noticed this post?

[stevied]

Sorry, I thought it would highlight Pascale's post.

[emorris84]

looking further it has fixed it in terms of being able to watch what recorded but can't record anything or even get on to the system menu

[erwilki47]

Hi,

Thanks to a few who told me that to get out of the frozen "Update" state I needed to hold the on/off button for 5 secs then when it powers down, tap the on/off button a few times. This worked. Great. I am now at a point where I can at least get System Menu to work. A problem I had is that I tried to update from Version 1.15 to Version 1.24. I wasn't sure whether I had burned the CD correctly so when it froze at "DOWNLOAD-5" I eventually had to unplug it completely, against the advice from Sony. At least now I can check that the version is 1.24 ie the latest version. (System Menu, Initial Setup, Audio Out, Dolby Digital Output, Dolby Digital, Angle button on the remote).

I can watch earlier recordings if needed. I'm not sure about telling it that I am in France at the moment, I think I'll leave it for a while. At least I know I'm now only in the same position as many others.

Just as an aside, my Sony TV digital guide works ok, or am I tempting fate.

Dave.

[liketv]

Re: Temporary fix

Retuning to France worked on the one machine that had been left on last night - unfortunately all my other machines had been left on standby, and are now locked in Update mode.

Hopefully it won't be too long to get a permanent fix from Sony now that they are aware of this problem.

[pewrigh38]

hold the recorder POWER button for 5 secs and it will switch off, quickly tap your power button a few times and it will wake up and say WELCOME instead of UPDATE

now do easy setup, choose engliosh language , autoscan and FRANCE for location and scan

this will fix the freeview channels but not the epg

then await the permanent fix from sony or pioneer

[liketv]

Thank you - this did work.

[WhyCantIfindasuitableuser]

Isn't it amazing that Sony haven't bothered to put a message on the website? One of the world's largest companies, and they don't open at the weekend, and the 'Contact Us' isn't working also....   Surely there must be one employee working other than the security guard?  This is the age of instant communication. They must be aware that they have hundreds, maybe thousands of annoyed customers right now.  I have been meaning to replace my DVD player for a while anyway, and right now the chances of me buying Sony are zero!  Not because of what's happened - that is bad luck, I'm sure no-one from Sony wants this problem, but the fact that they have made absolutely no attempt to communicate with customers via the internet.  At least I know that it's not a breakdown of my machine - right now there will be thousands of customers who are not aware of these forums and will be calling our expensive engineers who wont' be able to fix the problem, but will be making a fortune in call out fees!  Sony, you have a major PR disaster on your hands here. You are going to have to work really hard to win back the customers you are losing in every hour that goes by.