Does anyone have sage working with a dish6000?

[Rob]

The title says it all.

Sage (with the actuisys) was controlling my dish6000 fine until the middle of the last week of October. Then channel changes started failing.

There are several dish6000 users who are having the same problem I am. They were working fine until the last week of October and now they are not.

I tested with a dish301 and sage still works fine with it.

So, my question is: Does anyone have sage currently working with a dish6000?

Thanks for the input,
Rob

[DRB]

I just got sage up and running and sage with the actyics 200 will not change my channels. This seems like it would to a simple fix for the sage team tho they may have to buy a 6000 for testing.

Without this fix Sage is pretty much useless.

I still have a lot of work to get my HTPC up and running so it doesn't affect me too much but it would be assuring to hear Sage acknowlege the problem and to know that a fix is on the way.

DRB

[sub]

I remember reading in the past, that the dish6000 is a problem for the Actisys 200 because of the way it encodes its IR signal. I know there has been problems in other products (snapstream etc) with the Actisys IR200L and Dish6000 combination.

It may be difficult for the Sage/Frey guys to fix.

[BLS]

I think we are zeroing in on the problem. The middle of October is when the problem started for me too. This was after a few months of working correctly. Does anyone know how to get the previous version of Sagetv? The one before 1.4?

I installed 1.4 just after the problem started in an effort to fix it. I was using the beta version.

It may be a coincidence, but I would like to rule it out by installing a previous version.

I hope the opinion is wrong that the Frey Tech. people cannot fix this.

I'm going to report the timing of mid October to tech support. This is too much of a coincidence.

Brad

[DRB]

Well if the actycis 200 does not support the dish 6000 will Fry let me return it? Seeing that it is useless and will not do what is adveriest if I get my money back I could try using USB/URT device. Maybe that will work DRB

[mikbro]

If you are willing to purchase the IR blaster my tuning software uses, I would be happy to provide the software for someone to test...
http://www.smarthome.com/1623PC.html


Our software is script based so you can change the delay between sent button presses as well as repeat button presses if necessary. It also has a remote learning interface outside of Sage that might help.

If you already have the hardware mentioned send me an email and I can arrange to get you a copy of our software : mike@tapeitall.com.

[DRB]

Come to think of it it may just be a filmware update from Dish that is causing the problems. I use a JP1 promgramable remote and right about the same time some of the commands don't seem to work correctly. My problems seem to deal with marcos and discrete on/off.

No problems with channel change, but I am entering them one at a time.

And it probrably has something to do with the delays. When I first program with JP1 I had add delays to get it to work correctly.

Does anyone know if there is anyway to revert back to the older filmware for the Dish reciever?

[DRB]

I posted the question [Can you revert to older filmware verison?] in the AVS Forum. The answer I got was no, but Dish is aware of the problem and working on a fix. Here is the link www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=323843

I would think in the meantime anyone who has the Dish 6000 should call and complain, It may speed up a fix.

Just call Dish, and while Sage TV is not mention specacifly it's a know issuse that the 6000 is acting erracialy with the remote and Tivo and that it will be fixed in the next filmware upgrade. The person at tech support did not know when the filmware would be released.

[Mark Lamutt]

I've been out for a week or so, otherwise I would have responded to this thread sooner.

The problem is NOT with SageTV or the actysis - it is a Dish 6000 problem. The IR codes routines were rewritten with the 7.81 version of the 6000 software, and caused IR blasters to stop fuctioning. The 6000 wouldn't read the IR signals. The problem is now fixed and is in beta testing as of last Friday, Nov. 7th. The beta code has been very stable for me over the weekend, and hopefully will be stable for the other testers. If that's the case, then the new 6000 code will be sent out on a limited basis - it'll take about 3 weeks or so to get it rolled out to everyone once it's set.

[Rob]

Great! Thanks for the update.

[BLS]

Gee wilikers Mr. Wilson!

Sorry, first non swearing thing I thought of. What about us poor souls out here? How can we get a beta test version of the new firmware? I'd sell my dog if I had one to get this thing working again.

Not bad troubleshooting for a bunch of semi-novice HTPC guys I say!

We were honing in on the problem. I swore it was Sage though, so I was kind of off track for awhile.

I wish someone could explain how the Dish remote still works but a fancy wizbang IR Blaster transceiver thingy can't learn the codes.

Enough silly stuff for now, I'm serious about being a beta tester. How do I make that happen?

Thanks, I have less hair now,

Brad

[mikbro]

I am going to take a stab here and say that the unit has changed the acceptable timing between ir signals, and that it needs more delay. This would explain why the remote works, but a device sending the ir codes (with a fixed delay between them) does not.

[BLS]

Maybe,,, but I've have tried many different combinations of timings with no success.

How does the remote know to change the timings?

And it doesn't accept the first two digits. I can see if it took the first digit and not the succeeding digits, but the first digits?

I called Dish and they don't give Beta versions to the public, only to Dish employees who are technically capable of performing beta testing.

Mark... How did you get the beta version?

Three weeks or more...AAAAAAAAAAAAh!

Iv'e got the Holidays, Iv'e got people coming. These people count on me to show them the latest and greatest in the fast moving world of Home Theater.

I have to record things while I sleep.

Whatever will I do, WHAT will I do?

Signed,

Lowly public Me

[mikbro]

What I mean is, just because the remote control is working, does not mean that the IR blaster (with it's fixed delays between button presses) works.

I have worked with a lot of other receivers and I can tell you that you will get dropped digits (you won't even see the 1st or 2nd digit) if you try to send the digits faster than it can handle.

It seems this firmware has 'slowed' the machine to the point that it can not hand the IR codes being sent as fast as the IR blaster is sending them.

The other possibility is that there are subtle differences in the USBIRT learned IR code and the signal produced by the remote control. These differences were not a problem before the update, but now are.

[BLS]

I definitely agree with you there. Something has changed.

In one of your previous advertisements here, you said that your PVR allows timing changes. The timings can be changed in Sage also. It's a pain in the latest version, you have to shut it down, open the ir file in notepad, make the change, save the file and open Sagetv again. that whole process takes about five minutes. Not fun when there are a lot of combinations to try.

The timings can be changed in Girder also. After reading your posts here, I'm going to lengthen the timings in Girder and Sagetv and see what happens.

I'll post back.

Brad

[Mark Lamutt]

The code was changed to fix a "runover" bug that's been present for a long time - if you pressed and held down one of the arrow buttons, scrolling motion wouldn't stop when the button was released. They were trying to fix this. I'm not sure exactly what they did, but I suspect it was adding in an artificial delay to slow down the IR reception. That's why the dish remote would still work - it's a difference of holding down the button for half a second vs a single IR burst taking .05 seconds. The first is still read by the receiver, but the second isn't because of the delay.

That being said, they put back in the old IR code into the software, and we're testing it now. Another bug surfaced over the weekend with one of the testers, so we're now in the 2nd beta. It's still stable for me. Hopefully this one will be the one.

And, I didn't say that the new code would be out in 3 weeks. I said that once the new software goes into limited release, it'll take 3 weeks or so to get to everyone. That's the way dish does software upgrades.

I answered this question from Brad privately, but there's no way to become a Dish beta tester unless they ask you to. They asked me about 4 months ago because I filled a hole in their testing process. They have brought a couple of Tico users this time around to thoroughly test the IR code, as none of the beta team used external devices with the 6000, and so we missed this bug. That's how their beta operation works - it's completely internal unless they are missing testing something. Then they go looking for someone on the outside to test for them.

[BLS]

No worries about my comment of 3 weeks. I'm figuring a month or more.

Mark, if you have a good idea of the difference between the old code and new, can't we figure out a way to make it work now?

With the variable timing parameters in the Sagetv IR file and Girder IRman plugin, can you think of any settings to come closer to imitating the old code?

How can I make Sagetv tell Girder to tell the Actsys200L to act like it's holding the remore button for half of a second?

Thank you for your time,

Brad

[Mark Lamutt]

I don't know exactly what they changed in the new code. But I do know that they threw the new code out and went back to the old code for the new software release, so it will work exactly like it used to when it's released.

I know of no way to make the actisys or girder to simulate a longer button press. You could try editing the .IR file codes, repeating parts of the commands, but make sure you save a backup copy before you do anything in there. And I can't tell you what parts to copy and paste, because I have no idea.

[BLS]

Bummer

[Mark Lamutt]

Just got word from my Dish contacts that as of 9:00AM MST this morning, 7.83 is rolling out to ALL Dish 6000 owners - no limited rollout phase on this one. Your actisys controllers should now work again with the 6000 after you take this download.