D11-500, Paterson adapter, copied serial.dll, still no channel changes

[IVB]

I have Sage V6.0.19. I have D*. Life has been happy for years.

Then, my D* receiver died. So,
1) I bought a new D11-500 from Best Buy.
2) I borrowed a working paterson adapter from someone who was using it succesfully in his sage system.
3) I plugged it into COM1 (port which was working fine for eons with my old D* STB)
4) I checked to make sure D*Serial.dll was in c:\programs\sagetv\sagetv as well as ..\common

Sage still doesn't want to change channels.

I also can't connect via the paterson tech utility, but that's another baffling thread.

Any ideas as to what I should do or try?

[sakker]

Originally Posted by IVB

I have Sage V6.0.19. I have D*. Life has been happy for years.

Then, my D* receiver died. So,
1) I bought a new D11-500 from Best Buy.
2) I borrowed a working paterson adapter from someone who was using it succesfully in his sage system.
3) I plugged it into COM1 (port which was working fine for eons with my old D* STB)
4) I checked to make sure D*Serial.dll was in c:\programs\sagetv\sagetv as well as ..\common

Sage still doesn't want to change channels.

I also can't connect via the paterson tech utility, but that's another baffling thread.

Any ideas as to what I should do or try?

I believe it depends on which firmware your D* box has installed as to which firmware you need installed on the TVT's. Also make sure you are using the D*serial.dll from back in 5/1/2006 I believe that is the only one that works consistently.

Try the DTV control utility http://www.dtvcontrol.com/ and right click on a free area and configure the port, see if that can change the channels. Make sure sage and sageservice are stopped before making any changes.

The adapters need both ends plugged into the pc to have it update the firmware, not just 1 end.

Hmm, that's all I can think of at the moment.

[IVB]

Thanks for the quick response.

I tried the older dll, no love. Do you know how to check what firmware the D* box has?

[bcjenkins]

A couple of things to I do to make this work for me. I just rebuilt my sagetv server a few weeks ago and just installed everything ootb and it picked up fine. However, I am using D11-100s. The one trick is to make sure the D11 is powered off when you attach it.

Also, I use a registry setting to speed up tuning. You might try adding that. FTR - you don't need to copy it to common.

B

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\SageTV]

"DirecTVSerialFastChannelChanges"=dword:00000003

[sakker]

Originally Posted by IVB

Thanks for the quick response.

I tried the older dll, no love. Do you know how to check what firmware the D* box has?

I believe it is in the setup, advanced setup or something on the box itself is where it will tell you the firmware version.

Supposedly if you hard reset the box(the red button inside the card cover) then press 02468 on the remote while it says hi, booting up or whatever, it will force an update of the latest firmware. I haven't had any luck it just times out after 15 mins of downloading. My understanding is after a certain amount of time it will automatically download whatever latest firmware is tagged for it.

Try out the Dtv control, that sort of told me where my problem was. I could change the channel just fine through it but Sage wasn't able to do it which told me somehow Sage wasn't able to send through the ports correctly or the DLL wasn't working. Basically what I ended up doing was manually changing the ports the usb-serial converter were on to something else, removing and reinstalling the tuner control in Sage and it worked fine.

Also remember you have to go one way, both ways won't work for the TVT's. usb from the usb-serial converter in your pc, serial end of that to your tvt, usb end of the tvt to your satellite box.

[naln]

Originally Posted by IVB

I also can't connect via the paterson tech utility, but that's another baffling thread.

Hopefully you have this working at this point...this should be your first step to make sure everything is working fine on the PC end...we can then look into baud rates etc.

Keep in mind that you have to plug the USB cable back into your host PC . ie it looks like - PC serial port to PC- USB port on the same pc....
then it will be detected as a usb device and the serial control drivers or whatever they are will be installed.....this is required for firmware updates.

Just update to the latest firmware. With the configuration set in this manner, you should be able to go into the patersontech utility Test window for some troubleshooting.....Hit the change channel button- you should see something appear on the test window screen (the usb cable is still plugged back into the host PCs usb port). Make sure you have this part working....if this is not working....you have to start tinkering with your serial port etc as suggested by bcjenkins earlier.

If you are getting this part to work correctly- then check what your com-port numbers are...again- look at bcjenkins post if you have multiple 'ghost' ports. Ideally, just uninstall the port- and reinstall it....leave the default port number assignment as it is. Now hook the usb end to the DTV box- and try to change channels. If there is no channel change - go back to the patersontech utility and change the settings there for baud rate and usb delays.

It takes a while, but works flawlessly once fully integrated. Good luck...and lots of patience !

[IVB]

You guys rock! Thanks for the help, just got it working. I hadn't downloaded the newest firmware for the box, that did the trick.

[naln]

Great that it worked for you!! Good luck!!

[IVB]

Originally Posted by sakker

Try the DTV control utility http://www.dtvcontrol.com/ and right click on a free area and configure the port, see if that can change the channels. Make sure sage and sageservice are stopped before making any changes.

As per my "multiple system issues thread", my STB is back to being uncontrollable. I did realize there was a power failure for a while, not sure if that reset stuff.

Before diving into Sage, I just tried the DTVControl, it seems to open a port just fine, then reports timeout. No channel changes (hooked output toa TV)Any ideas?

COM HS: cd cts dsr ri
->FA A5
--- Timeout

[bcjenkins]

Does the configuration utility do anything with the adapter? Can it see it and talk to it?

B

[IVB]

yep. I even force-uploaded the latest firmware (V4.15?)

[bcjenkins]

Sorry for the delay, I would send a not to the Paterson folks.

B

[IVB]

Ah, there's no such thing as a problem that money can't solve!

I bought a 2nd one, just got it, plugged it in, it works fine! I just sent them a note asking them how to deal with fixing the old one.

The wife will be very happy - 3 weeks of only one channel of DirecTV (i left it on, with only HBO enabled) made her very sad.

Of course, now that I got a 2nd paterson cable, once it gets fixed I really should just get the 2nd D* STB and have 2 SDTVs recording at once. And I could get an HDHomerun, and get 2 more HDTV streams...

[bcjenkins]

Good to hear. There seems to be a smattering of defects going around with these.

B