 Posted 2008-11-20
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well, after 3 weeks of no issue's, i got the "run" hanging on me tonight, had to switched it off 2 times before it would load up/start.
This is with the newest oficial topfield FW and running ethernet cable.
Not happy at all.
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Posted 2008-11-20
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As with an alarmingly large number of you, I too get the RUN/WAIT freeze-ups. I've got them on the brand new firmware and I am now getting them on the "more reliable" .19 firmware. I've even had weird stuff happen, like the machine cutting out and shutting off while I've paused a prerecorded show. On average, if there are no RUN hangs, it takes around 30 seconds to start up; much longer than it used to.
It appears a number of you have narrowed these issues down to a fault in the wireless network capability. I will disable wireless and remove the dongle to see if that helps matters.
Come to think of it, the unit was working perfectly before I put it on a network. It would wake and sleep for timers and all that good stuff. I had zero problems with it back then. Hopefully taking it off the network will sort it all out. Who needs IceTV if you lose reliability? Manual timer programming is a piece of piss anyway.
Wish me luck. By the way, this forum never seems to work right. I've typed plenty of text here and I always get this error without fail: The board administrator has requested that you must provide some message content within your post. You cannot post only HTML, Images, EmotIcons or IFCode.
The bumbling firmware engineers must also have setup this forum. It is sad, really. I've always heard such good things about Topfield and now, what with all these problems many users are experiencing, they've become a joke to me. I really want to love this machine but Topfield aren't making it easy whatsoever. When will they ever get it right with this firmware nonsense?! It is beyond a bloody joke.
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Posted 2008-11-21
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| Hi Guys, Have loaded the latest firmware and so far no problems. Using Ice TV with Wired Lan - Not Static. Previous to firmware I had the odd "stuck on Run". My first unit would just keep re booting itself... took it back and got another one.. got the standard line that they haven't heard of this before..... yeah right. If I knew when I bought this there would be so many bugs and faults I would not have purchased it. I was this week an add for an ALDI Twin HDD 250GB for $299. It doesn;t have Ice support, but at more half the price of the tolfield, it doesn't have any ICE TV bugs either. I got the topfield for the ICE support, which rulled out all other STB apart form Bewondwiz. If you don't need ICE TV then Look somwher else as you will get much better value for Money.
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Posted 2008-11-21
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| Hi Guys, Have loaded the latest firmware and so far no problems. Using Ice TV with Wired Lan - Not Static. Previous to firmware I had the odd "stuck on Run". My first unit would just keep re booting itself... took it back and got another one.. got the standard line that they haven't heard of this before..... yeah right. If I knew when I bought this, there would be so many bugs and faults I wouldn't have purchased it. There was an add this week for an ALDI Twin HDD 250GB for $299. It doesn't have Ice support, but at more half the price of the Dropfield, it doesn't have any ICE TV bugs either. I got the topfield for the ICE support, which rulled out all other STB apart from Beyondwiz. If you don't need ICE TV then Look somewhere else as you will get much better value for Money. It will probably take another 6 - 12 months to iron out the rest of the bugs with ICE, and even then with the ICE High court proceedings, Ice may not even exist by then. Lucky for me the Topfield is really easy to manually program.. Rotelman.
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Posted 2008-11-21
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Rotelman (2008-11-21)
There was an add this week for an ALDI Twin HDD 250GB for $299.
And posts on the DTV forum suggest, like a lot of 'cheap' Aldi products, you get what you pay for;
Only 10 timers allowed.
"Recordings don't resume from where they were stopped"
"Recordings repeat automatically...same recording loops until you stop it"
"When a recording is selected for playback or time shift used, the progress bar on screen stay there unless you press the "info" button to get rid of it"
"No USB / computer interface onboard."
"I've tried to set up a scheduled record and it seems i am restricted to using the default 03,60,90,120 minute durations or else I can select unlimited. This is pretty restricted, particularly when most stations overrun, not mention the movie I want to record runs for 150 minutes."
Robert at Toronto NSW 14km south of Mt Sugarloaf transmitters ~72% signal strength 99% quality
TF7100HDPVRt 1.00.41 firmware | 1TB WD HDD | Auto V.Format by Component to Pioneer 507XDA plasma TV | Bitstream audio by JIS F05 lead to Yamaha RX-V496 AV amp & WD 500GB ext HDD
TF7000HDPVRt 0.99.84 firmware | Auto V.Format by HDMI to Sanyo 22XR8DA LCD TV
Both: Auto Time | Internal HDD Recording | Timeshift 2½h with Storage on | SD Dolby Soundtracks eng[db] | Manual & Air EPG Timers | 10 min Padding | Standy used
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Posted 2008-11-21
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Rotelman (2008-11-21)
Previous to firmware I had the odd "stuck on Run". My first unit would just keep re booting itself... took it back and got another one.. got the standard line that they haven't heard of this before..... yeah right. It's funny you should mention that. When I rang up Topfield support to get some previous FW releases, I said to the rep, "you must be getting tired of hearing people complain about the run/wait hang ups." He claimed that's the first he had heard of it. I told him it's all over the forum here but he still maintained that it was news to him. In hindsight, I wish I had been a bit more confronting about it; but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. To be honest, I would much prefer that these "Gee, that's the first I've heard.." Topfield reps are lying to cover their reputation rather than being that ignorant and out of touch with what has become an all too common problem. Either way, it's bullsh!t in my book. As you say, "that's news to me" has become the standard line from Topfield and it really angers me to hear that more and more people are reporting that on these boards. I mean it gets to a point where it's obvious these "allegedly" clueless reps are simply full of crap; which just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. I work in customer service myself and if a customer has a problem with a product I sell and I know it's a common one, I'm straight down the line with them; lying only makes matters worse and makes you look like a dick when the instances of the problem are too numerous to feign ignorance. Kudos to you again, Topfield! |
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Posted 2008-11-21
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It might be worth mentioning for more recent users of this forum that Topfield doesn't actually monitor/read this forum or moderate it - it is a community only forum - the pro's are that people can and do say what they like and Topfield don't sanitise it. The con's of this though are that complaints made here actually don't mean anything as they are not heard by the company. I know that most new users might think otherwise, which is why I thought I should point it out. This is why you won't have seen a post on the forum from the Topfield company.
We have said in the past, and I would continue to recommend, that anyone who has issues with the products should take these up directly with Topfield on the phone so that they know how you feel. The forum is great for helping each other out, which is what it is for, but it is not, for good or bad, a feedback channel to the company.
TF7000HDPVRt Ver 1.6, 0.99.84 rel 5 beta, Pansonic Viera TH42PX80A 106cm plasma - 1080i HDMI, Panasonic SC-PT460 home theatre - Bitstream via optical, NW Brisbane, Signal 68-73%, Quality 99%, ICE EPG, Auto time, No Timeshift, No Padding, External 400 GB Samsung drive. Antec AV Cooler. Standby when not in use.
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Posted 2008-11-22
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I'd thought I'd post a summary of my experience over the last couple releases, which (from my readings at least) seems pretty consistent with others out there.
Official firmware release - App v. 1.11.13
I only used this firmware for several days as in that time the "Hang on RUN" issue was so prevalent that sometimes I thought it might never work again. I was going to go back to a previous release but thought I'd try the...
"Official for two hours before pulled and replaced with the more official release" release (!) - App v 1.11.14:
1. Less stability than 1.11.13
- The unit has locked up on two occasions when entering sub menus
- it's refused to manually record on one occasion; had to power cycle
- the EPG type has reverted to FTA from IceTV on two occasions, which I didn't pick up for a few days = missed shows 
2. Minor (but annoying) glitch with IceTV where some file names will be wrong (they'll have the name of a show on a different channel)
3. The start up (power on) time of the unit sometimes borders on ridiculous (40 - 60 seconds)!
...but because it starts up most times when asked it's been better than 1.11.13!!!
Summary: Unless I can try a newer beta version (!) I'm going back to Firmware 1.00.19 - can't recall the App version - because in my experience it had LESS bugs and performed better (start up times were probably half and only hung on run once in the two months I ran it).
TF7100PVRt firmware: 1.00.41 beta (App: 1.11.29) | 720p & Bitstream via HDMI to Onkyo TX-SR605 AV Receiver & Panasonic TH-42PX80A TV | IceTV Interactive EPG | Signal Level: 72%; Quality: 99%
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Posted 2008-11-22
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RE (2008-11-19)
timbertron (2008-11-18)
Well after persisting with this unit I've discovered that pretty much all the problems revolve around the networking. I now have a unit running smoothly without a network set up. I had to wipe everything and re-install the firmware but its fine now. The firmware is fine but Topfield just cannot get the networking to work.
It might help in understanding what your issues were if you could give some details as "just cannot get the networking to work" isn't very descriptive.
Was it a wired or wireless network? Wireless
was it a Static or DHCP connection? Static
Were any security protocols used? WPA2
Was an FTP connection able to be established? Yes
What sort of router were you using? Belkin 4 port iinet voip wireless
If applicable, were you able to successfully ping the ICE TV site? Yes
How did your network problem manifest itself? The network was fine, its everything else that doesnt work. IE freezing when going into timer recording menu, hanging on RUN, hanging on blank screen just after run, channels audio out of sync, continually re-booting itself when trying to upgrade firmware etc etc
What firmware version were you having the problem with? .19 and official 29 Oct
I know Topfield are working on the firmware but it's difficult to provide feedback without details.
I hope the above info helps but my hypothesis that its all the networking's fault is now dead. After all my issues I reset everything and re installed the .19 firmware. It worked great for a week and then last night it hung on the blank screen after RUN when coming out of standby for a timer recording. No network had been set up so clearly its just overall crap firmware. I was going to hang onto this unit without a network but if there are bugs without a network then its way too much trouble.
It's time for a full refund.....sadly.
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Posted 2008-11-23
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