How to Troubleshoot your DVR/Receivers

@ATTU-verseCare Whoever wrote/edited this guide should be fired.  

• It's over 2 years old and nobody caught the fact that it says "client unporvisioned" instead of what I'm assuming should be "client unprovisioned"
• You show the graphic for destructive recovery above the non-destructive recovery section.  Someone could easily get confused and end up erasing all their recordings for no reason.

Hi @madmax988,

Around the time this started to happen, did anything change? Power loss? New equipment added? 

A full reset of the system, modem and receivers may resolve the issues you are having. Also, surge protectors have been known to cause issues and over time, cause permanent damage to the box. If any are in use, remove them and plug all of our devices into a wall outlet. 

-ATTU-verseCare

@ATTHelpForums   

• No power loss.
• No new equipment
• As far as a full reset.  I did a non-destructive recovery on the DVR. I reset RG by unplugging for 30 seconds and plugging back in. I reset all the STBS  and as I mentioned I had to unplug the AP bridge to fix the problem with one of the wireless receivers.  Is there anything I missed in doing a full reset?
• In terms of power issues, I can assure you that's not the issue.  AT&T Uverse blamed my house's electrical system and grounding issues when I problems about a year ago and refused to work on system till I had it fixed.  I had the local electric company out to check, who said there was no grounding issue after checking as suggested by AT&T.  I then had an electrician come, and run a brand new independent circuit with only AT&T equipment on it so that AT&T couldn't blame my wiring.  Then you finally came out and replaced RG and STB what a surprise it was bad AT&T equipment and not my perfectly fine electrical system causing the problem.  
• How could a surge protector possibly effect equipment?  Literally all a surge protector is doing is passing along power and shutting down if the power spikes, its not like its a Universal Power Supply (UPS).  Although even a UPS should only improve not worsen things.
• Update as of 1/29/17
  • Problem #1:The playback problems have gotten better, but are still happening a few times a day.
  • Problem #2: The numbers are still not in sync although things do eventually seem to get removed from app list.
  • Problem #3: Has not happened again yet.
  • Also yesterday the system had a restart receivers message on some of the receivers.
  • I have been getting some FEC errors in random bursts, but even so, the numbers seem to be fairly minimal.  No errorred seconds or CRC errors.

Thank you for looking into this.

Hi,

We are glad to see it is getting better. If still having issues, we may want to try to change the DVR to a different DVR type.

With a surge protector, just like any piece of equipment, it can go bad. So if one of the outlets on the surge protector is defective, or has some corrosion on it, you may notice some power issues. We just suggest removing it for troubleshooting purposes, and it shortens the chance of error by removing additional equipment.

-ATTU-verseCare

I am still having issues, as I stated.  

• Problem #1 is still happening.
• As well as Problem #2. 
  • Problem #2 clearly seems like a software issue.  Do you have any suggested solutions for this/
• What are the different types of DVRs?  do you just mean a different model?
• and as stated unless its absolutely the only option left, I don't want to swap DVR's as I've found often that doesn't solve the problem and yet I still have to deal with losing all my recordings.  Since I watch all my tv recorded, losing recordings is essentially like paying for television service I never get to watch.  It's not like AT&T is going to buy me all the episodes I lose.
• I will plug dvr directly into wall for testing purposes.  I'll also go buy a brand new surge protector.  Does AT&T have a suggestion for which surge protector is approved? Although I still highly doubt a bad surge protector would still be providing constant power, with no indications of being worn out.

The fact that a non-destructive disaster recovery fixed your issues, but only for a while, leads me to believe that your DVR's hard drive is failing.  Maybe not, but that's the way I'd bet.

Bad surge protectors, that are providing no surge protection, can still pass power.  And surge protectors that are still providing some surge protection can introduce RF noise into the line.

1. The non-destructive recovery didn't fix anything.
2. I guess, it just seems odd that AT&T equipment could really be that sensitive to a bad surge protector, I've work in IT with 100's of surge protectors, and when they've gone bad it's usually pretty cut and dry.  In my experience they either work or they don't work.  Every once in a while you see a really old one that still works but has a light that flickers, but those I replace.  The one my DVR happens to be plugged into now, isn't all that old, but just to be sure I'll swap it out with a fresh one.  It is annoying though that AT&T blames everything else when everytime I've ever had a problem it's ended up turning out to be either bad hardware, bad software (that nobody at at&t knows how to fix or has the capability to even investigate, they jusy swap hardware to a different model in the hopes that'll fix it, since it'll happen to have different software preloaded), or a AT&T wiring issue.  I just feel little burned after spending $400 on electrical work last time to solve a non-existent problem, that ended up just needing some new equipment, and a new cat5 wire pulled due to a damaged wire half a dozen technicians didn't notice when inspecting)
3. Can a bad surge protector explain why the UVERSE website and APP are having the problem I'm seeing?

at least 4 times a day the tv will freeze up and then switches to a blue or fuzzy screen?  After it does this we have to reset everything!!!!! Next all recordings are gone and has not recorded anything new?  When I log into my account I have a note that says DVR has reached maximum capacity but there is nothing on it??????

If this doesn't get resolved will have to cancel att not worth the money I have to pay every month to no have it work.  Should get reimbursed.

My TV programs are frequently interrupted with a message that states that U-verse service signal has been lost.  The message states to try rebooting of the TV receiver after, first, checking to see if the problem exists on other stations.  Also states that if the TV receiver rebooting doesn't work, then to try rebooting the "gateway".  I have tried both of these; sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.  If I do nothing, the program will come back on after a few minutes, but then it will happen again in 2 or 3 minutes or maybe after 2 or 3 hours.  This is very annoying and has been going on now for several weeks.  It caused me to miss some exciting minutes in NCAA tournament basketball games recently.