Dreambox 8000HD problem ?

20/20

Wondering can anybody please advise me about a genuine dream8000 problem.For some strange reason the satellite receiver has been logging on and off my network for the last week,and i now have no channels at all,it is connected to the network at the moment.I should point out that I also have terrible trouble with my vodafone BB for the last month here in Dub5,(the broadband regularly cuts out for a few seconds).My main problem is that i cant see any channels at all,not even the free stuff like BBC or ITV,which surely should make no difference weather iam conected to broadband or not.I do know that i still have good signal and the dish hasn't moved and i can still read all the on screen menus,just why are the channels not visible.Please help with your suggestions?

tomslick

I have found with linux boxes that they sometimes go haywire for no apparent reason. If I were you I'd backup any softcam settings you have and reflash your box with a recent image. These boxes can give trouble if you mess around with settings too much. Reflash and use default settings first to see if you pickup the free stuff and then apply your settings and you should be ok.

20/20

Thanks tomslick,i will give it a try at weekend.I dont realy know what iam doing with the box,but you have given me a suggestion to start reading up on.

cormacl

The softcam is probably chewing CPU. I only ever used mine with an FTV card at one point and it always worked without issues. Even the older weaker models.. 500/5620/7000/7025 usually have no issue with the softcam. Not sure if you're doing same or card charing etc.. either way we don't want to know. These forums ban any discussion on that.

If it happens again, try logging in to the box with your telnet or ssh client of choice. If on windows, I would recommend using putty. If you've never logged into the box, you just get the client to use telnet to the IP address of the box. When prompted for login, enter "root" and press return. It should not prompt for a password.

Then on the Linux command line, enter "top -d 1" and press return. That will show the CPU consumption of all processes, the heaviest users at the top. The -d 1 option forces a refresh every second. While running, if you enter "m" it will shift to most memory use. "p" wil revert back to process CPU usage.

To exit this command, user Ctrl-C.

This should give you an idea of what it consuming resources, assuming the behaviour is being triggered by that.

Also check the temperatures. On mine, running Gemini, I go to Menu->Information->Hardware... you get a scrollable list of device details including temperature sensors. You would not want to be seeing any readings over 55 degrees. If you do, then consider installing a fan or external fan on the box vents. Excessive temperature will have the box getting unstable.

I've mine in a cabinet under the TV along with an Apple TV which is like a heater!.. so for safety I installed a fan in the dreambox. Its usually running and keeps the box no hotter than 43-45 degrees. The fan will speed up when the HDD is in use and generating more heat.

yellabelly

I have had a lot of network trouble with both wifi and homeplug AV. (I haven't put down a direct cable at the moment). I'm recording to NAS which isn't a good idea with an unstable network.
Anyway since I changed to the BH 1.33B image it has become a lot better. Network is always up and recordings to NAS usually work fine.

20/20

Thanks cormacl and yellabelly for the advice,I have been to busy to try anything yet,but iam going to do with tomslick and reflash the box first.

20/20

I meant take tomslicks advice first.

Nehaxak

20/20 if you're going to be using community based images on your box, I would recommend you only install original firmware on the box itself and use a USB pen drive + Barry Allen plugin to install other community based images (GP, BH etc.,).

That's a starter pointer for you anyway

As with all non official images, they all have their problems at one stage or another - whether that be your own fault or not (installing or badly installing plugins/addons, or misconfigs, or just bugs in the images etc., etc.,)
Gemini 4.7 is a very stable and decent community based image.

With the Barry Allen plugin you can install a fair whack of different images to try out, on your USB drive, rather than mess about directly with firmware installs.
If all else fails, at the very least you can always unplug the USB drive and revert back to the official image directly on the box itself - that and of course also do the same to double check it's not your image that's messed up rather than thinking it's the box hardware itself.

20/20

Nehaxak to be honest i aint realy got a clue what iam doing with the box.When i bought the receiver last year I just got what i considered to be the best on the market after a small bit of research on the net.When i bought it new i gave the receiver to a guy i met online for a trial and he set everything up,but now he has left the Country in search of work so i cant return to him with my problems.I think the image is PLi-Jade which i understand to be pretty basic,but as i had so many channels to watch from Astra 28/19 and Hotbird a lot of which are in HD i was very happy and was just to busy to play around with any other images.Perhaps my question should be what would be the best image to install to get it up and running again,and then forget about it.For the near future i just want as many tv stations to channel-hop,and when i have more time i will learn about the different images and what they do.Open to suggestions Please?

Nehaxak

Heya, yeah it can be a little daunting to get to grips with at first if you're not used to this kind of receiver.

What I would suggest is that you install a Gemini image (5.1 I think is the latest) and you can download it directly from their website. Not sure if it's ok to link images here, even if nothing illegal is within, so I won't just to be safe but a quick search on google will bring up their site, just type in "i have a dreambox" in google and it'll bring up their website to grab the latest image from, first link returned from the search probably.

It's a stable image, no problems experienced and you can download Satellite settings (lists of preconfigured channels, organised and bunched together) directly from within the image to get you started also, along with addons you might be needing. It's also a very easy image to get to grips with, more or less plug and play after going through the initial on-screen prompts after installation.

It's an excellent image and has a lot of on-going community support.

That'd be my suggestion anyway for a start

Once you're more confident with messing about with the dreambox, you can get into running multiple images via Barry Allen and all that stuff. Reg up for their forums also and post in the English section if you need further help from anyone there with the image, they're a nice bunch of people though most posts are in German outside of the other language sections.

cormacl

2nd that on Gemini.. its probably the most popular image out there.

20/20

Thanks cormacl and Nehaxak,i have just reg with "i have a dreambox" but as its late iam to tired to search for the English section.will do tomorrow.I see there is new firmware for DM8000 do you think i should install this (Release 2.8.4 from 28.06.2010)?.

cormacl

I would try Gemini before reverting to the stock images.

Login to IHAD and click on the Database button on the button menu near the top. Then in there, select the section on DM8000 and the entry for the latest image (v5.1).

20/20

Thanks cormacl I will,and let you know how i get on.