Humax Freesat HD not picking up Freesat stations

mcgovern

Hi all,
Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but as the topic says, my Humax Freesat HD box does not find any stations when doing a Freesat scan.
Doing a manual scan, it does pick up stations, and picture is perfect, but this puts stations all over the place, and with only limited now and next epg.
A cheap Ferguson box can pick up signal fine (but the remote is knackered and can't find a replacement) and so does a Hauppage DVB-S2 card, so I don't think its the signal.
Any ideas?

Sponge Bob

Firmware update required perhaps ?? Leave it on all night and see what happens or try automatic update option in menu.

Trevord

Sounds weird.

How did it happen in the first place ?

I would try a factory reset first. This will then allow you to go through the install process from scratch and will show whether each cable is being detected.

Check the manual. Its easy to do and only takes a few minutes. It won't delete anything that is already recorded.

mcgovern

It's the non-pvr one so no recordings. Not sure how it happened, originally I thought it was the dish out if alignment until I tried the other box (which despite surviving a fire, display broke etc, works fine). What's the password fir factory reset, and do I need to plug in Ethernet cable to get a firmware update? Thanks in advance

Trevord

The default password is 0000

Let us know how it goes

mcgovern

Tried factory reset. Scan never ends, with signal strength usually 80% and quality at 40 but occasionally dropping to zero on both. Manual scan has both at 80% and pucks up programs no problem. Also tried an automatic update but it said there was none available.

Sponge Bob

Looks like corrupted NVRAM, back to dealer with it.

mcgovern

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Looks like corrupted NVRAM, back to dealer with it.

Its nearly two years old and the retailer is the north unfortunately

Trevord

This post in the link below sounds a little like your problem and was resolved with a software upgrade.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1243239

as your problem is fairly unusual you might want to post to one of the UK forums and you might get a reponse there. Given that so many more people would have the Humax over there you might find someone else who knows what's wrong.

If box is two years old then its out of warranty I would think.

nolnah

Maybe this will help if box is not updating software.


Download Instruction
1. Download the software from the Humax website. (Support>Download Center)

2. Extract the ZIP file you download.

3. Connect the USB memory stick to the PC and copy the file to the root folder of the USB.
Note: the root folder means copying the file on to the USB Pen drive in Windows e.g. E:\, do not place the software file into a folder

4. Place the product into standby mode (using the STANDBY button on the remote control or the STANDBY button on the front of the product)

5. Insert the USB memory stick to the front or rear USB connection.

6. Switch the product ON using the standby button (remote or front of the product). The product will now start up and the download process should start.

7. When the download is completed the Download progress will display “Success Downloading!”
8. To complete the download:
a. Remove the USB memory stick
b. Power on the product pressing the Standby button on the front of the unit
Note: Please do not power off the product or remove the USB memory stick while the update is in progress. During the download/install process the download will stop at 88% and 99%

fat-tony

mcgovern wrote: »

Hi all,
Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but as the topic says, my Humax Freesat HD box does not find any stations when doing a Freesat scan.
Doing a manual scan, it does pick up stations, and picture is perfect, but this puts stations all over the place, and with only limited now and next epg.
A cheap Ferguson box can pick up signal fine (but the remote is knackered and can't find a replacement) and so does a Hauppage DVB-S2 card, so I don't think its the signal.
Any ideas?

If it's not an actual hardware/software problem with the box, perhaps it's a dish alignment problem. In order to do a Freesat scan, the box must check your postcode. This is done on the Freesat transponder on Eurobird at 28.5. If you dish has marginal signal on this, it might not be able to do the check. The fact that you were able to do a non-Freesat scan would say to me your box is basically ok, but maybe you are only picking up the Astra satellite transponders on 28.2 and missing the Eurobird ones, perhaps?

Trevord

fat-tony wrote: »

If it's not an actual hardware/software problem with the box, perhaps it's a dish alignment problem. In order to do a Freesat scan, the box must check your postcode.

Similar theory in one of the replies in the post form digitalspy that I mentioned above. Thought it was a longshot though.

Eurobird channels are listed here. You might want to check if any of them are showing low signal levels in non freesat mode.

http://www.lyngsat.com/eb1.html


Def worth calling to a friends house and trying your box on their dish to see what happens.

fat-tony

It's not a theory - a number of the freesat transponders are on Eurobird and if your dish favours Astra or further west, the box may not tune properly.

Trevord

fat-tony wrote: »

It's not a theory - a number of the freesat transponders are on Eurobird and if your dish favours Astra or further west, the box may not tune properly.

Don't get me wrong. By referring to it as a theory I wasn't accusing you of making us the Eurobird misalignment possibility.

Until we establish the source of the problem, any possibility as to what is wrong with the OP's box is a theory.

fat-tony

It's a more likely scenario, though, as the OP's first post said that the box was tuning in lots of channels in non-Freesat mode. Ergo, the box hardware and software was functioning at the time. I thought it a more likely scenario that the dish was not picking up the signal from Eurobird optimally, rather than some software issue with the box. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that there is some glitch with the Freesat processing but it's more probable that the fault lies outside the box. Testing the box in another location would be a good plan:)

mcgovern

Thanks everyone for the replies, if I bring it round to the parents and try it there, they are on Sky, I should pick up everything, right?

fat-tony

mcgovern wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies, if I bring it round to the parents and try it there, they are on Sky, I should pick up everything, right?

You should, unless you actually have a software problem with the box which is preventing you from scanning Freesat channels.