topic Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do??? in Home Cinema, Projectors & Players

RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

niicko — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 22:04:00 GMT

I also have the 'update sticking', 'EPG knackered' and 'no live output' problems but, after managing to reset etc. and select line input to stop the update sticking each time, I tried a maybe-long-overdue firmware update to 1.70, to see if that would cure the problem.

I followed Sony's instructions to the letter but, unfortunately, after stage 1 (LOAD > DISC-DWLD) took a couple of minutes or less, and DOWNLOAD-2, DOWNLOAD-3 and DOWNLOAD-4 took not much longer, I still have DOWNLOAD-5 displayed and an open disc-drawer (and still powered on) after almost an hour!

Trouble is, Sony don't seem to give contingency-instructions unless an error is displayed - so whatever do I do now? I don't want to take the wrong action and completely ruin the recorder (if indeed the process hasn't already done so).

Please can anybody in-the-know shed some light on this and tell me what I can do to save the unit?

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

anbates64 — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 16:07:08 GMT

I had the same problem with update yesterday morning on rdr HXD 970 update, my friend has some machine and has same problem. Waited 1.5 hrs for update, then had no option but to unplug. dvd and harddrive work but no TV channels on freeview, updated those, but despite finding channels am getting no output to TV from them. The guide is not populated, is a very odd colour and turns itself off after about 3 seconds. Tried firmware update via computer this just loads then turns the power on the machine off so cant update that.

This morning at aprox 10am update started again at 6.05pm it is still there! Again friends machine says the same.

I have emailed the support, but nothing back yet. You are not alone and sony need to sort this update out.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

pdab09 — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 17:55:41 GMT

Freeview failure hits Sony recorder owners

(see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23395516)

Many Sony DVD recorder owners have complained that technical support staff do not work weekends

Sony says it is experiencing "a major technical issue" after many owners of its DVD recorders lost access to their Freeview TV channels.

Dozens of owners have written to the BBC to complain that a malfunctioning software update on Friday has caused their devices to stop receiving or recording Freeview.

Many complained about a lack of response from Sony customer support. Sony said it was doing everything possible to solve the problem."A major technical issue has been flagged to our dedicated team. We will update you asap," the Japanese firm tweeted back on Saturday in response to dozens of messages about the problem.

The company's own support forums as well as other independent online sites were filled with complaints from irate users over the weekend.

Sony HXD recorders, such as the RDR-HXD870 model, which were updated Friday with the firmware 1.70 fix, seem to be affected by the issue.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

niicko — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:38:46 GMT

Not sure what any of these replies has to with my attempt at a fimware-update not managing to reach its anticipated conclusion - this question/plea/thread is one of the very few NOT centred around that subject - BUTwhen you say "Sony HXD recorders, such as the RDR-HXD870 model, which were updated Friday with the firmware 1.70 fix, seem to be affected by the issue", these 1.70-firmware units were clearly not the only victims of the Freeview debacle, as I was trying to update the firmware on mine TO 1.70 AFTER/DURING the trouble. I think mine was on 1.28 or something like that (I could be wrong about that, but it not close to 1.70).

I was stuck with a non-functioning recorder until, having got no help, I took it upon myself to risk disaster and fumble with the unit to see what it would respond to... Luckily for me, it didn't end in an expensive door-stop but operated normally after a 5-second soft-reset on the power-button. Of course, there was still the EPG thing (as described in the hundreds of posts in dozens of similar threads), but by that time it had been corrected and so setting the digital tuner to UK (from France) sorted that out.

All up and running, then, and the firmware-upgrade to 1.70 at least appears to have worked (1.70 is reported by the machine), despite the scary nature of it freezing-up rather than powering-down.

I'd hoped to get some advice of what to do but none was forthcoming, sooooo... In case anyone seeing this has the same problem upon performing an update:-

I could not seem to get any response at all from 'normal' prodding of handset buttons or main buttons so it seemed to me that there were two options: 1) perform a soft-shutdown via a 5-seconds-or-so push of the unit's power button, or 2) cut and then restore the power (which I presumed I'd have to do anyway if (1) didn't work.

Well, (1) DID work - at least I have not noticed any problems and, as I said, the unit now reports "1.70" as the software version (not that that alone is a definite indication, but it's the best I have). Good luck :o)

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Mr_Onion — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:26:48 GMT

As has been stated many times on the forum, the problem was caused by the EPG update, not the SONY unit.

Whatever problem you are experiencing the procedure is the same.

1) hold the power button for 5 seconds to turn it off, then turn it on again before it gets in a neverending loop.

If that dowsnt work

2) Unplug the unit from the mains, wait 5 min, the plug it in again and turn it on again before it gets in a neverending loop.

3) Go to menu>system setup>easy setup but DO NOT run the analogue section.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Thalamus. — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:42:02 GMT

@pdab09 wrote:

Freeview failure hits Sony recorder owners

(see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23395516)

Many Sony DVD recorder owners have complained that technical support staff do not work weekends

Sony says it is experiencing "a major technical issue" after many owners of its DVD recorders lost access to their Freeview TV channels.

Dozens of owners have written to the BBC to complain that a malfunctioning software update on Friday has caused their devices to stop receiving or recording Freeview.

Many complained about a lack of response from Sony customer support. Sony said it was doing everything possible to solve the problem."A major technical issue has been flagged to our dedicated team. We will update you asap," the Japanese firm tweeted back on Saturday in response to dozens of messages about the problem.

The company's own support forums as well as other independent online sites were filled with complaints from irate users over the weekend.

Sony HXD recorders, such as the RDR-HXD870 model, which were updated Friday with the firmware 1.70 fix, seem to be affected by the issue.

Hi pdab09,

welcome to the Sony User Community Forum..

Reference to this BBC report has been posted before to which I replied to see copy below..

@Thalamus. wrote:

Great reporting by the BBC..

Unfortunately the BBC, as did many community members, looked at a thread that was started back in April were a user reports missing digital channels, from this the BBC incorrectly speculated that Sony had released a firmware update V1.70 that had caused this weekends problem..

As we all know this is NOT the case & the cause of the problem was down to a corrupt Freeview EPG,

Coinsdentaly the BBC has since updated their report a copy of which I have included below..:smileywink:

Sony posts Freeview recorder lost channels fix

Many Sony DVD recorder owners have complained that technical support staff do not work weekends

Sony has issued details of how to fix "a major technical issue" that has caused several of its DVD recorders to lose access to Freeview TV channels.

Dozens of owners had written to the BBC to complain that a software malfunction had caused their devices to stop receiving or recording Freeview channels on Friday.

Many complained about the initial lack of response from the firm.

Sony has now blamed the problem on "corrupt broadcast data".

It has recommended affected consumers unplug and then reconnect their devices. If this does not correct the problem it suggested they carry out a "full factory reset". Full instructions have been posted on its community forum.
Unplug and wipe
Sony's own support forums as well as other independent online sites had filled with complaints from irate users over the weekend.

"It may already have come to your attention that thousands of owners of Sony DVD units have completely lost all their access to Freeview channels," Geoff Cheers, from Chorley, wrote to the BBC.

Graham Johnson, from Oxford, added: "There are thousands of people affected by this, many of whom, like me, have wasted hours today trying to retune and repair their machine. Many folks, it seems, have also been out and bought a new one."

On Saturday a customer support agent tweeted that the issue had been "flagged" to a dedicated team, but provided little other information.

Early speculation centred on the possibility that the problem had been caused by a firmware update, but the Japanese firm later said it was caused by "something [that] has changed in the way that these devices are receiving EPG [electronic programme guides] data from Arqiva".

It later issued a clarification saying the communications infrastructure company was not to blame, and that the issue had arisen due to "corrupt data" sent by broadcasters.

It added that it was now working with the firms to remedy the problem.

In the meantime it suggested affected users carry out the following steps:

Turn the machine on and eject any disks.

Press the "stop" button on the recorder. While still holding it down, press and release the "on/standby" button, and then release the "stop" button as well. This resents the machine deleting the corrupted data.

Owners should then follow the on-screen instructions to retune the machines, selecting "digital guide" rather than "guide plus" when given the choice.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

sheneker — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 16:47:17 GMT

I recently bought an ancient, but fully working, RDR-HXD870 with version 1.15 firmware, which probably dates back to about 2008.

My ancient, second hand, RDR-HXD870 works, but has a tendency to misbehave, particularly when accepting blank DVDs.

I was pointed to the Sony firmware upgrade web pages, where it explains how to download the firmware upgrade files and create CD-Rs to perform the upgrades,

The advice is to do it in two stages, first to version 1.66 and then to version 1.70 (not sure why, but presumably it's for a good reason).

As far as I know, version 1.70 was the last firmware upgrade for this generation of PVRs.

Downloading the two files (SR07S166.MEM and SR07S170.MEM) seemed to work OK, but then creating a working CD-R has seemed impossible.

Searching the Internet, it seems as though half the population has experienced this problem, with Sony Technical support staff seemingly unable to help, except to quote from their web pages, which I can read without their help.

Does anyone have some helpful suggestions, or better still, maybe someone has successfully created the two CDs (one for each firmware upgrade) and now doesn't need them any more?

Thanks in advance.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Mooly01 — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 08:51:19 GMT

If you suspect an issue with your created discs then have a look at this:

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/home-cinema-projectors-players/hard-disk-rdr-hxd870-lost-digital-channels/td-p/2483843

If your machine is 'Stuck' in an indeterminate state then all you can try initially is:

1/ Press and hold the power button on the front and see if the machine unlocks.

2/ If it doesn't then you have no option but to perform a power disconnect.

Assuming you can get the unit to turn back on normally I would then perform a 'factory reset' which is detailed in the user instruction manual and then try some newly created discs. Lots of people have had issues trying to make discs using the procedure described by Sony (using Windows own burning program).

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

MellowNoma — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 10:33:46 GMT

I have 2 Sony RDR-HXD870 HDD/DVD recorders, but recently, late August 2022 it seems that Freeview have done another upgrade, on 24 August 2022 - EarthxTV and Celebration TV launches on Freeview and other channel changes, and about that date my Sony RDR-HXD870 HDD/DVD recorders were initially stuck in the (software) UPDATE, but now I have done a factory reset to free the hardware, but the hardware has become unable to load the digital program guide, as I have now had to revert to the option of installing the channels as though I live in France or anywhere else that isn't the UK, as that is blocking the hardware it seems, as it did in mid 2013, and in 2019. This is due to the susceptible hardware built-into the recorders, and is only a problem due to it. Sony need to get their experts together and resolve this issue once again

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

HannahEd01 — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:31:18 GMT

Hey MellowNoma, let me just start by saying that this is a user based community, you can reach out to Sony here: https://bit.ly/3S7Vlue.

Regarding your issue, have you tried tuning without the aerial, then with? Or reset?

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 14:24:42 GMT

I have the exact same problem , update is stuck since around the 25th August 2022 . Nothing works even a factory reset will bring you to a black screen and the info banner will change colour. My firmware is to up to date .

I have tried the change of location to France etc which works but gives you the guide plus EPG. Which does not really work as well as the other EPG.I have tried your link going back and forth with a sony agent which appears to be a different one each time , they dont seem grasp the problem, this problem as occured in the past. I suspect its the same cause, a corrupt broadcast channel. Sony dont seem to be that bothered this time around.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Mooly01 — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 05:30:41 GMT

I've no real answers beyond all that has been said in the past.

What transmitter are you on?

Also try a factory reset with NO aerial connected and go through the full retune process to clear any placeholders that may not be erased with a reset. After that try another factory reset and this time have the aerial plugged back.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 08:22:44 GMT

I have tried the factory reset -retune with no aerial many times over the past few weeks -sometimes it works but then the update comes around and It will get stuck again so back in the loop. The replace channel function should work the same way.

What I have found in many experiments is this that actually works. I plug in a standard RF Cable into the Aerial Socket and dont plug it in anywhere else -let it be loose -or rest it on something -this is trial and error to find the sweet spot, then retune , I choose replace channels I may only get a small number of channels -so I reposition my RF Cable. Then rescan again to choosing replace channels if I am lucky I will get more around 86. Then close and the EPG will look like it always did. If its still that awful purple colour I will try changing channals if that does not work I will switch off the machine and switch back on and the colour is back to as its always been. And also with this method it will go through the UPDATE no problem at the regular interval.

I have tried an old indoor aerial -because I dont have a new one -but that also will get stuck when the automatic UPDATE comes around

I am on the Winterhill transmitter.

I only get half the number of channels using the loose RF Cable method but I can still use the normal EPG to record programs. The trade off is the signal quality or strengh will go up and down but stable enough to record programs -although sometimes I may get distortion. I try pluging back in the outside aerial periodcally to see if the problem has been sorted but alas no its not.

This method may not suit everyone -but it works for me until Sony , and the broadcasters and fix this problem properly if ever !

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 08:26:02 GMT

I should say I can also choose UK rather than France or another country when setting up

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Mooly01 — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 10:29:56 GMT

All sounds very strange. I've two of these machines and both are fine (also on Winter Hill).

From memory around 140+ services (channels) are found when scanning or updating the channel list. The 'updates' to the programme list occur at certainly 10am and also 2pm and either 4am or 6am from memory. If you watch the machine at these times it will start up and display 'Update'.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 12:19:45 GMT

I did know about the update times already -I have sent sony customer services many pictures of this -in recent weeks but they are completly useless, and just give me the usual answers factory reset etc , they dont follow through with any kind of technical team -Anyway good your up and running I didnt realize you were.

My machine is slightly different the RDR HXD 995.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 14:41:53 GMT

oh mooly01 -I thought you was the other contributor , I see now you have never had the Update Stuck problem

anyway I plugged back in the outside Ariel for another try doing all the factory reset , no Ariel scan ,factory reset again with Outside Ariel plugged in same result light purple EPG . Channel comes on then black screen. The 2pm update happended right on schedule its 3:40 pm now EPG Update still stuck for 1 hour 40 minutes

So its back to the RF lead for me

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

Mooly01 — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 17:12:01 GMT

I don't know if this would prove anything or not but given that your aerial seems a factor it might be worth seeing just what 'channels (as in multiplexes) it is picking up. I wonder if you are picking up noise or hash that is somehow corrupting things.

On HXD870 series you go to System Menu > Initial Setup > Digital Tuner and then select 'Signal Strength'.

Where it says 'RF channel' at the top use the left and right buttons on the remote to set it to the bottom of the band which is channel 21.

For Winter Hill you should see 'No Signal' for each channel number (step through them from 21 to 69) except for ch29, ch31, ch32, ch34 and ch37. For all these the signal quality should be 100% and the level ideally in the 70 to 90% range.

Exit the screen by pressing System Menu.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

sheneker — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 18:23:26 GMT

Apologies for butting-in, but I've got a couple of these machines and have been trying to upgrade their firmware without any success.

I downloaded the files (SR07S166.MEM and SR07S170.MEM) onto a disc, but I clearly haven't got the correct format, as the machines don't recognise the newer firmware versions on the disc and just sit there doing nothing.

I've asked Sony, but all they do is to quote the website instructions verbatim: "Burn the update file onto a new blank CD-R disc or completely erased CD-RW disc using disc-at-once mode and ISO 9660 CD-ROM file system format".

It's the "disc-at-once mode and ISO 9660 CD-ROM file system format" that I don't understand. They presumably have as much of a clue as I do (i.e. none).

Are there instructions for nit-wits published anywhere, that I might be able to follow and which work?

Also, for those who have done this successfully, can one upgrade the firmware without affecting the recorded material on the HDD, or should one archive that before upgrading the machine firmware?

Apologies for diverting attention from the main topic.

Re: RDR-HXD870 firmware update stuck: what to do???

CaptainAmerica — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 20:23:01 GMT

ok Mooly01 I have looked at the signal strengh/quality before. I have gone into it again with my outside aerial plugged in this is what I get for ch29, ch31, ch32, ch34 and ch37 all 100% signal quality and 100% Signal Strength.

In addition I get ch21,ch24,ch27 all signal quality 100%. But of course as always when the next update happens in the morning it will get stuck again guaranteed. Thanks for your time on this