1176. Return of the Dish Hopper 3 Demon

 I posted a while ago here about memory conflicts causing issues with the Dish Hopper3 that had an OTA attached and used its PRIME interface instead of switching directly to it. Well, this time Dish added channels 151 and 152 to respectively present multiple viewing of some sports channels and the other to find current sports of you liking where you can use its options to customize you favorite sports and teams.  Real nice and desired function. HOWEVER, what came with are the Hopper3 crashes like before. I won't be pursuing this with Dish because they never honored my technical expertise on the other issues in post above and I had to find a workaround. This implementation of the two channels are immediately obvious because they are like other channels. Once there, you can't simply press channel up/down to get off it. You have to back out. That was the first clue that they set up special memory to handle the multiple showings (channel 151) and customized finds (Channel 152). After about 10-12 uses of these I started to have crashes again -- that's what happens when you don't know how to manage dynamic storage needed as required and how to release it and ensure no other operation collides with the active/inactive memory used. Been there, seen that in my career! No workaround for this, so it can have its channel 151 and 152! You can use PIC viewing to show 2 games at a time -- good enough for me for I don't even use it. And the game scores, scheduling, and recording I can handle a different way. Thanks Dish, but no Thanks. Crashing is NOT acceptable. But, if your Hopper3 does crash, try the Satellite button on the left side of the remote to get it back up. I also go to settings to reboot the Hopper3 when this happens to clean up memory.= and any lingering issues

1004. DishNetwork Hopper 3 Google Assist not working

 Here's another Hopper 3 problem. If you are using remote and have muted sound, Goggle assist will not be able to display results of voice request. Hopper 3 WILL understand the verbal request and display that on the screen, but will NOT respond with the answer. FIX? Unmute and everything works. Cold reboot does NOT fix the problem. 

997. Dish Network's OTA a MAJOR problem - 12/02/20 Update

 11/20/2020 Update: I have not used the Prime Video APP since last report (11/10/20) on the Dish Network's Hopper 3 and OTA channels and DVR use to record from them have worked flawlessly. It seems that Prime Video collides with OTA buffers/settings and causes the pixilation and sound interruption problems. So, just don't use Prime Video via the Hopper 3. Instead use Amazon's Fire TV and Internet connection. It is simple to switch from Dish TV to Fire TV via the Dish Remote. Although this is the workaround to prevent the problems, it does not explain what is going on internally that really causes the problems. I would venture to guess the OTA does NOT reserve Dish memory (not on their OTA Adapter) to do some work and Prime Video overwrites it.

12/02/20 Update: Problems resolved entirely (22 days) to date by NOT using Prime Video App. OTA works fine when Prime Video not used.  So, if you want the local channels over Antenna using OTA Adapter, then don't use Prime Video. Instead, get a Fire TV HDMI adapter for your TV and use Dish remove side buttons (TV followed by Input(s)) to switch to Fire TV. Jump back to Dish Satellite again using side buttons (TV followed by Input(s)) until back to Dish Satellite. Simple and just as fast. The only difference is that you will need to use Fire TV remote for Prime.

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I've posted before re Dish Network's Over-the-Air Adapter (OTA) and it's conflict with Prime Video app running on the Hopper 3. Here is a short list of issues with the OTA:

1. If Prime Video app run, it will collide with the OTA running and eventually or even immediate loss of OTA channel, pixilation, and/or broken sound.

2. OTA also has issues with DVR recording, again presenting broken sound and pixilation problems. I have to conclude if these are due to Prime Video running sometime previously without a Hopper 3 boot.

3. Other users have documented in posts on the Internet problem 2 along with a flakey work around where you need to tune-in to the OTA channel to be recorded PRIOR to recording. How do you do this when you aren't present to do so? Suggested was starting a recording on the desired channel to start 3 minutes before schedule. Then start a second recording of the program on that channel to start at the scheduled start time. They claim the first recording will show the corruption, whereas, the second recording will be clean. I haven't tried this -- too weird for me.

Instead, I think I have things resolved by doing the following:

Problem 1 - Never use the Prime Video App on the Dish Hopper 3! Instead, I use the Fire TV adapter and shoot directly to it from Internet instead. I haven't seen a problem since doing this.

Problem 2 - I MUST record OTA channels. So far, I can UNLESS I use Prime Video prior without restarting (rebooting) Hopper 3. I'm still in test mode for this solution. If I find like others that the problem exists without the Prime Video app running, I'll consider Problem 3's solution. 

Bottom Line: The OTA is NOT a well designed adapter. I did read that there is an AirTV adapter that could be used instead that might resolve the issues. We shouldn't have to resort to this. Dish Network needs to get there act together!

990. Dish Hopper3 with OTA and Prime Video App Conflicts and failures

 The following was posted on https://www.dbstalk.com/community/index.php?threads/ota-adapter-and-prime-video-conflict.230121/ . I don't expect any reasonable answer to the problems. It is here because it clearly documents the problem and probable solution to fix it. However, I don't see DishNetwork caring about an OTA error or a Prime Video disruption when it can be remedied by a HOPPER 3 RESTART periodically. It does explain why so many users of the Hopper 3 and OTA are having either temporary lockouts to OTA channels, or occasional pixilation issues, or Internet Connectivity errors when trying to start Prime Video on the Hopper 3 box.

I constantly have OTA service issues, e.g., presents error message offering GUIDE or TROUBLESHOOTING buttons. After dozens of occurrences I have debugged the issues to the following and wonder if others are having same issue:

First, I have a new HOPPER 3 with the OTA Adapter attached
Second I also use the Prime Video APP with my Dish Hopper to view the Prime Video programming.

The Issue: OTA and Prime Video do not "play" together nicely on the Hopper 3. After using the Prime Video APP successively, like daily, eventually within 4-5 days the OTA starts to fail getting to an Over-the Air channel and displays the error message which give you a choice the go to GUIDE or to TROUBLESHOOTING.

Debugging and solutions:
1. TROUBLESHOOTING was useless and discovered nothing
2. Going to GUIDE can be done and selecting the same channel usually fails the same way.
3. Going to GUIDE and selecting a different OTA channel sometimes works and sometimes fails the same way
4. Going to GUIDE and selecting a channel other than an OTA one works and then returning to guide and selecting the failed OTA sometimes works and sometimes doesn't
5. The issue increases in frequency the more you use Prime Video
6. A solution that works, with the exception discussed below, is to hit HOME key on the remote appropriately to get to DIAGNOSTICS. From there go to TOOLS, then select RESTART HOPPER 3. This always clears the issue and things are again good until PRIME VIDEO is used again. Then the issue is repeated as described over 4-5 days before another RESET needs to be done. Now the EXCEPTION which is key: When you do the process to get to the RESTART, if you begin with the error message, i.e., the one giving you the choice to GUIDE or TROUBLESHOOTING, the RESTART will be done successfully, BUT, the Hopper 3 REMEMBERS the current state you are in. That is, after the RESTART, if you try to get to OTA channel you won't! The error will persist! So, ALWAYS get off the error message screen BEFORE you do the RESTART!
7. My conclusion is that memory area are being shared between Prime Video and OTA Adapter code. Two coding problem that are suspect is (1) one of the buggers writes over the others memory. OTA has always been the victim that fails; or (2) memory that is commonly used is NOT being released by one or the other and OTA seems to be one that trips into the rabbit hole every time. That does not mean the Prime Video never fails. One symptom of failing could have been one I had this morning where instead of presenting Prime Video an error came up that indicated that Internet Connectivity failed. Well, wrong, no problem was there and next try at Prome Video worked.
8. I forgot to mention that, yes, instead of the error message, GUIDE/TROUBLESHOOTING, the OTA channel does come up but has the other problems noted on this boar where it randomly pixelates a second or two even up to several times before it is steady OR never. Again, RESTART cleans everything up.

So, Having dealt with operating and other software systems for a quarter century, it was very common for a programmer to either fail to clean up used memory [(2 )above] cluttering the shared memory available to other APPs, or the programmer fails to isolate the memory used for an APP [(1) above] and it gets overwritten by the other APP.

Since there is not one sequence that causes the problem, i.e., nothing repeatable, DISH cannot discover the memory conflicts WITHOUT a DUMP of memory. I invite DISH to contact me here to set up a procedure where I can get a memory dump at the time it is in failure state. Without it, the problem will continue and we users will be forced to work around the issue by doing RESTARTS.

May I add that many OTA issues that cause pixilation or channel lockout as described may happen WITHOUT Prime Video. Prime Video definitely increases to problem frequency. My VIP722 NEVER had an OTA issue, and switching to TV mode instead of Dish Satellite mode also caused NO issues

Can anyone with Prime Video please confirm or not confirm what I discussed above. Thank you.