Brighthouse cablebox Explorer 4250HDC question?

[Brent94Z]

Hey Guys!

I've got two of these boxes that I've had for the past year or so. I nearly always just leave these boxes ON and turn the TV on and off... the boxes don't use much power and it is just one less button to press Anyway, this worked great for the first 11 months but in the last month or so, BOTH of my boxes seem to turn off randomly in the middle of the night??? It might run for 4 or 5 days with no problems but then sometimes it turns off on its own a couple nights in a row. This is really a problem for me because I record off the box using an HD PVR and the box has the same 'button' to power it on/off (same remote command). Because of this, I'm missing a few recordings when I don't catch that the box powered itself off.

Does anybody else have one of the Explorer 4250HDC boxes from Brighthouse and notice a similiar behavior? Any ideas on how to "fix" it? I looked through the setup and there are no options that I've found to ensure it stays on all the time. Both boxes are connected to their TV by HDMI. Since this started happening to both boxes around the same time frame I'm wondering if Brighthouse sent an update to the boxes or something that allows them to "see" when the TV isn't on for a certain period of time and shuts down the box if the TV isn't on? Sounds strange, I know, but I'm pretty sure I don't have stray RF signals bouncing around my house in the middle of the night turning off my cable boxes. LOL

Thanks!

[Razillian]

My brighthouse STB (its a Pace I think) shuts off on its own overnight on occasion. From what I was told my their techy people after the box refused to output any video following one of these power-offs, Brighthouse updates/reboots the boxes periodically for system maintenance and firmware upgrades.

I've thought about setting my system up to periodically send out a power on signal to the STB, but the power on and power off IR code is the same (as far as I can tell) so that would produce a huge problem.

[Brent94Z]

Thanks for the info and that is exactly my problem as well. I can't send the "on" command because that will turn it OFF 95% of the time! haha

If there was only a way to check to see if the box was actually on or not. I suppose I could set a video camera up to monitor the on/off indicator and if OFF then send the ON command. But, that's a lot of work and I don't want a camera setup in my living room pointing at my cablebox. LOL

[Brent94Z]

I talked to a tech today from Brighthouse that actually knew what he was talking about. Unfortunately, there is no way to really "fix" this problem. They have 3 different HD cable boxes and have been sending down a lot of updates the past month or so (why I'm seeing it so much) and each cable box will NOT restart after the update and will stay OFF.

There is a "semi-fix" though and, at least on my box, in the settings I have the ability to turn the box ON at specified times. The Brighthouse guy said the updates normally are sent out around 2am. So, I'm going to have the box come on at 2:30am daily. The difference here as compared to just blasting an IR "On/Off" command is that if the box is already ON it won't turn OFF!