HD300 locking up periodically

[farscapesg1]

I've seen several similar posts, so I thought I would see if anyone has determined a fix for the issue where the HD300 locks up (purple-ish light) and has to be unplugged for a few minutes and then plugged back in?

For me, this can happen when playing MP3 files, imported videos, or even recorded TV (though recorded TV has only happened once or twice). Sometimes it happens when the media first starts, sometimes in the middle of the show/song. When it does, the blue light has a purplish tint and the box no longer responds to controls. Unplugging and plugging back in just results in the purplish light, but leaving it unplugged for a couple minutes then plugging back in seems to get it going again.

It's gotten to be common enough that my wife had me replace the HD300 with an older HD200 from the bedroom... which leaves us without a TV in the bedroom since the HD300 doesn't have analog audio outputs (just running off a LCD monitor that has a S-video connection).

At this point I'm buying a used HD200 to replace it with and the HD300 will be going on the shelf as a "last resort" if something dies... or to take with me on trips to play media from an external hard drive.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

which leaves us without a TV in the bedroom since the HD300 doesn't have analog audio outputs (just running off a LCD monitor that has a S-video connection).

The breakout cable on the HD300 has the analogue audio output along with the composite video output, what is missing is the S-Video output I'm afraid, but if your LCD has the S-Video input there is the possibility it has a composite input as well, so you might be lucky.

It just breaks my heart the thought of putting an HD300 on a shelf

Eddy

[farscapesg1]

Yeah, the idea of any SageTV hardware sitting on a shelf makes me want to cry Would rather be making good use of it!!

I can't even justify selling it because I'm not sure whether it is hardware related or possibly network related to my house. Maybe on my next business trip I can take it and see if I experience any lockups during standalone use...

[trk2]

What firmware are you running? If I run the latest official release, then I get lockups when playing back mp3 and flac files, typically at a track change. The latest beta firmware has buggy DTS-MA support, which seems to be broken in the 20110217-2 and later firmwares.

I found the best firmware to be 20110124-2. No problems with DTS-MA, support for high resolution menus, and no lock-ups when playing audio files.

[trk2]

I forgot to add that to install the 20110124-2 firmware you have to install the firmware from a usb drive after renaming the files to "stp300.bin" and "stp300.ver".

[osx-addict]

I don't have lock-ups with either of our HD300's but they do power-off at least once a day when starting the playback of a new program -- IF they do it twice there's about a 98% chance you'll get a video encoder error and then the game's over -- a hard-power cycle is required. Different animal than what you're seeing..

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by trk2

I forgot to add that to install the 20110124-2 firmware you have to install the firmware from a usb drive after renaming the files to "stp300.bin" and "stp300.ver".

You can also do the install via telnet.

[farscapesg1]

Originally Posted by trk2

What firmware are you running? If I run the latest official release, then I get lockups when playing back mp3 and flac files, typically at a track change. The latest beta firmware has buggy DTS-MA support, which seems to be broken in the 20110217-2 and later firmwares.

I found the best firmware to be 20110124-2. No problems with DTS-MA, support for high resolution menus, and no lock-ups when playing audio files.

Hmm, I may have to look into that and do some testing. I will say that I found a HD200, replaced it, and haven't had a single lockup downstairs since, which makes the wife and kids very happy.

I'll be going to a conference next week and staying at the hotel, so I'll have plenty of time to test out the "standalone mode" to see if I have the same issues. Of course, I really wish I knew what I did with the break-out cable (can't honestly remember ever seeing it since I've always used HDMI). Hoping the hotel TV's have unlocked HDMI ports.. unlike the hotel in San Francisco I stayed at for VMWorld That was a long week...