how long should a forced update take on a Pace 2200 sky box

[rmb]

Hi,

My pace 2500 digibox has a failed tuner. I confirmed this by using another box to prove the Dish & LNB were ok.

I 'won' a Pace 2200 on ebay to replace it. Plugged in yesterday, all seemed well but a handfull of channels showed 'no signal received', this did not seem to relate to the h or v polarity.I have checked this on a web site giving these details Swiched it on tonight & all I had was BBC1 & 2, & a blank EPG. I unpluged & replugged & it came back. I checked the EPG sofware, version 3.2.1. out of date. I thought this could be the problem

I have tried a forced update. ( power off, card out, hold reset button till all LSD's light.)

It has been 'updating' for an hour now. How long should I leave it? I will have to disconect it from the power if it has not altered by the morning. Any advice please to force an update & would this cause my problem?

Thanks

[Jimdefruit]

Hi rmb, welcome to the Satellite Help forum.

I did a troll and found the following info:

Firmware updates

Whether or not you update your firmware as soon as you hook up your Digibox depends upon what you feel. Be aware that updates can be sent to your box from the Sky satellites at 28.2E. If your box suddenly reboots in the middle of a programme that you were watching - your firmware was probably updated...



To update your firmware, you must ensure that you have a VERY GOOD signal. A weak signal and/or corrupted upgrade can render your Digibox a little lump of scr@p metal...

The procedure is as follows:
Unplug the box. Count to thirty.

Press and hold down the back up button on the front panel (not the remote control).

Plug the box back in, with back up still held.

After a few moments all four of the indicators will light up.

You can let go of the 'back up' button now. :-)

The upgrade process is 'expected' to take around fifteen minutes. It took me just six, but maybe that was good luck.
DO NOT TOUCH THE BOX!!!
Seriously, don't touch it, don't alter anything, don't unplug it, and if you get a power failure - you're probably buggered.

When the upgrade is complete, the indicators will return to the normal 'standby' mode. Personally I'd have liked the box to switch itself on and go to the system information screen or something, but I guess that is too much like being useful...

I do not know exactly how/when the critical part of the upgrade takes place. It would seem sensible to build the FlashROM image in system memory, check it, and then commit it to FlashROM in one go. This means the critical part of the upgrade would actually only be about ten seconds (the FlashROM programming time). I've heard it suggested that the FlashROM is programmed block by block - which seems to me to be entirely silly (but, perhaps, not as silly as not having a little bit of boot load ROM that is capable of reflashing the box if the FlashROM is corrupt?).
As you can imagine, I'm not going to abort the firmware upgrade at various points in order to report on what is safe and what isn't!

If anybody has experience with aborted upgrades, or if you happen to work for Pace (or another of the Digibox manufacturers), I would appreciate it if you could email me and clarify the procedure regarding firmware upgrades...



More thoughts on this
The firmware is provided as a compressed file, about 960K-ish. This is decompressed using an unusual algorithm to be about 1.5Mb of data. This 1.5Mb is then committed to FlashROM in one go, as far as I can tell.
There appears to be 128K of boot ROM, but I do not currently know if this is capable of restoring a damaged firmware upgrade.
Several sources indicate that a Digibox, once manually instructed to update its firmware, will keep trying until it succeeds.

If you have the older firmware, you may be used to the Digibox messing up channel updates so that programme information appears to go 'missing' as well as entire channels (including those you were just watching) becoming 'unavailable' when you try to select them, and also the box getting stuck 'Searching for listings' when you try to view the EPG.
All of these problems appear to have been cured in the newer firmware! Yay!
If you are not certain that your signal is good enough, just hook up your box and watch TV. You may discover at some stage the box will reset itself (typically in the middle of something you're watching! A quick flick to the system status and you'll see the new firmware has been installed 'in the background'.


I 'won' a pace box a while back on that favourite auction site and had similar problems to you. I just left the box connected and eventually it updated. From memory, I left it on Sky News overnight and that did the trick.

[BGonaSTICK]

OK, I think that covers the forced update. Leave it 24 hours, unplug from mains for 10 mins and then power up again. If no change, repeat process. Sometimes it can take 3 or 4 tries.

To be honest, it sounds like the tuner has gone in your 'new' 2200

The Pace boxes are notorious for failed tuners. I replaced the tuner in my box myself, and it wasn't too hard.

See http://www.satellitehelp.co.uk/forum...hp?topic=348.0

STICK

[Jimdefruit]

Just another thought rmb. You need the card in for the system to update. Information is held on the card to give your area location.

Mine is a bitch because it came from Scotland and the card was ex subscription. I asked Sky to change the location so that I didn't get BBC1 Scotland and ITV1 Scotland as default on channels 1 and 3. Sky said that because it was ex-subscription they couldn't change it. I now have to fiddle about remembering the codes for my region.

At least with my Dreambox, all the channels are listed alphabetically. Its so much easier.

[BGonaSTICK]

You should sell your card on eBay Jim. Then take the £35 and spend £20 of it on a correctly-coded one from Sky

[rmb]

Hi all, thanks for advice. After posting I left the box 'updating' & it was still doing so in the morning. Good news is that I had to turn off the power to it & it came back on without any apparent damage but still on the old 3.2.11 EPG. and still not receiving all channels. On the 'Satcure' forum I found someone having similar problems with the channels & it was because he was using this 3.2.11 EPG & not the 3.4.4 latest update. after updating it he reported that it cured the problem( well he has not posted again). If I can get it to update I hope it will cure the problems. On the 'Melksham Satellites ' web site they reckon it could take a few days after updating for the problem to go away.

I will try another forced up date tonight, leave it on for a week & see what happens to the EPG.

I suppose as the 2200 is working 'sort of' I have not got a lot to lose (£15) by trying to replaces the tuner in the Pace 2500, as described on the site. I am reluctant to hand Sky another £65 for a repair!

Will report back next week. I will be checking regularly if any More info comes to light.

Thanks

[BGonaSTICK]

Seeing as your box is now breathing again, I would just leave it plugged in, with the card inserted, dish connected, on a working channel and let nature take its course (as opposed to forcing the update).

I've never heard of the firmware problem whereby only some channels work, but then I don't deal with many digiboxes.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

STICK

[rmb]

Hi,

Latest update, good news. Turned box off Friday morning. Turned on in the evening with reset button held in.
Update lights all lit. This time, after 5 minutes box went to standby & had updated to EPG software 3.4.4b

This has solved all the missing channel problems. Moral of story, don't condemn the box as faulty if it has not got the latest software & keep trying the updates, seems it will go in it's own time. Maybe Sky only broadcast the update info on certain days or times?

Cheers,

RMB (0);

[BGonaSTICK]

Good news.



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