An install I did a couple months ago with a bunch of equipment included control and install in the rack of 2 motorola qip 7100 2 cable boxes.

These damn things lock up all the time and the guy is always having to power cycle the boxes with the wattbox to get them to respond.

I recently setup an auto reboot of each box at 4am but I am still getting notifications occasionally from wattbox that he is rebooting them.

No clue why they keep doing this. To control them I am using an emitter on the front. Same codes the remote uses. I did connect ethernet to the jacks on the back of each box. Wonder if its somehow related to that. What do these boxes even use the ethernet connection for? Anything at all? Maybe i'll disable those ports on switch and see if that does it.

Or the boxes are just shit. They are both brand new boxes. All new coax from the ONT to router and boxes too. IDK.

I've never used the network ports on Motorola boxes.

Is your customer a channel jumper? I can crash Motorola boxes if I rapidly do a bunch of channel changes.

The Ethernet ports do nothing on those Fios Boxes. They are disabled.

Not a channel jumper. This happens when box is idle. Runs the macro to watch fios, box displays video but loses all IR control until a reboot is performed.

Every time? Rarely? Evenings only?
I've seen a squirrely IR command that 'works' most of the time.
To test this, make a new page on the remote. On that page put a button for each step of the macro so you can step through it using the commands in your remote. Maybe one particular command will screw things up.

Maybe it's timing. Add time delays to the macro. If channel skipping might confuse the box, maybe a fast macro will.

No not every time. Sometime is daily. Sometimes is once every 4 days, etc.

Sometimes its one box. Sometimes it's both. Diff times of day. Just totally stops responding to all IR commands. Like every IR command on a stock fios remote you'd get with the box.

The emitter is passing the IR for sure when this happens, the box just won't respond. When this happens i've tried the OEM fios remote too. No go. Reboot the thing and all is well again for awhile.

What macro / codes are being sent to the box on the on or startup command?

gerard143,

Of course, we shouldn't rule out defective cable boxes. One can easily be blindsided after one assumes that the issue must be ... or cannot be ... .

After you reboot the cable boxes, will they respond to the OEM remotes? I ask because you had to mask the IR emitters in order to avoid cross talk. If the masking is really effective, it might block the OEM remotes.

How are you controlling the boxes? Is the IR emitter signal clean? I once had a very unusual issue with an IR extender. There were reports of intermittent operation that did not make much sense. I took a scope to the site and watched the signal returned from the IR sensor. We had previously replaced that sensor and the situation did not improve. There was a little "chatter" on the IR signal lead, but nothing major. I was watching during the day, there were no lights and it was impossible for direct sunlight to hit the sensor. However, as the sun moved around the (tree shaded) house it was clear that the "chatter" was increasing. By accident I noticed that when I stood on a particular spot, the "chatter" stopped. Directly behind me was a small section of wall that used a specialty wall paper and it was getting strong, but not direct sunlight. Students of quantum mechanics would have a wet dream about this situation. After installing a sun filter in a no sun situation, the "chatter" was gone. The client watched mostly after dark. I'm speculating that the room lights also excited the wall.

If the IR signal is not clean, it will seem like an extremely long IR code that could overrun a buffer and cause a crash.

You can create a good IR blackout shield with aluminum foil. Electrical tape is not necessarily opaque to IR.

I see that in not writing an overly long and detailed question, my point was missed. I was asking if the problem happens every time he uses the FIOS macro. I then went on to suggest other frequencies of occurrence....

So,
Does it happen every time he uses the FIOS macro? Or sometimes, but only when the FIOS macro is used? In other words, is every occurrence triggered by the FIOS macro? When you wrote "Runs the macro to watch fios, box displays video but loses all IR control until a reboot is performed," I thought maybe THE FIOS MACRO is the source of the problem.

Ernie,

No the issue is random. Can work for days running macro and not have an issue.

Buzz, the ir emitters do have the covers over them so yes it is harder to get oem remote to work unless you get right up next to emitter. But nonetheless it still doesn’t work when locked up and does immediately after reboot. Also the rack is behind a closed door in a closet. No sun or lights in there.

gerard143,

Is there a correlation with the number of IR commands given, regardless of time frame? Particular channels watched? Audio or video format of channels watched or cable box audio or video setup?

At this point I think that you should start a dialog with the cable company.

Goes like this. Watch tv works fine. Power off macro. Power back on later and sometimes Won’t respond to IR.

Try disabling all power commands to the cable box. I always leave them ON. There are no cable box Power commands presented to the user, nor are there any Power commands in my macros.

Unless there is something very odd about your IR commands, I suspect the cable boxes. Try having the cable provider reload firmware to the boxes.

where are the boxes located in the rack? I see this problem intermittently on TW cable boxes in my area but the only time it was consistent was due to the fact the original installer had both boxes stacked on top of each other in a shelf right above an Integra receiver, so the heat build up was exacerbating the issue 100 fold

Cables boxes are set to not power off. These ones generally just go into standby with a screensaver that says press menu. No power command is sent. When I did the job I posted on the RTI forums and someone said for those he uses a macro that works good for power on macro. It wakes it and bypasses that screensaver quickly too. Sends menu command and remove the default .3 sec wait time for IR and switch to .1 then send exit.

It’s a 16 u rack. From bottom going up two Denon receivers then two fios boxes and on up from there with other devices. Closet is small with a closed door. Mainly fits rack with a couple inches on side and few inches above .

Three areas I have interest in potential causes. Ethernet Ports I connected to switch causing an issue. Heat. That .1 wait time in macro versus a .3

The heat thing idk. Why would a simple reboot fix Ir control. Like I said box still shows a picture. Just no IR at times until a reboot.

I can see the temp of the router at the top of the rack. 149 degrees as we speak. This could be processor temp idk. The ambient air inside the closet is definitely nowhere near that hot.