I'm mounting a couple of new TVs for a client. Her DirecTV system consists of ONLY an HS-17, a C41W, a C-61W and a WVBR0-01. And,a couple of Samsung 49" TVs.

This is where it gets weird. I've only put in a couple of DirecTV systems with wireless video bridges and they all seemed straightforward. This one, not so much, since there's no power connected to the bridge, its pilot light is understandably dark, disconnecting it seems to have no effect... and the two wireless receivers just chug along, seeming to work fine without the bridge.

How can this be? What's the bridge actually for?

Thanks.

EDIT: added ONLY and TVs in first paragraph.

EDIT: corrected dumb typo in title.

More info.

I moved the Genie and voila, no TV until I add power to the bridge and start again. Makes sense.

Disconnect bridge power, still works. Genie has two green lights. Bridge light alternates between green and yellow. (At some angles it looks like green and red.)

The HS-17 has a wireless video bridge built into it!

You really need to find a DirecTV installer you can slip some $, to come work on things for you when needed. You can NOT be screwing around with these systems Ernie if you don't even understand their basic features.

No wireless video bridge with HS17 it is built in.

I read your responses. You're right -- I've been doing mostly commercial installs and am not up on the HS-17. But think a bit with me:

The equipment was installed by a DirecTV installer. I did not add the bridge. Who would you suppose brought it to the condo and left it there? Nope, it wasn't me.

When I realized the bridge wasn't powered, I was blown away, but hey, everything was working. But then when I moved the Genie ( that is, I powered it down and powered it back up again), I wrote my first post here.

At that moment the HS-17 was on the second floor and about six feet above the C41W when "no server was found."

When the system gives the notice "no server was found," are you supposed to stand there waiting for it to go find one again?

The above was just the C41W operating. I Then put the rest of the system back together (connecting the C61W to power). The client and the server were about 15 feet apart on the same floor. Again, no server was found.

What is illogical about trying out the equipment that's in the house?

My point is, you seem to be involved with a lot of DirecTV installs. You should take a few moments of your time and read thru all the info about DirecTV systems, so that you are familiar. You don't have to become an expert but you do need to know all the components and how they work.
Solid Signal has a lot of good info on their site for this kind of thing.
https://blog.solidsignal.com/

DirecTV tech = idiot! This why I mentioned 'finding' a DirecTV guy in your area. Because most are going to be garbage and it will take awhile to find one that is competent. When you find one, slipping him an extra $50 or $100 when he comes out to work on a system, will go a long way to incentivizing them to do a good job and make sure everything works correctly before he closes the work order.

The new DirecTV equipment is flaky as hell. So yes, getting the "no server was found" is common. You have to reboot things, reconfigure things, until it finally decides to work. It is a PITA.
Note: Wireless DirecTV clients are the devil! You should avoid them in an install at all cost. Being you lose some picture quality with wireless clients as well, you should always try everything in your power to get a coax to the client location 1st, before diving into the hell that will follow working with a wireless client box.

Yup, and the the wireless bridge will real some havoc on your WiFi!!!

Brad,
Thanks for the advice. It's all good.

It's pretty hard to apply, however, in this case.
*All equipment was in client's home when I went to hang two TVs and,
oh, yes, incidentally, please move the HR-17 away from the floor next to the chest of drawers in the bedroom.
*Right there, we see, DirecTV guy = idiot.
*Following up with the client to see how this combination of parts got into her house, they came in at various times and she doesn't remember what was where before she moved to this address.
*Finding an installer in "my area" wouldn't help a lot. My odometer usually reads more than twenty miles when I arrive at any particular jobsite. I basically work in Los Angeles County, a bit more than four thousand square miles.
*Given that her system used two wireless clients and no other "receivers," how would one apply your advice to "them in an install at all cost." I should have refused to do any work in her place?

Thanks for the blog referral. I've looked for DirecTV information and have had a hard time finding it, almost as though they don't want people to be able to find it. I'll mine that for what I can. I've been pretty good with DirecTV equipment before these triangular Genies. I've even got one house using DECA to supply satellite and network throughout the house, with no failures in three years of use. THAT I understand.

What sort of range does the HS-17's RF signal have? The DECA system that I have had working for three years has never had a service interruption. The Wireless Bridge in that system is some 60 feet from one wireless client, on a different floor, and with three walls in between. Never a single complaint.

The HS-17 in my recent client's condo is six feet above the C41 and fifteen feet from the C61, so I take it that signal strength per se is not the reason the server is not found. I look forward to having the time to read the blog!

1) You were contracted to install 2 TVs? Did that include installing the wireless DirecTV clients? If so, then I would have had the conversation about how flaky those boxes are and may not work consistent & reliably. If coax was available at the TVs (or able to fish coax to the locations), then I would have given a quote on that and recommend replacing the wireless boxes with regular boxes.
If they choose to go with the wireless clients anyway, then not my problem if they flaked out after a proper install - customer was warned. To quote that grand YouTube video "F^ you, pay me".
Really... this is a DirecTV problem anyway. Customer needs to call them after they write me my check for installing the TVs. End of disscussion unless they want to pay a lot of money for me to help fix their 'DirecTV' problem.

2) You can NEVER give an accurate summary of what to expect from ANYTHING wireless. The world just doesn't work like that. Some things and brands are much better at wireless than others, but there is NEVER a guarantee of performance.
I have seen those DirecTV wireless boxes work 80+ feet thru walls from the wireless bridge before. I have also seen them flaking out at only 20ft away. They use WiFi channels, so interference is a real issue in crowded areas.

I was contracted to install two televisions. You're reaching way beyond what I was there to do.


Insofar as the TV has not been properly installed if the DirecTV client that was sitting on the floor is still sitting on the floor. When I finished, that client was on the back of the TV... is that "installing wireless DirecTV clients"?


The few of those boxes I have in installs I've done are working perfectly, though slower to react than older product. I am not aware that those boxes are flaky. I've seen many complaints here about DirecTV but I can't say I've seen "those boxes are flaky" or "they don't work right away" or much of any other complaint with much detail.


Do you consider "not my problem" a difficulty that the client will pay you to work through to correction? I'd say that's my problem in that I'm hired to solve problems as well as straight out install things.


So... you're installing two TVs. You unwire and rewire, and the first one you rewire says "server not found." Do you, at that point, say "I installed things properly and I'm going to ignore this message now because it's DirecTV's problem. That seems to be the steps you'd take to express that last paragraph.


THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY VALUABLE COMMENT. I say all the time that wired is better than wireless but I will definitely extend this comment to wireless boxes! I was apparently misled by the first few that I put in, that worked perfectly!

A note about the DirecTV installation: The place is a two-story condo on top of a garage. The DirecTV wiring consists of
*a living room location where an RG-6 comes out of the wall and connected to the bridge;
*an RG-6 in the upstairs bedroom;
*two RG-6 that come out of the TV box in the garage and connect to two other cables in that box via F81s.

I was not there to work on the satellite!

When I saw those wires, and only those, and no indication which wires might have been from the dish, I just left the wires alone. I was not there to work on the satellite.

So were the 2 wireless client boxes working before you installed the 2 TVs? If they were, when you powered them back up, they should have automatically connected to the HR-17's built in video bridge. If that didn't happen, its a DirecTV problem.
That extra video bridge you found 'unpowered' should have stayed that way (and removed from the system so it never got powered back up again). It could be that you powering it up, caused the wireless clients to jump to it. And now they expect to connect to that only, which no longer works correctly for that type system (Genie 2). So you stepped on a landmine, should have left that alone.
Only other thing to try is: Remove that video bridge. Power down the server and clients for 10+ minutes. Power the HR-17 server back up 1st (give it 6+ minutes to completely boot). Then power 1 wireless client back up (give 2+ minutes). Then the other wireless client. See if they will work then. If not - DirecTV problem.

So yes, they need to call DirecTV and have them fix it for free (it's their service). Or they can pay me 'however long it takes' to try and fix the problem. But in your circumstance (and if the customer can't use wired boxes), I would absolutely bounce this to DirecTV to fix 'their' problem.

Again, being how many issues I have seen with those wireless POS boxes, I really wouldn't want to mess with that system unless wired boxes could be supplied. Other than trying the quick basics, let DirecTV handle that wireless BS.

Brad. Thanks for the details. They go into my recipe book.

The system is working without the bridge and I'm leaving it that way. Nothing needs fixing.

The problems were
a)I forgot that wireless is undependable.
b)I did not know that the HS-17s had the bridge built in.
c)It did not occur to me that boot up would take some three or more minutes.

So wait... we just had this long drawn out post and the system works? Ernie! *facepalm*

Yes, the HR-17 takes a long time to 'completely' boot. Within a minute or two it can be supplying tuners to clients. But for everything to be working, including the auto client discovery feature, it can take over 6 minutes sometimes.
The client boxes don't take nearly as long. But I still like to give them 2+ minutes before I start messing with them.

This long drawn out thread consists of me saying under what conditions things were and were not working. Your last post makes it sound like I said it never worked.

Because it took as long as six minutes to completely boot, at more than one point it looked like the extra video bridge was actually required.... I'd start things up, get nothing in a reasonable amount of time, connect the video bridge, it would then finish booting...

It might help if the damn thing would not put up the message "no server found" when it means "no server found yet but we're stupid so we take a long time to boot." This whole thing reminds me of Bart Simpson saying "This is the worst day of my life," only to have Homer correct him, "you mean this is the worst day of your life so far."