Virgin Media diagnostics - udder & bull?

[David]

Our VM box refused to come out of standby this morning.

After some twiddling and fiddling I ran the online VM diagnostics.
It reported that all was fine with our installation.

Hmmm.....thinks I.
I then powered the box off and disconnected the cable feed so there was no
way it could be interrogated.

I ran the diagnostics again and it still reported that all was well.
i.e it was lying.

After connecting it all up again and powering up it has now reported that
there is a major problem with the DVR which will take 3 hours for an
attempted fix.

It isn't all that long since we had our TiVo box (IIRC) replaced because
of a hard drive failure.

I am now wondering if they will use this as an excuse to upgrade our box
again, on condition that we renew our contract (which has lapsed).

I am not convinced that I want to be in a 12-18 month contract when FTTP
is looming on the horizon as an alternative.

Cheers



Dave R

[Tweed]

Post by David
Our VM box refused to come out of standby this morning.
After some twiddling and fiddling I ran the online VM diagnostics.
It reported that all was fine with our installation.
Hmmm.....thinks I.
I then powered the box off and disconnected the cable feed so there was no
way it could be interrogated.
I ran the diagnostics again and it still reported that all was well.
i.e it was lying.
After connecting it all up again and powering up it has now reported that
there is a major problem with the DVR which will take 3 hours for an
attempted fix.
It isn't all that long since we had our TiVo box (IIRC) replaced because
of a hard drive failure.
I am now wondering if they will use this as an excuse to upgrade our box
again, on condition that we renew our contract (which has lapsed).
I am not convinced that I want to be in a 12-18 month contract when FTTP
is looming on the horizon as an alternative.
Cheers
Dave R

I doubt that VM are that well organised. You’ll be glad to jump to FTTP. MY
IDNet connection over CityFibre is better in every metric than VM,
including cost. I jumped ship a year ago after decades with VM.

[David]

Post by David
Our VM box refused to come out of standby this morning.
After some twiddling and fiddling I ran the online VM diagnostics.
It reported that all was fine with our installation.
Hmmm.....thinks I.
I then powered the box off and disconnected the cable feed so there was
no way it could be interrogated.
I ran the diagnostics again and it still reported that all was well.
i.e it was lying.
After connecting it all up again and powering up it has now reported
that there is a major problem with the DVR which will take 3 hours for
an attempted fix.
It isn't all that long since we had our TiVo box (IIRC) replaced because
of a hard drive failure.
I am now wondering if they will use this as an excuse to upgrade our box
again, on condition that we renew our contract (which has lapsed).
I am not convinced that I want to be in a 12-18 month contract when FTTP
is looming on the horizon as an alternative.

Update:

Once beyond the simple web interface, reporting the fault over the phone,
got a link to further diagnostics.

This time it admitted that it couldn't connect to the TV box, and
scheduled an engineer visit for Monday.

Meanwhile to box is stuck in a "DVR problem" diagnostic loop which is now
about a minute not 3 hours.

Cheers



Dave R

[David]

Post by David

Post by David
Our VM box refused to come out of standby this morning.
After some twiddling and fiddling I ran the online VM diagnostics.
It reported that all was fine with our installation.
Hmmm.....thinks I.
I then powered the box off and disconnected the cable feed so there was
no way it could be interrogated.
I ran the diagnostics again and it still reported that all was well.
i.e it was lying.
After connecting it all up again and powering up it has now reported
that there is a major problem with the DVR which will take 3 hours for
an attempted fix.
It isn't all that long since we had our TiVo box (IIRC) replaced
because of a hard drive failure.
I am now wondering if they will use this as an excuse to upgrade our
box again, on condition that we renew our contract (which has lapsed).
I am not convinced that I want to be in a 12-18 month contract when
FTTP is looming on the horizon as an alternative.

Once beyond the simple web interface, reporting the fault over the phone,
got a link to further diagnostics.
This time it admitted that it couldn't connect to the TV box, and
scheduled an engineer visit for Monday.
Meanwhile to box is stuck in a "DVR problem" diagnostic loop which is
now about a minute not 3 hours.

Confirmed that it is the very common HDD failure.

Box swap, again.

Recordings lost, again.

Another V6 box, so no push to upsell.

Cheers




Dave R

[Roderick Stewart]

Post by David
Our VM box refused to come out of standby this morning.
After some twiddling and fiddling I ran the online VM diagnostics.
It reported that all was fine with our installation.
Hmmm.....thinks I.
I then powered the box off and disconnected the cable feed so there was no
way it could be interrogated.
I ran the diagnostics again and it still reported that all was well.
i.e it was lying.
After connecting it all up again and powering up it has now reported that
there is a major problem with the DVR which will take 3 hours for an
attempted fix.
It isn't all that long since we had our TiVo box (IIRC) replaced because
of a hard drive failure.
I am now wondering if they will use this as an excuse to upgrade our box
again, on condition that we renew our contract (which has lapsed).
I am not convinced that I want to be in a 12-18 month contract when FTTP
is looming on the horizon as an alternative.
Cheers
Dave R
--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

Even if you only have FTTC, as long as it's more than about 10Mb/s it
wouldn't cost much to try a streaming stick and see how it goes. In
fact you don't even need to buy a streaming stick, as any old spare
computer could be pressed into service as a temporary measure. If it
hasn't already got an HDMI output, any cheap graphics card will do.

My first TV streaming device was an old computer running Windows 7
(and later Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Windows 7 and Windows 11, all of which
worked well). Once you have a browser set up with shortcuts you will
rarely need anything other than a mouse on the coffee table to control
your viewing.

Rod.