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59033

VzKid
@mycingular.net

VzKid to RetiredInFL

Anon

to RetiredInFL

Re: [IMG] New Quantum IMG Build - 3.24.2 (1/26/15)

The March 15th fix was to fix the skip back issue. Luckily it got fixed sooner than that. Have not heard anything on the next update. Seems like most focus right now is on the new legacy IMG 1.9.8 rollout.

Also Verizon doesn't have multiple tiers of tech support. You have the front line techies and then you have the network technicians who work with field techs, FNOC, and the front line agents on things like switching from Moca to Ethernet, etc. We do have people in Mexico that take overflow calls but the majority of your calls will be answered by a union based CSR in the United States.
RetiredInFL
join:2002-11-04
The Villages, FL

1 edit

RetiredInFL

Member

said by VzKid :

The March 15th fix was to fix the skip back issue. Luckily it got fixed sooner than that. Have not heard anything on the next update. Seems like most focus right now is on the new legacy IMG 1.9.8 rollout.

Also Verizon doesn't have multiple tiers of tech support. You have the front line techies and then you have the network technicians who work with field techs, FNOC, and the front line agents on things like switching from Moca to Ethernet, etc. We do have people in Mexico that take overflow calls but the majority of your calls will be answered by a union based CSR in the United States.

Interesting because the first person in "tech support" I spoke with was a lost soul who was obviously following a script of useless basic troubleshooting. When he couldn't help (he finally gave up) he said he was going to transfer me to "higher tier of tech support." This 2nd person I spoke with (a woman) was absolutely brilliant. She had me going through the advanced settings menus and we resolved this issue (signal related).

I was a tech support trainer for a DirecTV call center for a number of years and she treated me as such which is a very rare occurrence. Maybe "tier 2" was a misnomer but then front line support I spoke with was tier minus-10 and she was "real" tech support. I treat all phone support people (no matter how lost they are) with all respect as I was there myself so it wasn't a matter of me giving the first guy a hard time.

All that being said, she told me the fix coming out on 3/15 was going to resolve all the OTHER issues like memory leak etc because we got to talking about how after 3-4 days it would take 15 seconds for a recording to start unless I rebooted.

Edit: And the fact their focus is now on the legacy boxes rather than fixing this MAJOR issue that has been dragging on for many months is very sad if that is indeed the case.
webcobbler
join:2013-03-09
Rumson, NJ

1 edit

webcobbler

Member

MisterEd,

I second that. This has been an issue since September. While I do get that "IF" they have already fixed this Memory Issue, they would want ample time to test it internally for.. 2 months say.

But in terms of things, they will have to push it out to us eventually. It is not like they will say "it's too hard. We will not fix this."

I will also say that when that sweet glorious day arrives, lol, we will all know that it is truly fixed within a few days to a week. 2 weeks at the most. No more rebooting FTW
Timothy28
join:2006-05-13
Lewisville, TX

Timothy28 to VzKid

Member

to VzKid
If they can get a major bug fix out before our sale to Frontier becomes a reality that'd be great.
Timothy28

Timothy28 to crgauth

Member

to crgauth
That's what i heard originally from my source who has been very reliable too. That's supposed to be the update with the features we're lacking from 1.9.8.
webcobbler
join:2013-03-09
Rumson, NJ

webcobbler

Member

It is suppose to be the features we are lacking from 1.9.7, and now 1.9.8. Since they are rolling that out now. lol
Timothy28
join:2006-05-13
Lewisville, TX

Timothy28

Member

lol yes, but you would think the changes made in 1.9.8 would be included in our feature update. I mean why wait? It would make sense to include the minor new features in the same feature build.
webcobbler
join:2013-03-09
Rumson, NJ

webcobbler

Member

IDK. They are still building all of this in HTML5, don't forget. Most likely from the ground up, IMO. Legacy is JAVA.

Branch
:D
Premium Member
join:2014-07-22
VHO 4
Greenwave FiOS-G1100
Actiontec WCB6200Q

Branch

Premium Member

The problem is that it's hard for VZ to test because some of us have the bug and some don't. That may be why it happened in the first place... they just didn't notice it. Obviously, they notice now, but If I had to guess, they have (or think they have) the problem fixed and are testing it internally. I think we all can agree that VZ testing something before rolling it out is a good idea.

I don't want to bother the direct forum, after I have already bothered them so much.

Also Mr. Ed, you most likely spoke to the 'Supervisor'.
ansky
join:2009-05-18
West Orange, NJ

ansky to webcobbler

Member

to webcobbler
said by webcobbler:

IDK. They are still building all of this in HTML5, don't forget. Most likely from the ground up, IMO. Legacy is JAVA.

This is the part I don't get. Why couldn't they just use the same Java software on the Arris boxes that they use on the legacy boxes? Now they have to support two separate code bases.

Branch
:D
Premium Member
join:2014-07-22
VHO 4

Branch

Premium Member

Well, they are phasing out the old boxes, all MRDVR installs now get Arris.

HTML5 also has many benefits over Java.

matcarl
Premium Member
join:2007-03-09
Franklin Square, NY

matcarl

Premium Member

said by Branch:

HTML5 also has many benefits over Java.

So far none of those benefits are showing, seems like more problems.

Branch
:D
Premium Member
join:2014-07-22
VHO 4

Branch

Premium Member

Well that's just because VZ doesn't care enough to fix them, instead pushing updates to the legacy boxes.
ansky
join:2009-05-18
West Orange, NJ

ansky to Branch

Member

to Branch
said by Branch:

HTML5 also has many benefits over Java.

Like what kind of benefits? If you have boxes running Java and they are running perfectly fine, why switch to HTML5?
bsangs
join:2002-08-21
Montclair, NJ

bsangs to Branch

Member

to Branch
said by Branch:

Well, they are phasing out the old boxes, all MRDVR installs now get Arris.

You know, I keep hearing/reading this and yet last week, when I was at my FiOS store to pick up a couple cable cards, I watched two people come in and receive Motorola 7232s and 7100s for their MRDVR setup. So not sure where this information is coming from, but it certainly isn't the case in my area of VHO7.

Branch
:D
Premium Member
join:2014-07-22
VHO 4

Branch

Premium Member

In my area (VHO 4) 2 separate friends of mine ordered MRDVR and got Arris. Maybe it only applies to new installs.
Timothy28
join:2006-05-13
Lewisville, TX

Timothy28 to SeattleMatt

Member

to SeattleMatt
This may sound insane, but i haven't experienced any slowdown from the leak since the UI update to fix the skip bug. Last night my ram on the VMS was down to 130 and everything was snappy still even starting playback. This afternoon the ram is back up to just over 300mb still very snappy. There's no delay in playing back a recording or with the menus or guide. The only thing that took a minute was loading guide data for the next available day. After it loaded the guide didn't freeze for a good 30-60 seconds like it used to. It was a few seconds at most before i could exit out.
pdroth
VHO5
join:2005-01-03
Merrick, NY

pdroth

Member

I'm in VHO 5 and haven't gotten any update. And the skipping is as bad as ever.

Any inside intel if the "fix" is out system-wide?
ansky
join:2009-05-18
West Orange, NJ

ansky

Member

said by pdroth:

I'm in VHO 5 and haven't gotten any update. And the skipping is as bad as ever.

Any inside intel if the "fix" is out system-wide?

Check your settings. Do you have UI version 3248.1? If not, try doing the cold boot method that someone mentioned on the previous page in this thread.
pdroth
VHO5
join:2005-01-03
Merrick, NY

pdroth

Member

I do have 3248.1

Is that the new build? Not impressed if it is.
Timothy28
join:2006-05-13
Lewisville, TX

Timothy28

Member

That's correct. If you are still experiencing skipping i wonder if something else is going on.
RobertMets12
join:2010-10-16

RobertMets12 to pdroth

Member

to pdroth
I'm in VHO 5 the skipping is gone what set top box do you have?.

BosGuy
@verizon.net

BosGuy

Anon

Can someone tell me how to bring up the free memory on my box again - to check for the memory leak. I forgot how to do it. Thank you!

CeeZee
join:2007-04-11
Wynnewood, PA

CeeZee

Member

Hold "D" on the remote for like 10 seconds. When you let go, a white diagnostics screen will come up. Select "diagnostics", then "memory Configuration". Hit Exit to get back to the IMG.

BosGuy
@verizon.net

BosGuy

Anon

Thank you - 1024 free
Timothy28
join:2006-05-13
Lewisville, TX

Timothy28 to SeattleMatt

Member

to SeattleMatt
Mine is down to 151 and i am seeing absolutely now slowdown.

Branch
:D
Premium Member
join:2014-07-22
VHO 4

Branch

Premium Member

Interesting. Perhaps, even though the bug isn't totally fixed, they at least made it so when memory DOES leak, it doesn't slow the whole system down. Granted, I'm probably not the most qualified to talk about this, as I am not affected by said bug.
bull3964
join:2014-09-27
Pittsburgh, PA

bull3964 to SeattleMatt

Member

to SeattleMatt
The amount of free memory left isn't necessarily indicative of a memory leak. Resources are there to be used. Ideally, you would want a significant portion of the memory being used for some purpose (like caching) rather than sitting there idle and empty.

Where things go wrong is when the memory is managed improperly. Ephemeral things like data cache should be aggressively purged when necessary to free memory up for system functions, especially if the functions have an interactive component that effects user experience. If they are slow to purge or the cached data pushes system functions out of active memory, then you can start running into performance issues. The same goes for the memory management itself if it is using too many resources. If the system processor gets tied up trying to figure out what it needs to purge, that can cause performance hiccups throughout the device.

It's not surprising they are having these teething issues when they completely changed the underlying platform for the OS. It's just disappointing that they aren't prioritizing fixing stability and performance and iterating the software quicker to squash more bugs in-between enhancements. Then again, it's not uncommon today either (just look at Google with Lollipop right now.)
JPL
Premium Member
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA

JPL

Premium Member

said by bull3964:

The amount of free memory left isn't necessarily indicative of a memory leak. Resources are there to be used. Ideally, you would want a significant portion of the memory being used for some purpose (like caching) rather than sitting there idle and empty.

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more. All the posts about how available memory drops with usage is interesting... but not really dispositive of anything. As you move the guide out, you SHOULD see your available memory drop. Memory is a resource to be used by your system like any other resource. Memory leaks are vicious because they make the usage of memory very inefficient.
JPL

JPL

Premium Member

To give an indication of what's meant by this, consider this hypothetical example. You fire up your system and you have 1GB of memory to be used. You start using your system, and processes A, B, and C get loaded into main memory and each use 200 MB each. That leaves you with 400 MB free memory. Now, you need to load in process D, which takes an additional 200 MB, but process A is no longer needed. It should be swapped out, and D should be swapped in, leaving you with (still) 400 MB of free memory (take away the 200 MB that are freed up from A being swapped out, and add in the 200 MB that are being used by D). But what if there's a memory leak and process A doesn't free up all the memory that was originally allocated to it? A gets swapped out, and instead of freeing up 200 MB of space, say you only free up 100 MB. Over time, the amount of memory that will be available will drop. But just because available memory drops doesn't mean that your system is working badly. Ideally, when your system is really rocking and rolling, your memory should be pretty close to 100% used. As long as it's being correctly freed up as processes are no longer needed, or are being swapped out, then everything should work fine.

Also realize that memory swaps are relatively expensive. Leave too little true free memory after a swap out (due to a memory leak) and you now have to swap out more processes than you should in order to free up the memory you need for the new process being swapped in. That leads to a nice little effect known as 'thrashing'. Which is even uglier than it sounds. Anyone who has used a computer that's too underpowered for the software you have on it has seen this effect. When you load up, say, MS Office, not every piece gets tossed into memory. Only the parts you really need. Your computer will bring in processes as it needs from disk. But if the computer is underpowered, then it has too little memory to really work efficiently with that software. Forcing your system to have to swap stuff out to disk every time you want to do something new. Causing your harddrive light to never stop flashing.

I think that's basically what was happening with the VMS units. They weren't underpowered, but over time, as memory didn't get adequately freed up, you had less and less to play with for new processes being tossed on the pile. Just because you see memory drop with usage, though, doesn't necessarily mean you have a leak. It could... but JUST looking at the available memory doesn't tell you much.