Verizon FiOS TV → IMG Bugs and missing features FAQ

We've seen over the past few weeks several times where a show is set to record and even indicates it's being recorded when we check the guide. However, when we go to watch it all we see is an error message saying it's an invalid recording. I called Verizon Tech Support and was told that "the guide was not working up to expectations" and a fix would be coming out in a few days. In the mean time my wife wants me to go back to Comcast.

I know the feeling, Directv sent me a flier today and I would be liar if I said there wasn't a voice telling me to switch. To make things even worse, various HD channels have begun to freeze up and tile lately.

BTW, no I haven't forgotten about updating the FAQ. I've been insanely busy with work and have had little free time, yet alone time to work on the FAQ. However, I've got some time off coming in the next couple days.

Hi: I don't see anything on a 0 second recording in this FAQ -- I frequently get a recorded program of 0 seconds which when played says that this is a bad recording or unsubscribed channel... Verizon has said that this is part of the known series recording bug -- anyone else have this problem?

A lot of people have mentioned it. Here's a recent one

»Anoter bad recording with 2.0

I spoke with a tech today who assured me that a firmware update is rolling out before the end of October that will fix the DVR hard drive space issue, the custom guide issue, as well as some other features. I asked him if he actually believed that this would be rolled out this month, and he told me that's what they had been told. So we'll see. He also said that they do read these forums and take suggestions from them, so hopefully this isn't just disgruntled venting, but actually helping the situation.

I was told an update was coming weeks ago when I called and complained. I wouldn't hold my breath with this latest promise date.

I get this too. VZ told me they 'had never heard of this error before'. Ha ha, so many people have posted about this error I find that hard to believe. My wife keeps missing Desparate Housewives...I'm secretly kind of happy about not having to watch this, but still.

I have this problem a lot.

I sometimes like to watch older shows and with FIOS, we now get American Life TV and Sleuth, to name two. Well, with many older shows, some episodes I'd like to see again, and others I'd just as soon pass. But, the episode descriptions in the guide sometimes leave a lot to be desired. Makes it hard to tell if I want to watch/record a show or not. And, the lack of one-channel-at-a-time searchabilty is frustrating at times. Hopefully these problems, and more, will be fixed before 2008. Mark F.

Looks like updating the FAQ has been put on hold until a moderator can give me access to edit my original post. After finally updating the FAQ I noticed I'm unable to edit posts after a certain amount of time.

if you go to the menu and into search, and type in the channel name it will show you programs just on that channel. it's not as fast or fancy looking as the guide, but as you scroll the through the programs it should bring up a mini description of each.

Although I'll agree that in general the guide data leaves a lot to be desired, I've frequently noticed things being off by an hour, programs that are now labeled "bumped due to deletion" and other things like incorrect labels (ESPN2 was this way just an hour ago, had the data for last Saturday's football matchups).

And I'm hopefully it doesn't take until 2008, I'm pretty sure my landlord is moving back into town which means she'll want her house back, I don't know if I'll get Verizon where I move to next, and I really like the service over all.

I just got my 4th DVR box from Verizon to try to fix the randon rebooting (in the middle of a recording) and horrendous noise issue. I noticed one item that I had not noticed before -- when I turn on the box and tv and it is on a channel that is currently being recorded, I get a black screen. When one tuner is recording and the other is free it does not even change to the channel being recorded. Is this a new "feature"? I am pretty sure in the past, it would just show me the current state of the program and indicate that it was being recorded. Anyone else seeing the same thing?

Not sure if already reported but one other bug/missing feature. When pausing a show, after approx 15 minutes, the pause time runs out and the show skips to live programming (rather than continuing from where it was paused).

Well, after seeing all these bad experiences I have been tempted to reply several times saying that my upgrade process to the new img went pretty smoothly. That is until today when I needed to unplug by DVR. After powering back on I come to find that I have lost all the my recordings from the past two weeks. And now when I try and delete certain shows, my DVR power cycles itself. Really bad timing considering all the new shows and episodes that are airing.

Welcome to the club.

Makes me wonder how long this is going to take to fix because it's seemingly random. It took you a few months to run into problem when I ran into them from the get go and others still haven't run into problems.

Here's a problem I'm having if anyone is listening. Whenever I pick up a recording that is still taping when I try to start watching (which i like to do with sports to ff through commercials), when I hit play it takes me to the end of the recording (or real time). Not a huge deal but pretty annoying, especially if I'm doing this for a game and I inadvertently see the score-sadly, now, whenever i do this, in order to protect myself, i hold my hand out to cover the part of the screen that would show the score. And I pay $15/month for a DVR where I have to do this?

Oops... Well, since you have done all of the work, maybe you could post the updated FAQ (either to this thread or to a new thread) until the moderator gives you access. Thanks for doing all of work .

I totally agree with this one. Pause a football game to go do some laundry and when you come back, it's live! You have to rewind to get back to where you paused (and you have to do that screaming cover your eyes thing to avoid seeing the score). After pausing, it should start playing from where you paused.

I've got one more that I haven't seen mentioned. In the old IMG, there used to be a setting in series recording to keep until I delete (or something similar). The new IMG does not have this option. The problem? If you record shows on the HD Food Network (like Puala Dean that air 10 times/day), the DVR will always record a new episode deleting the old one (I don't want to set it to only record new episodes only, since many of the old ones I haven't seen). Not a big deal until it ties up all your tuners when you're trying to schedule long football games.

I want to be able to record one episode of a series (and no more) until I delete it! This is standard TiVO functionality and was a feature removed from the previous version of the IMG.

I got another one. When wathing a recording over multi-room from my dumb STB in the bedroom to the DVR downstairs, If I hit the 30 second skip ahead button, it 'rewinds' to the beginning, most of the time. Not always. Once it happens to a recorded show, it always happens. Even the next day after rebooting both boxes. Argh! I love the 30 second skip ahead.

Just got installed--please tell me how I can find which version of the IMG I have.

Thanks

All of NY still has the old guide

Add me in for the green line bug. I'm using a Westinghouse 42" with only one HDMI input...so no trying another one. If I had a HDMI to DVI I could try that.

Sure...rub it in.

A new bug:

If your watching TV and a show is about to record, it pops up a warning box. The warning box says something like "it needs to change to channel 171 to begin recording".

Nice info! How about listing the friggin Show Title/Name so I can actually make a decision.

The more I use, the angrier I get.
What an embarrassment for the Verizon Developers!
If you are a Verizon developer and you are reading this, you owe us all an apology. Shame on you. Bad programmer, Bad.

Missing Features -

My biggest gripes of the new Guide: (other than stability)

I can't stand having to FF using the actual ">>" button on the TOP of the remote...after a year of using the Left, Up, and Right arrows. It's very uncomfortable.

Also, when watching football, I use the 30 sec FF and 10 sec back ALOT ! In the old guide, I turned OFF the POP-UP bar at the bottom that displays the channel and Program Description. It was annoying to FF (hit exit) FF (hit exit)

The new guide does not allow you to turn this info-bar OFF.

All was good with my upgrade for one day. The second day, my dvr box started to lock up. I called, and spent about 30 min doing various different resets. The last one was sent, and the rep was going to call me back to verify. It reset 4 times before she called back. But, it was up and seemed ok. I looked at my series recordings, and found Law & Order Special Victims Unit listed 8 times as a series. I had quite a few other series set to record, and all of them appeared to be listed multiple times. While calling in, I got an error message stating that a conflict had occurred, it gave me 3 options:
1) Cancel ch50 Law & Order...
2)Stop Video on Demand
3) Cancel ch50 scheduled recording

No matter which I chose, the message popped back up, and then within a few moments the box resets. If you don't turn it on after resetting, it takes a little longer, but it will still reset itself.

The next step for me is to have someone come out tomorrow morning. I've wasted 3 hours on the phone already over 2 days. I just want my dvr back....or even just the ability to watch tv in my bedroom. I can only imagine what it was like for the first people to get upgraded, I know Florida is near the end of the list.

Still, I would like to know how to view the IMG version of my STB-DVR Qip6416. If I go to Diagnostics I see this:
Guide Build: 1.3.19(5882S)
Build Type: DCT-FE 1.7H

Is this the IMG version?
Thanks,

NY doesn't have the 2.0 yet.

Here's another one that I don't know if anyone has pointed out yet. When skipping ahead day to day in the guide, it no longer shows you what day you are landing on, only the date. So if I'm browsing Saturday's guide and I hit the "next day" button 3 times, it just shows me that day's date, not the actual day. I have to count how many times I hit the button to make sure I know what day I'm on.