Help, autobouquetsmaker started failing with tune failed

[drh]

Hi,
It's been a while since I logged into the forum because my Vu+ Solo2 has been rock solid working fine for years.

Evidential circumstances would suggest I have some sort of hardware failure, be it LNB, Receiver or cabling.

This morning I woke up to a tune failed in auto bouquet maker (which is auto scheduled to scan at 3am).

I still seemed to have my channels at that point.

ABM seemed to be using Frequency 11778 MHz on Tuner B.
I swapped cables between A & B and it didn't seem to make any difference and BBC One (the channel I was on) still got a signal on both cables.
I tried Signal Test and checked that frequency on both Tuner A & B and there doesn't appear to be anything there.

I made the mistake of test automatic scan and whilst that went through and seemed to find a lot of channels, now my Bouquets are all messed up and now if I try to run ABM, the box keeps crashing and rebooting.

After writing this message out and thinking about it, I am leaning towards a LNB partial failing or alignment issue.

One final bit of evidence, I did lose all signal when we had the snow and I had to go up and clear snow off the dish and LNB arm.
I was careful not to move anything and it just needed a light brush off but I am going to go back up on the roof to check in the next hour or so to check things out.

[drh]

Wow, I went up on the roof and checked everything for firmness, the LNB seemed fine, the dish is rock solid, the only thing I could notice was the slightest bit of moss type mould in a couple of places on the dish, so I rubbed those off with by fingers and came back down.

Signal test is finding signal now fine on Feq: 11778 on both A & B tuners.
ABM ran through fine. Could be fluke?

Not sure if everything was found, can't quite remember what it said before it cleared off the screen, something like 477 services found. Not sure if that's right but I all the FTA channels seem to be there which is all we use it for these days anyway.

If the tuners were failing in the box, I did think maybe I would be better to configure IPTV on the box and use that to stream FTA rather than use SAT but that headache has been averted. I did start to look at it and installed Jedi but then realised that it doesn't work without already having some credentials to enter and I couldn't find any information about that. I presume its a banned subject which begs the question how does anyone find out any info LOL
Anyway, I'm not bothered about getting subscription stuff, I would have only wanted to configure it for FTA but not sure that option exists.

[abu baniaz]

ABM reads the tables, it does not check if all the frequencies are receivable. Hypothetically speaking, if you had a fault where you could only receive the 11778 frequency, ABM would add all the channels to your receiver, but you won't be able to view them.

The best way to check reception issues is to update the satellites.xml using xml update. Then perform a manual scan, ensure you select single satellite not just a single transponder. If you find less than 850 channels, there is a problem.

[drh]

Thanks for the advice Abu.

I think the moss was a red herring, I have had issues again since and have yet to establish the problem. It's clear I am losing some frequencies because when the problem starts, I lose ITV Central West HD but can still get BBC One WM HD usually although today, I lost BBC One WM HD too for a while but could get BBC Two HD. This evening, BBC One WM HD has started working again but ITV Central West HD is still failing, as is Channel 4 HD, Channel 5 HD, BBC Three HD works etc. etc, I could go on.

Weird thing is, when I got it working the other day by cleaning off the dish, all the channels worked perfectly, there's no glitching or anything to suggest an impending failure.
As mentioned above, the installation seems sound too, so I'm ruling out alignment or anything loose.

[abu baniaz]

If you have another 12v PSU, 2.5amp or more try changing that first. Otherwise it so going to be cabling or LNB.

In my view, when fault finding, please to avoid ABM/AB 28.2. Manual scan, selecting 28.2 is the surest way to confirm reception. Otherwise check several transponders in signal finder. Don't fall into the trap of checking one transponder and saying everything is fine.

[drh]

Thanks, I will try to do some more investigation when I get time. I'm loathed to spend any money on the dish side of things as everything seems to be moving away from satellite these days. Even sky is heavily promoting their new products don't need a dish any more. I know a new LNB doesn't cost much, but I'd rather put any new money spent to new tech.

[cactikid]

Believe me when your internet goes down its nice to have Freesat as a backup and new tech can be good .

Never have all eggs in one basket.

[drh]

Believe me when your internet goes down its nice to have Freesat as a backup and new tech can be good .

Never have all eggs in one basket.

I hear what your saying but I could cope without TV if my broadband went down, I'd just have to rely on my own media server for a while but I have plenty stacked up.

[drh]

If you have another 12v PSU, 2.5amp or more try changing that first. Otherwise it so going to be cabling or LNB.
.............


UPDATE: (for anyone else who might stumble on this red herring of symptoms)

It was the Power Supply.

I've been putting up with barely any channels and guide for a few weeks but the box started restarting on its own which was a much clearer symptom of a PSU problem.
The initial missing channels masked the problem and made me go down the iffy LNB route. I should have realised that is was asking a lot of a 12V adapter brick to last longer than 10 years being on 24x7 LOL