I bought a Slingbox Pro on August 24th, 2007, at Best Buy. I have used it with my PDA (long since gone), which amazed everyone I showed it to, as well as on the road in hotel rooms and even from different parts of the house. Neat idea, and way ahead of Hava at the time. Still no support for my Dish Network VIP 612 DVR (HD) yet, but good enough.

I did a firmware update the other day, long after the 1 year warranty was up. It bricked my box, along with hundreds or even thousands of others.

My initial email:

I was told there was a new firmware update, and I obliged via the automatic update mechanism. Your records will bear this out. After the box (allegedly) restarted, it became a brick.

Now all we have is a steady power on light, no network activity or logo LED activity.

– Repeated 15 second “reset” button presses do not affect the LEDs at all.
– Repowering has no affect on LEDs, the power light comes on and stays on.
– I have tried all manner of routers, switches, bridges and even direct connectivity to get the network light to do _anything_ with no success.
– Naturally, this means no client/setup connectivity.
– With no way to communicate with the box, or even reset it, it is a brick.
– I work as a network engineer, so trust me when I say that the box’s NIC is unresponsive.
– I have seen on your support forum that dozens, if not hundreds of people have experienced the same problem with your latest firmware release. This is a well documented problem.

I have no problems with the hardware, and really wouldn’t mind if you could just bring the hw back to the older, working firmware.

I’d be happy to pay to ship it back to you for resolution at my cost.

All I need from you is an RMA#.I was told there was a new firmware update, and I obliged via the automatic update mechanism. Your records will bear this out. After the box (allegedly) restarted, it became a brick.

Now all we have is a steady power on light, no network activity or logo LED activity.

– Repeated 15 second “reset” button presses do not affect the LEDs at all.
– Repowering has no affect on LEDs, the power light comes on and stays on.
– I have tried all manner of routers, switches, bridges and even direct connectivity to get the network light to do _anything_ with no success.
– Naturally, this means no client/setup connectivity.
– With no way to communicate with the box, or even reset it, it is a brick.
– I work as a network engineer, so trust me when I say that the box’s NIC is unresponsive.
– I have seen on your support forum that dozens, if not hundreds of people have experienced the same problem with your latest firmware release. This is a well documented problem.

I have no problems with the hardware, and really wouldn’t mind if you could just bring the hw back to the older, working firmware.

I’d be happy to pay to ship it back to you for resolution at my cost.

All I need from you is an RMA#.

I then posted in the Sling Community Forum (not SlingMedia’s):

Latest firmware release bricked my Slingbox Pro!

Need I say more?It also fails to pass thru any video or audio, blocking any signals passing through it. A true bricking! :(

I’ve asked support kindly to provide a remedy. I know, I know… but I have to give them a chance to make it right before it has gets ugly…

The box is out of warranty (August 24th, 2007), but the firmware updates/upgrades are, for all practical purposes, still in warranty. In addition, the box is actually not broken-just the firware I had no choice but to install.

If I had had a backup/restore option, I certainly would have done so prior to installing, but Slingmedia offers me no other way to install other than theirs.

What is worse, the bad upgrade/update bricking stops all network connectivity, and the box laughs at attempts to repower by holding the reset button in. Oh no… this is a real bricking-done as only a bad firware release can do it!

Hundreds of people have the same problem, and it has rendered the product 100% useless. I can’t think of a higher priority issue for them to work on.

If the current support ratings for Slingmedia contiue, without a reasonable response to this mistake I’m afraid too many people will move to Hava…(!) If that happens,Slingmedia support, releases, etc. will spiral down until there is no company left.

That would suck.

Their response was from an auto-responder that “reads” the email and spits back what it thinks the problem is. I won’t post that email here, but rather the response I gave to them (on the forum) after I had spoken with a tech support person who was really nice, and put me on hold enough times to get direction as to how to proceed.

That post follows:

Well, I finally got an email back from support, and it was pretty funny. Slingmedia are among many that are parsing their inbound support emails for text matches (regex), and sending out responses in the hopes that a person won’t be tied up on the phone (the most costly thing support can do). They come back in poorly translated first person, which comes across condescending to a native speaker.

“I am sorry for the inconvenience that you are experiencing with the network connectivity in your Slingbox Pro. I understand that you did some troubleshooting steps, but the issue still exist.”

Never said network connectivity. It is a brick. The poor English grammar just angers a native speaker, as I’m sure my French, Spanish and Japanese do to native speakers of those languages. They just got worse as we went:

“Second, change Ethernet cable.”
“Third, update firmware version on your router…”
“…connect your Slingbox in a different network”
“Fifth, use a wireless computer, then connect the Slingbox to the computer…”

A “wireless computer”? Who says that?

“…wait 5 minutes and then lunch the SlingPlayer”

I’m not “lunching” anything! (Would that affect my expired warranty, though?)

“In the case that the SlingPlayer is detecting the Slingbox you need to update the Firmware on the Slingbox using the following information:”

The auto-responder forgot that a) A brick means no network, and b) It was the firmware update that got me in trouble to begin with!

“We recommend you at this point to take your Slingbox to a different network.”
“Make sure that the router is that network…”

I had to grab a “Router Network” from the attic for that step.

And finally, the best one:

“In case you still have issues with the network connectivity in your Slingbox Pro, do not panic, you can give us a call to our friendly Technical Support agents. The case number is ( 130161 ), we can connect directly to your computer in order to check the network, computer, and Slingbox settings and in order to finally end this case.”

How optimistic! We can always “finally end a case” with a network by using that network-with a bricked SBP, no less!:)

But all of that was about to be no more than a humorous memory, as when I called and went through the automated call-waiting rat maze (1-877-467-5464,1,1,1,4, <person>), I reached a non-native English speaker that was not Indian. He was definitely good enough, though, because after 2 medium length hold periods I was told I had 2 options-and both of them involved REPLACING my SBP!

I have the RMA, and my new box is already on its way UPS Ground.

SlingMedia, you guys desperately need my services as a translator (see my blog for terms and rates), but none of that funny English got in the way of you doing the right thing. My support rep said, and I quote, “That was a very bad update”.

Amen, brother. Amen.

I read a lot of bad press about SlingMedia, and saw the extremely low support ratings. I had braced myself for the worst, and didn’t get it.

Thanks, SlingMedia!

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