New issue in the house -

[Steiner23]

I have a Flex 4K that has been running flawlessly for about 4 years. Beginning a few days ago, the video feed would no longer come up on my Amazon FireTV. Not thinking much, I unplugged the Flex 4K and powered it back on. Since then, still no video on my main TV. I also have 2 Rokus (1 Roku TV, the other a Roku box plugged into a TV, as well as an LG OLED with the HD Homerun app running on it. I'm getting various errors from the TVs in the house - "Malformed data" or "No video data" when trying to watch the HD Homerun.

The quirky thing is - I've downloaded the HD Homerun app from the Windows app store - and the video plays fine.

Any suggestions as to what to try? I was tempted to order a new Flex 4K and give that a go, but the fact that the video plays fine on my computer tells me this is something that a hardware revision won't assist with.

[Steiner23]

Disregard. I figured out it's an issue with the one channel we watch.... Now to figure out why ever other channel works except Global BC.....

[jasonl]

We would like to get some diagnostic data to see what is happening:

1. In a web browser go to http://hdhomerun.local
   NOTE: That address will go do the first HDHomeRun device found on your network. If you have more than one HDHomeRun device, use the "device ID" printed on the bottom of the unit instead of "hdhomerun" in the address. For example, if your device ID was 104FFFFF then you would go to http://104fffff.local
2. If it tells you that a firmware update is available, please install it
3. Click "System Menu"
4. Check the "Send diagnostic information" box (if this box is already checked, please un-check then re-check it)
5. Go back one page
6. Click "Channel Lineup"
7. Click on "Detect Channels"
8. After the scan finishes, open the HDHomeRun app on the FireTV
9. Go into the app settings: the gear icon in the top right corner of the "Live/Recorded/Discover/Tasks" page
10. Enable the option to "Send diagnostic information"
11. Reproduce the issue

Reply back and provide us the device ID of your HDHomeRun and the time you reproduce the issue we will check the logs. You can find the device ID on a label on the bottom of the HDHomeRun itself.

[Steiner23]

Model: HDFX-4K - firmware: 20250623
I've checked the box for send diagnostic information.

If it matters - channel 8.1 is the only one I ever watch on this device.

After clicking detect channels, I no longer have 8.1 as an option....

I've done the rest of the steps.

FWIW - The other Canadian broadcast towers appear to be in the same location (according to these guys - https://otadtv.com/)

[NedS]

Device ID 10A051D3

[jasonl]

There's a lot of signal strength (maybe a little too much signal strength) across all channels, but poor quality. Are you using an amplifier or amplified antenna? If so, can you remove the amplifier or turn it down to a low setting or something like that?

[Steiner23]

Let me say again - it has been working fine for 4 or 5 years. To be honest, I don’t think I have an amplifier - I’ll have to look. I have a 8 element bow tie antenna and I expect I live about 30 (or 40) miles from the broadcast point.

Any other ideas?

[jasonl]

Cell providers continue to build out 5G networks operating in what used to be channels 37-51, and these signals are picked up extremely well by TV antennas as they were all designed to pick up those channels. Although the power output from a cell tower is much lower than from a TV broadcast tower, you might be half a mile from a cell tower vs. 30-40 miles from the broadcast towers, and as a result the cell signals in much stronger than the TV signals, and when combined with an amplifier, can overload the input to the HDHomeRun. The signals your HDHomeRun are reporting are much stronger than they should be for an 8 bay bowtie at 30-40 miles with no amplification. Simply removing the amplifier is often enough to get the signal strength down to a more reasonable number. An LTE filter that blocks the 600MHz band can also help, such as ours:
https://www.amazon.ca/SiliconDust-LPF-6 ... 08QDWP43V/ (Canada)
https://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-LPF- ... 08QDWP43V/ (US)