Toshiba DR570KU went crazy

[johnsees]

I've been using this thing everyday, and out of nowhere it stopped responding to the remote. Tried new batteries, then tried a different universal remote, then another one. Nothing! It stopped in the middle of playing a movie, so I went to using the few buttons on the front of the unit. I could power it on and off, play and record. But then I turned it off and it turned itself back on! It did that several times, then I put a dvd in it and it opened and closed the tray several times before finally deciding the disk was okay and now it's just sitting there, looking normal.
Anybody have a clue what's going on? Besides the recorder's dying?

Update: That was last night. Today, I sat down with a sandwich and decided to try the remote. Everything worked! Watched a few minutes of a tv show I had recorded while I ate. No problems. Got thru eating, stopped the disk, went about my business. After a few minutes the tray opened on its own. Couple minutes later, it closed on its own. The remote still works!

[jman98]

Be warned - "I had problems - oops! Now it works fine!" usually is followed by "I have problems that won't go away any more". Your recorder is old (maybe 4 years from what I can find) and if you use it every day it's probably not much longer before you start having problems that don't go away.

[johnsees]

Oh, I definitely don't feel optimistic about it at all!
But I wonder if it's overheating because I noticed once that it was working okay, then suddenly the tray popped out and the remote didn't work any more. At that point I felt the top and it seemed a little too warm. After a while, the tray went back in and the remote worked again. So I wonder if it gets too warm, stops working, then cools down and it's okay again.

[jman98]

Yes, it could be problems from overheating. American women are obsessed with putting devices in "entertainment centers" and some American men like the same thing. The problem is that such furniture has very poor ventilation and for years now home DVD/BD players have needed a lot of empty space around them to air cool properly. If your recorder is in such an entertainment center, you may need to use it less to keep it cooler.

[johns0]

Try moving the remote away from the recorder,it might be acting up and see if you can operate it.

[johnsees]

Yes, it could be problems from overheating. American women are obsessed with putting devices in "entertainment centers" and some American men like the same thing. The problem is that such furniture has very poor ventilation and for years now home DVD/BD players have needed a lot of empty space around them to air cool properly. If your recorder is in such an entertainment center, you may need to use it less to keep it cooler.

It is in a piece of furniture; I think there's plenty of space around it but I could be wrong; height-wise, the recorder takes up about 1/3 of the space, there is lots of open space on the ends, and the cabinet's open front and back. But I'll keep that in mind. My Panasonic sat in the same space before its caps started leaking; is that a heat problem?

[johnsees]

Try moving the remote away from the recorder,it might be acting up and see if you can operate it.

I don't even know what to think about this. The remote is so you can sit across the room from the unit and operate it without getting up. It's nowhere near the recorder.What am I missing?

[johns0]

The remote might be sending out signals by itself,ive seen it happen before,its just a suggestion to rule it out if it's not the problem.

[johnsees]

I'll try keeping it pointing away from the unit and see what happens.

[johnsees]

I think the mystery is solved.
We left Friday night for the weekend, and because I was concerned about overheating I unplugged the recorder before we left. Today I plugged it in and put a disk in. As I expected, everything worked okay. I wanted to check what I had recorded on another disk so I swapped them out and then the remote didn't work! I knew then that overheating wasn't the problem; the unit had been plugged in for less than 5 minutes. I was inspecting the unit and noticed that the "eject" button was stuck in the pressed position. When I freed it, the remote worked again.
The way I always change disks is that I use the remote to open the tray and then after I swap disks I use the eject button on the unit to close the tray, since I'm right there at the unit anyway. Apparently having the eject button stuck causes all kinds of weirdness! We used the unit tonight for 3 hours (It was a long, tiring, weekend!) then programmed it to record something an hour later and so far everything's good.