RSSXM Outage Continues to Second Day
by Ed Oswald
XM subscribers were dealing with a second day of service problems Tuesday as the company finally acknowledged an outage and offered an explanation for the lack of signal many were experiencing, especially across the Eastern US and Canada.
According to subscribers, the outages began around noon ET Monday and included either full loss of signal reception, or significant degradation in signal quality. Reports indicated the problem was nationwide, although the most significant problems existed on the East coast.
XM was still not responding to requests for comment Tuesday, and the only information on the service outage and its reasons were made available in a statement posted on the company Web site.
“The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday [Tuesday],” the notices reads.
Which XM satellite was affected is as yet unknown, although it is believed one of the newer satellites lost its "downlink," which delivers the signals to radios on the ground. The problem also took out the service’s terrestrial repeaters.
2:20 pm ET May 22, 2007 - XM says service has now been fully restored. "XM Satellite Radio has resumed normal levels of service for customers who experienced outages or significantly degraded service starting yesterday," the company wrote on its site. "After you turn on your XM radio, please allow five to ten minutes to reacquire the XM signal."
22 Comments
All is forgiven if they credit the customers for 2 days worth of outage.
I am in IT and you know how often "code" that is tested doesn't work in the true environment.
One thing to remember is nobody is perfect so mistakes happen, let it go. WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE SO NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING!
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Please refrain from calling the dot heads towel heads. Thank you, come again!
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Heck, XM has gotten more widespread publicity from this then they have with regards to their content!!!
Maybe they should schedule more outages!
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Such righteous indignation over a screwup. They happen. In fact, one could easily wonder how they don't happen more often.
Compare their record with land based operations. If only their records were as good as the satellite based systems.
Besides, how many of the folks complaining so loudly even have the service!? I think in that regards, XM wishes that there were allot more folks complaining! ;-))
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XM has released a statement that one of their indian dotheads fubared the code that they uploaded. They had to have a conference call to Bangladore, India to correct the sloppy coding..
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OK, someone made a big mistake but there's no need to have a go at the guy's race.
Call the person responsible a fool or something but there's no need to be racist!
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"The problem also took out the service’s terrestrial repeaters."
Uhm, yeah.. It took out the REPEATERS because they REPEAT the signal, which was not there.
Come on!
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The XM website confirms that service has been restored....
XM Radio Resumes Normal Levels of Service
XM Satellite Radio has resumed normal levels of service for customers who experienced outages or significantly degraded service starting yesterday.
The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of the satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a temporary loss of signal from one of the company's satellites.
After you turn on your XM radio, please allow five to ten minutes to reacquire the XM signal.
XM apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused.
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Is there a reason why XM info such as this is posted on betanews.com? What does that have to do with beta programs?
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betanews has posted tech news articles for like 3+ years now? Where have you been?
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I just got an e-mail from them saying service has been restored.
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Yea, I was frustrated yesterday but like everyone else, glad to see it is not a problem with my equipment.
I am not sure how I lived without XM in the old days. Stupid local car dealership commercials get old on FM.
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Maybe the Commies in China test fired another projectile at a satellite. ;)
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XM has finally updated their site with the following announcement...
XM Service Update
As many of you know, XM customers have experienced service outages or significantly degraded service since Monday mid-morning, May 21.
We quickly identified the problem and are working hard to return to our normal levels of service. The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday today (eastern daylight time).
XM apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused. For updates, please go to www.xmradio.com
In the meantime, you can enjoy many of our music channels on XM Radio Online (xmro.xmradio.com) if you are close to computer.
Again, we regret any inconvenience for not having your XM Radio service fully available.
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I started to have the problem on my way home from work yesterday and thought maybe my external antenna on my truck had gone bad. Got an e-mail from XM this morning saying there was a system issue so I feel better that I don't have to run a new antenna... antenna aiming shows no terrestrial antenna signal for me at all. Oh and I am in WI
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Yeah, don't they have satellites codenamed "Rhythm" and "Blues" or something?
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Where I Am Located In Arizona And I Am Also Having Problems
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Bababooey did it!
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I can confirm the problems. I live in the Los Angeles area and the signal keeps cutting out.
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There went somebody's job. =0
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Checking the XM site at 5:46 EST, I cannot believe that they haven't even posted a note on their home page about the outage. Guess they think if they don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist...
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Gotta agree. Maybe they should have kept Opie & Anthony.
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