Greetings Slingbox users, 

Does your Slingbox start out fine and shoot up to your normal top streaming speed and then after about five minutes it drops down to 88kpbs ~110kbps for no apparent reason?  I, too, suffered the same dilemma and I was able to find a fix for my Slingbox and I am now streaming constantly without any problems.  I have a Slingbox Pro and there is no guarantee that what I did will work for you and whichever Slingbox you have.  However, I originally posted my work-around fix in the Slingbox Pro forum and other members with other Slingbox models have found my post and have fixed their Slingboxes and are back to streaming constantly as well.  To date, I have received emails from other users that this work-around has cured the ills of the Slingbox Classic and the Slingbox AV, as well.  So, you need to ask yourself.  Did your problems with streaming begin after updating your Slingbox firmware?  Have you updated your Slingbox firmware?  Are you using the new Slingplayer 2.0 Beta?  Have you recently updated the firmware on your Slingbox in order to use all the functions of the Slingplayer 2.0 Beta?  This work-around fix is only related to firmware and it is quite possible that you could have ISP problems, home networking problems, or router problems as well that affect your Slingbox streaming capabilities.  However, if your home setup hasn’t been changed in anyway shape or form and all of a sudden your wonderfully streaming Slingbox has the aforementioned symptoms after updating your Slingbox firmware, this work-around fix might save your sanity.  It did for me and another friend and quite a few people who have emailed me!  Again, I personally know that this fix works for the Slingbox Pro, and the Slingbox Classic and I received an email from an extremely happy Slingbox AV user who says it worked for him, too.  I have been asked by many different people to repost my findings in the other forums, therefore, I’m going to cross-post my results in the different Slingbox model forums in order to let as many people know about this.

DISCLAIMER: 

I do not work for Slingmedia, I am not a computer hack or a tech.  I wasn’t the original person to figure out how to do this.  I simply pieced together about 6 hours of reading different posts and have consolidated my experience and my friend’s experience here into one (extremely long) posting.  My only motivation is to help others get their Slingboxes back to working order so they can enjoy a product they spent their hard earned money on and deserve it to perform as advertised.   If you follow my instructions and somehow screw your box up permanently, or invalidate your warranty, I’m not at fault.  Freedom of choice.  Good luck.

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UPDATE POST - SUCCESS STORY

Greetings everyone.

I'm pleased to say that the Slingbox issues regarding my Slingbox Pro and my friend Shilobanderas' Slingbox Classic have been successfully resolved. As previously mentioned I will now share the results with the rest of you in hopes that it might help someone else to get their Slingbox singing again! I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I believe in being thorough!

Slingbox Pro

1. Firstly, I searched my computer to see which Slingplayer install program versions that I had previously downloaded and that I still had on my computer. I found install programs for Slingplayer versions 1.4.0.206 and 1.5.0.206. Glad I never throw anything away! Whew.

2. Secondly, you need to find out exactly which firmware version and the firmware release date you have. The easiest way to do this is to run your currently installed Slingplayer program. At the top of the viewing screen are four drop down menus - Player, View, Slingbox, Help. Click on the Slingbox tab and choose the last menu item Properties. You will see three more tabs - Connection, Slingbox Configuration, Information. Click information, wait a couple seconds and you will see a bunch of current information appear. You will see the fields Firmware Version and Firmware Release Date. Write these down you will need it later. In my case the current Firmware Version was 1.0.39 and the Firmware Release date was 09/21/2007.

3. Then I completely uninstalled the Slingplayer ver.1.5.0.325 that was currently installed on my system by choosing "uninstall slingplayer" from the menu choices.

4. Afterward, I navigated to the Program Files folder and deleted the remaining Slingmedia folder. Yes, it was still there.

5. I then went into the registry and deleted all registry keys associated with Slingmedia. Now, the computer had no Slingmedia or Slingplayer files.

6. I installed Slingplayer ver. 1.4.0.206 by following the install program instructions until it had successfully finished installing. I did not run the program at this time.

7. I then navigated to Program/Files/Slingmedia/Slingplayer. Inside the Slingplayer folder you will find all the different firmware versions (.BIN files) for all the different Slingboxes that were released with the Slingplayer ver. 1.4.0.206 install program! Yeah...cool huh?

8. Be careful which one you choose. If you are using a Slingbox other than the Pro, you need to select the firmware that is system specific to your Slingbox. (Pro, AV, Tuner, Classic, Solo)

9. For me, I chose firmware SbPbProFwV1_0_11Current.BIN because I have a Slingbox Pro.

10. I made a copy of this file on my desktop because I needed to open the file and edit it in order to make it work. This is called HEX editing and you need a HEX editing program to edit .BIN files. Ok? Where do you get a HEX editor? Go to Google and type "Freeware HEX editor" and you'll have plenty to choose from. Download one that sounds super cool and easy to use...of course freeware is best. I used HEX Editor NEO ver. 4.64. It can be found at this link. http://www.hhdsoftware.com

11. Here's the tricky part. I then started the HEX editor program I had downloaded and opened the file SbPbProFwV1_0_11Current.BIN which I had previously saved to my desktop for editing purposes.

12. After the HEX editor opens the file, you'll see a bunch of code on the left side and you'll see the firmware version and the firmware release date on the right side. Looks like the following.

SbPbProFwV1_0_11Current.bin

0000000 53 42 50 42 30 30 30 30 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 SBPB00001.........
0000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 30 31 2E 30 30 2E 30 30 .............01.00.00
0000020 31 31 00 00 31 31 2F 33 30 2F 32 30 30 36 00 00 11..11/30/2006......
0000030 41 50 50 4C 4E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 APPLN

Be extremely careful with what you are doing and what changes (editing) you make or you'll really screw it up quickly.

13. You need to change the firmware version and the firmware release date so that the Slingplayer software will let you update the firmware. To date, you are only able to update to a newer newer firmware version than is currently installed on your Slingbox or re-install the same version and release date that is currently installed. It won't let you downgrade to a previous firmware version. Get it? So, you need to make the old firmware look like a newer version than the one currently installed or make it look identical to the one that is currently installed on your Slingbox. This way you can re-install the old firmware, but your Slingbox thinks it's either a newer version or that you're just doing a re-install of the same. The best thing to do is to make the old firmware look exactly like the one that's currently installed on your system.  That way you remember what the last official version that had been installed on your Slingbox.  Here's what I did. In the HEX editior, I could see that this old firmware version I copied to my desktop SbPbProFwV1_0_11Current.BIN was version 1.0.11 and was released on 11/30/2006. So I hex edited it and changed it to look like the version to 1.0.39 with a release date of 09/21/2007. Why? Because the current firmware installed on my Slingbox Pro was version 1.0.39 with a release date of 09/21/2007, remember step number 2 finding out the current firmware and release date? So I faked out the software into thinking that my old firmware was actually the same version release with the same release date of the one currently installed. See? Here's what it looked like after I finished editing the .bin file.

SbPbProFwV1_0_11Current.bin

0000000 53 42 50 42 30 30 30 30 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 SBPB00001.........
0000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 30 31 2E 30 30 2E 30 30 .............01.00.00
0000020 31 31 00 00 31 31 2F 33 30 2F 32 30 30 36 00 00 39..09/21/2007......
0000030 41 50 50 4C 4E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 APPLN

Save changes and exit out of the HEX editor. Almost there....

14.  I then started the Slingplayer program and entered the Slingbox ID and password. Then went through the normal firmware upgrade procedures. The Slingplayer program saw my faked "same" firmware and let me "downgrade" it by updating. Ha ha ha. Fooled it. Now my Slingbox Pro actually has the older firmware installed on it and it runs like a bandit. I was streaming at 620 kbps all day today without a drop! Also, the Seattle Seahawks beat the Chicago Bears in Seattle during pre-season NFL action! Yeah!

Slingbox Classic

My friend Shilobanderas used the same procedures I did, except for the fact that he needed to use the old firmware for the Slingbox Classic instead. He got his from the Slingplayer installer software version 1.5.0.325. Remember step 8 listed above?

CONCLUSION

Based on my experience. I find that the best firmware to use with the Slingbox Pro is firmware version 1.0.11, release date 11/30/2006. This firmware version can be found contained within the Slingplayer installer software version 1.4.0.206. As for the Slingplayer version, I am able to use version 1.5.0.325, however I get better results using the older Slingplayer version 1.4.0.206 and I don't need any bells and whistles with newer releases. I just want to be able to watch my TV without any glitches. Isn't that why we all bought Slingboxes in the first place? If it ain't broke....DON'T FIX IT!

For the Slingbox Classic the best firmware appears to be version 1.0.99, release date 05/31/2007. This firmware can be found contained within the Slingplayer installer software version 1.5.0.325. As for the Slingplayer version, Shilobanderas is using version 1.5.0.325 with no problems whatsoever. I would also imagine that the Classic could also successfully use the older Classic firmware found with the Slingplayer installer software version 1.4.0.206 in conjunction with the Slingplayer version 1.4.0.206 as well. But, that's just conjecture. I haven't tested this and neither has Shilobanderas. Anybody have any results with the older Classic firmware and Slingplayer version 1.4.0.206? Care to share your results?

So what's the problem? Why did we have these problems in the first place? Is it really the firmware that is buggy or is it our ISPs (Comcast for us) that somehow have managed to detect newer Slingbox firmware versions and are able to bottleneck us or throttle speeds back in order to shape bandwidth, or limiting Slingbox streams leaving the US? I mean, Comcast denied throttling back Bittorrent clients forever until they got caught doing it. Then they then got spanked by the government who told them to cease and desist throttling back Bittorrent clients. I wouldn't put it past them to be doing similar things with our Slingboxes although they aren't recognized as P2P technology. I'll be curious if this older firmware suffers the same dilemma in the next few months and if Comcast ends up being behind it. Guess we'll see.

Regardless of what ISPs are or are not doing to our bandwidth, Slingmedia has a moral responsibility to take a pro-active stance regarding this issue that we have been facing. If ISPs are in fact detecting the firmware and are somehow throttling back our speeds, Slingmedia should create firmware that can't be screwed with. One member kept posting that this issue is only being faced by a few people so why should Slingmedia waste time and resources on so few people. Bunk. As a previous poster, rbbinney, pointed out...how many people are suffering this issue, haven't found this support forum, don't have a tech background, and don't know where to turn and just end up giving up? I'm with rbbinney and will guess a lot more than we know. As for me personally, I suffered for nearly three months until I found this forum. I didn't know about it. I stumbled onto it two days ago! It's now bookmarked!I don't consider myself a techno geek, (my friends will tell you otherwise), but I didn't solve my problem overnight when the problem first occurred and I thank the creators of this forum and credit them with me being able to learn some things that ended up solving my problem. A deephearted thanks to this forum!

If anyone needs any help with this issue, or wants me to email them Slingplayer software installer versions 1.4.0.206 or 1.5.0.325 just PM me and I'd be happy to help. If anyone thinks I should make a torrent containing the programs I would be glad to do that, too. Slingmedia tech support won't step up to the plate and help, but, I WILL!

Respectfully yours,

Boomstick
Northcoast Taiwan