SOLVED
From captainpacific on the AV Forums:
"Temporary partial fix for this:
I tuned my Pioneer DVR-560 (the Sony's should be very similar or identical) as a French person - so selecting "France" when doing a replace channels re-tune. Don't worry, it won't all come up in French - but it did produce all 118 viewable channels - no more blank screens!
However, the EPG is still screwed, so I can't set recordings through that. But, manually setting recordings does work."
Hello,
HXD890
Thanks to the above comment
Just went in to the menu and selected replace channels, Then selected French option and it went through the motions of tuning, It then spent a few minutes auto tuning the clock...and then it actaully appears to be ok.
Great fix for the short term to get the digi channels back. I will try the firmware update again and then see if it will retune for UK.
Additional - My Update now appears to go ahead but I still need to select France to get the tuner to work afer it completes. It is only a partial solution becuase the Digital Guide is still empty
Good Luck
Me too same symptoms but with a RDR-HXD870. I also tried updating to the latest firmware (to 1.7 from 1.68 I think) but it was stuck at download 5 for ages. Eventually had to pull the power cord (despite understanding this was maybe not a good thing to do I figured I was stuffed either way). On restarting it seems the update was OK I'm now at 1.7 but with the same problem (no digital channels and no EPG). Having seen all these people with the same problem I'm a little more relaxed about it. Now I'm waiting to call Sony on Monday and sit and wait for everyone to be processed 
I posted the following 2 hrs ago........
HDD/DVD Recorders - No signal/channel
I have just logged the following message to SONY via their contact-us form - hopefully they may see it over the weekend (
" Please see community Blog - the automatic software update on digital HDD/DVD players made by Sony across the board on Friday, 19th July 2013 has failed.
My RDR-HXD890 does not have any digital channels, EPG or any Digital Signal. My 1st response yesterday was to re-scan, recorder shows all available channels are picked up, but no signal throughput? My 2nd response was to try & update the software downloaded from your website - the recorder gets to DOWNLOAD-5 and gets stuck - none of the switches on either the remote or the HDD will function - only solution was to unplug-wait & re-connect.
This morning the recorder is stuck on update! It appears that ALL your customers are having the same problem. I had 5 programmes scheduled to record from yesterday evening - of course nothing has recorded, as no signal/channels available.
I am sure there are a lot of customers out there who are not technically savvy, they would automatically think their equipment has failed, so go out and replace it - BUT once this episode gets out your reputation will be in tatters! SONY - do something very urgently!"
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