4 Ways To Fix Dish Smart Card Not Inserted Error

For those of you who have been using Dish equipment for a considerable time now, you will probably admit that they’r a really good entertainment company.

There are loads of channels – mostly good – and the resolution on them is generally very high. One thing you will also note about the Dish box is that it does need a smart card for it to work.

Basically, the box can’t send or receive satellite signals without it. So, once there is an issue there, everything will just stop working completely.

As it stands, there have been a number of complaints on the boards and forums from people saying they are having issues with their Dish smart cards. It’s an odd one, especially seeing as we wouldn’t expect this to be a wide-ranging issue.

The common theme seems to be that, when people are turning on their Dish, they will get an error message saying that the card is not inserted, even though it most definitely is in 99% of cases.

How To Fix Dish Smart Card Not Inserted

As you would expect, the most common reason for this error message to pop up is that the card itself isn’t inserted properly. But what if you haven’t moved the box since the last time you used it. Well, then the likely culprit will be that the card has just gotten a bit of a coating of either moisture or some dirt and grime. 

Given that the card itself is a pretty delicate object, we thought we would run you through the best way of getting the system working again. Let’s get started on it.

How To Fix Dish Smart Card Not Inserted Error

The tips below are all relatively straightforward. So, if you wouldn’t exactly consider yourself among the technologically gifted, don’t worry too much about it. If you follow the steps below carefully, everything will be fine. At least, you won’t be doing anything that could possibly make the situation any worse than it is.

1. Should I Pull Out the Smart Card and Re-insert it?

As it turns out, the thing that you were probably thinking would be the logical first step here actually is. However, there is an order by which you should do things so as not to cause any other problems. Basically, all you need to do is make sure that the Dish box is powered off before you take out the card.

Then, take out the card and reinsert it, making sure that it is positioned exactly where it should be. Once you have done that, have a quick check to see if the system is working as it should be again. If not, we will possibly need to clean the card.

2. Will Cleaning the Smart Card get rid of the Dish Smart Card Not Inserted Error?

As we briefly mentioned above, it is possible that the entire issue here can be caused by a little bit of dust, grime, or moisture on the surface of the card.

So, to give it a clean, you will need to equip yourself with something that can’t possibly damage the card. Specifically, you will need to be extra careful around the golden contact point of the card.

The fabric that we would recommend is a dry and fine cloth. Ideally, the cloth that you use to clean glasses will do the trick.

For the more stubborn bits of dust and grime, it is also possible to get some types of cleaning fluids involved. That being said, you do need to be careful about what you are using.

We find that ethanol is the safest thing to go for and highly effective at getting rid of any marks. Once you are done, just reinsert the card and have a check to see if everything is working.

3. Will a Factory Reset do anything?

Well, it can do the trick on occasion. To get into the specifics, this error code can be the result of something entirely different than the status of the card.

In these cases, a likely outcome will be that there is a minor software issue – namingly, that there have been a few bugs and glitches that have crept into the system over time.

When this happens, all sorts of weird performance issues can begin to crop up, Luckily, id this is the case, a factory reset will be a solid option to fix it. So, lets run you through the process to fix it.

The first thing you will need to do is go into the menu and then select the ‘setup’ option. In that menu, you should notice an option that says, ‘factory reset’.

You should then select this, and the box will take care of the rest for you. This will essentially reconfigure the box and bring it back to the same state that it left the factory in.

With a bit of luck, the factory reset will have cleared up the issue once the box eventually resets. Bear in mind that the box can take a while to start up again after the reset. This is nothing to worry about. Just let it do its thing.

4. Is there any other alternative?

If you have reached this far through the guide and still have the same problem, you are right to consider yourself as more than a little unlucky.

But the good news is that there is still one more course of action available to you – the device swap. All you need to do here is get into Dish customer support and let them know that the device isn’t working anymore.

Make sure to also explain that you have tried so far in order to fix the problem. If they don’t have an immediate answer for you, they will most likely send a technician out to your place to look at your setup. If they can’t figure it out on the spot, they may trade your box for a new one.