DVR switched aspect ratio, dropped captions and killed sound after pausing

I have had lots of problems since DTV started putting ads on, when I use pause.  The problem seems to be that the DVR gets confused.  I was recording several Roadkill Junkyard shows on the Motor Trend channel.  I like to trail behind the point in the program where the DVR is in recording the program, so I can zip through the commercials.  

They showed a document that I wanted to read, so I paused the receiver.  Before I could finish reading, the ad based screen saver came up.  The screen says to 'press any button' to make the paused screen appear again and lose the ad screen.  I must have hit the pause button too quickly because the picture aspect ratio changed to 4:3 from the 16:9 that I had been watching.  In addition, after I hit the button again, the captions had disappeared and the sound was muted on the normal screen.  I have never had the aspect ratio change or sound mute before, but in the past the DVR would freeze but cycling the power would return things to normal.  

Since I was recording several shows I didn't wish to interrupt the record process until it had finished.  The strange thing was that when I selected the 'Guide' screen with it's button, the picture of the continuing program at the top of the column on the left side, was in 16:9 aspect ratio.  However when I switched back from the Guide screen to full screen, it went back to the muted 4:3 ratio.  

I let it continue recording the programs, and after about an hour I noticed that the audio was from one of the previously recorded programs, while the video was probably on the currently recording program.  Nothing worked to fix all this until I used the red reset  button to reboot the DVR.  

I had 14% free space on the DVR so that wasn't the problem.  I have not had problems with pausing until AT&T started the ads on the pause screen.

I put these posts on the forum hoping that someone with some corporate clout will read them and make things better (also ref Dec 10 post in Accounts), but think that may not happen.  At least others will know if they have the same problems they are not alone.