I purchased a TiVo Roamio off of eBay a few weeks ago, and have been having issues trying to get it connected. I received it a week ago Thursday, and moved the Cable Card from one of my Premieres to the Roamio. I then called TiVo for guidance, they had me call the Comcast activations line. After talking to the first tech, overseas, said to wait a hour. I called about an hour later, and had them try again. It appeared to work, as channels were slowly coming in, a bit pixelated, but that cleared up over a 40 minute period, and I was happy. I turned off the TV, went to bed, and to work in the morning. When I returned, I disconnected the Roamio and moved it to the Living room, where it was going to live. I connected everything exactly as the premiere had been, nothing, no channels. Conditional Access showed Val:?. I called Comcast, and they swore up and down that it was paired correctly, and to try another cable card. I did (which I stole from another Premiere), again, they paired it, and swore it was correct on their end. Nothing, except for 3 channels, Government Access, Local Access, and Weather Channel. I tried the card in the Premiers again, and both cards worked.
I contacted Comcast and TiVo several times, including calling Tech Support at Comcast, who transferred me to their TiVo Department, aka TiVo. I found an 855 number on these forums, for national repair, and finally found someone competent, and stateside. He found some errors on my account, and set about to fix them. He said that he would escalate it to the headend. He never gave me his name, but said he would call back the next day. He never called, so I called the 855 number again, and found another guy, who gave me his call back number, and he found the same problem, and tried to fix it. He said he would contact the headend and see what was going on. The next day I came home from work, and after speaking to the second tech again, I finally got Val:V, but still no channels. just "Searching for Signal (v52)", except for the 3 channels I mentioned earlier. I spoke to TiVo, and we started playing with the tuners, and afterwards channels started to come in. After I got off the phone, it appears another activation signal was sent by Comcast, and the channels disappeared, and I was back to the 3 before, and "v52". I finally had Comcast send out a tech, who had absolutely no idea what we were talking about, and ended up just changing the line on the outside of the house to the TiVo, with no change. However, he and another tech came out, and ended up having Comcast try to pair the other Card from earlier back to one of the boxes, and now that card doesn't work. I've since spoke to my Second National Repair Tech, and another National Repair Tech, and while the card says Val:V, nothing but those three channels (which I believe are added to the system separately from my local headend) are coming through.
Today I had another tech onsite, he replaced the internal wiring attached to the working TiVo, and it still wasn't working. He swapped the Cable Card, and paired it, and it wasn't working still, now with Val:?, but those three channels continued. He ended up leaving, saying he would speak with another tech from their dispatch center, and see what they could find out. I spoke to my third National Tech, and she said that after a conversation with another tech, she was told that because I have "Limited Basic" I couldn't use a TiVo. I thought that odd, and was called not 10 minutes later by my second national tech, who said that wasn't true otherwise none of the would have worked. He was going to look into it, and now my three channels don't work again.
One note, when I use the Signal Strength service on the TiVo, the 3 channels I do get end up between 70 and 80%, although now that they aren't coming in it is closer to 70%. I checked the remaining TiVo that it working and it says 75%-80% and has no issues.
My Questions..
1) Has anyone ever found any competent when dealing with Comcast and Cable Cards?
2) Has anyone had issues getting their channels, aside from the local access channels? Or ever just got the local access channels?
3) Could by TiVo Roamio, which was attached to another service be the problem due to being possibly attached in another segment of Comcast's system?
4) Could the length of the copper core of the coax be a problem, not providing enough signal or contact to the long Roamio's connector?
5) Could the Roamio itself be the problem, even though I'm getting the 3 channels?
Any other ideas would be appreciated.
TEG
I contacted Comcast and TiVo several times, including calling Tech Support at Comcast, who transferred me to their TiVo Department, aka TiVo. I found an 855 number on these forums, for national repair, and finally found someone competent, and stateside. He found some errors on my account, and set about to fix them. He said that he would escalate it to the headend. He never gave me his name, but said he would call back the next day. He never called, so I called the 855 number again, and found another guy, who gave me his call back number, and he found the same problem, and tried to fix it. He said he would contact the headend and see what was going on. The next day I came home from work, and after speaking to the second tech again, I finally got Val:V, but still no channels. just "Searching for Signal (v52)", except for the 3 channels I mentioned earlier. I spoke to TiVo, and we started playing with the tuners, and afterwards channels started to come in. After I got off the phone, it appears another activation signal was sent by Comcast, and the channels disappeared, and I was back to the 3 before, and "v52". I finally had Comcast send out a tech, who had absolutely no idea what we were talking about, and ended up just changing the line on the outside of the house to the TiVo, with no change. However, he and another tech came out, and ended up having Comcast try to pair the other Card from earlier back to one of the boxes, and now that card doesn't work. I've since spoke to my Second National Repair Tech, and another National Repair Tech, and while the card says Val:V, nothing but those three channels (which I believe are added to the system separately from my local headend) are coming through.
Today I had another tech onsite, he replaced the internal wiring attached to the working TiVo, and it still wasn't working. He swapped the Cable Card, and paired it, and it wasn't working still, now with Val:?, but those three channels continued. He ended up leaving, saying he would speak with another tech from their dispatch center, and see what they could find out. I spoke to my third National Tech, and she said that after a conversation with another tech, she was told that because I have "Limited Basic" I couldn't use a TiVo. I thought that odd, and was called not 10 minutes later by my second national tech, who said that wasn't true otherwise none of the would have worked. He was going to look into it, and now my three channels don't work again.
One note, when I use the Signal Strength service on the TiVo, the 3 channels I do get end up between 70 and 80%, although now that they aren't coming in it is closer to 70%. I checked the remaining TiVo that it working and it says 75%-80% and has no issues.
My Questions..
1) Has anyone ever found any competent when dealing with Comcast and Cable Cards?
2) Has anyone had issues getting their channels, aside from the local access channels? Or ever just got the local access channels?
3) Could by TiVo Roamio, which was attached to another service be the problem due to being possibly attached in another segment of Comcast's system?
4) Could the length of the copper core of the coax be a problem, not providing enough signal or contact to the long Roamio's connector?
5) Could the Roamio itself be the problem, even though I'm getting the 3 channels?
Any other ideas would be appreciated.
TEG