TiVo Community Forum banner
  • TiVoCommunity.com Ambassador Program Now Open! >>> Click Here

Tuners 5 and 6 Not Authorized

282K views 1K replies 197 participants last post by  Hank4 
#1 ·
Has anyone see this before? I have a Roamio Plus with a SA CableCard and when I try to use tuners 5 and 6 all but the in the clear channels say not authorized and to call Comcast. Does Comcast have to do something on their end to get my 5th and 6th tuners authorized? I tested this by recording 4 shows and used the 5th tuner to navigate channels. Then used the 5th tuner on an in the clear channel and used the 6th channel to navigate channels.
 
#880 ·
I got the 1.5.3_1101 version. I contacted comcastcares and someone reached out to me. It's a local rep for my 'region' but I'm going to try and get a contact, and/or see if he is willing to help point the rest of you in the right direction.

Comcast engineers are aware there is an issue, and that the 1.5.3_1101 'fixes' the problem that the Roamio has...

As soon as I hear back from him, I'll let you all know.
 
#882 ·
Good to hear that 1.5.3_1101 fixes the problem! Now if someone could point me to the Charter Cable equivalent of Comcastcares maybe I could get all six of my tuners functioning...
The problem, most likely for you as it currently is for me in my area, is that in your system the 5th and 6th tuners are not yet able to be utilized. The firmware on the cablecard is not the problem for myself or for you in this instance. I live in New England and currently we are undergoing a major overhaul to our system. The network will be 100% Digital by the end of the summer, and hopefully by that time after freeing up a healthy chunk of bandwidith that's currently being utilized by analog channels, there should be a solution in place. I would not be surprised if the same transition is going to occur in your area as well
 
#883 ·
I have been in contact with we_can_help@comcast.net for the past few weeks. Finally, I was added to a 'test group' and the .1101 firmware was pushed to my TivoPlus this afternoon. It will be a few days/week before I can be sure that this fixes the 'unauthorized channel' problem. The comments from Comcast that they cannot update a single Tivo would appear to be false.
 
#885 ·
Bought my first Tivo - the Roamio a few weeks ago. Was disenchanted to discover the Cisco Cablecard from Comcast had the old software on it :
PKEY 1.5.2_F.p. 1401.

However, I was able to record on all 6 tuners last night at the same time. I recorded HBO, Cinemax, showtime etc. all recording appear clear.

When I look into the tuner info it lists one as 0? Not sure what that means but the others are 1-5.
 
#886 ·
Bought my first Tivo - the Roamio a few weeks ago. Was disenchanted to discover the Cisco Cablecard from Comcast had the old software on it :
PKEY 1.5.2_F.p. 1401.

However, I was able to record on all 6 tuners last night at the same time. I recorded HBO, Cinemax, showtime etc. all recording appear clear.

When I look into the tuner info it lists one as 0? Not sure what that means but the others are 1-5.
The instances just start at 0 (0-5). My 2 tuner TivoHD had tuners (0,1). If you poke around in the Cisco/SA CableCard diagnostics you'll see they're the same way in there.
 
#887 ·
Bought my first Tivo - the Roamio a few weeks ago. Was disenchanted to discover the Cisco Cablecard from Comcast had the old software on it :
PKEY 1.5.2_F.p. 1401.

However, I was able to record on all 6 tuners last night at the same time. I recorded HBO, Cinemax, showtime etc. all recording appear clear.

When I look into the tuner info it lists one as 0? Not sure what that means but the others are 1-5.
Take a look at your recording history. Look for "Not Recorded" (with a 'not authorized' message). That's how it manifested itself for me. It happened over time and it seemed random.

As for the "0" tuner, software weenies start counting at 0. It makes sense if you do it for a living, but adding "1" to the displayed output would make it more consumer friendly.
 
#888 ·
Curses, my Comcast Cares contact isn't returning my calls, so I don't think I can get them to provide a case number or something other Comcast customers can reference. Sorry, folks.
However, I was able to record on all 6 tuners last night at the same time. I recorded HBO, Cinemax, showtime etc. all recording appear clear.
To be clear, you recorded 6 non-local channels at the same time? I 'tested' the 6 tuners in my Roamio when I got it by recording 6 local channels. Only to have the issue come back to bite me later, when it tried to record cable channels using tuners 5 & 6, generating the 'not authorized' error.

Once I tried recording 6 cable channels at once, I was able to reliably recreate the 'not authorized' error when I tried recording the 5th channel. Then the issue went away after I disabled 2 tuners.

I then tweeted at Comcast Cares, and they got my CableCard's firmware updated. Now all 6 tuners work.
 
#889 ·
Curses, my Comcast Cares contact isn't returning my calls, so I don't think I can get them to provide a case number or something other Comcast customers can reference. Sorry, folks.

To be clear, you recorded 6 non-local channels at the same time? I 'tested' the 6 tuners in my Roamio when I got it by recording 6 local channels. Only to have the issue come back to bite me later, when it tried to record cable channels using tuners 5 & 6, generating the 'not authorized' error.

Once I tried recording 6 cable channels at once, I was able to reliably recreate the 'not authorized' error when I tried recording the 5th channel. Then the issue went away after I disabled 2 tuners.

I then tweeted at Comcast Cares, and they got my CableCard's firmware updated. Now all 6 tuners work.
Yes, all non-local channels. I'm at the office now and testing my iPhone tivo app to setup a recording for 6 more shows at the same time. All channels are hd package - showtime, hbo1/2 cinemax, etc. I also wanted to see if I'd receive an error trying to setup a 7th recording and I did. So, later tonight I will run through each recording to make sure it worked and if it's of quality.

But, so far it seems all 6 are working at the same time with this cable card.

BTW - I'm located in the twin cities - burbs.
 
#891 ·
Bought my first Tivo - the Roamio a few weeks ago. Was disenchanted to discover the Cisco Cablecard from Comcast had the old software on it :
PKEY 1.5.2_F.p. 1401.

However, I was able to record on all 6 tuners last night at the same time. I recorded HBO, Cinemax, showtime etc. all recording appear clear.
Yes, sometimes it will work. But sometimes it will randomly fail. Trust me. When I first got mine I thought the cablecard running the old firmware was working fine because I recorded six HBO/Showtime channels simultaneously a few times. But then schededuled recordings started failing at random times. After a few weeks of that I switched to having only 5 tuners enabled and the failed recordings went away. (Well, the "not authorized" failures, that is. I had separate problems with the tuning adapter causing recordings to fail, which had been a problem on my old Series 3 TiVo as well. The latest TiVo update has mostly addressed that on the Roamio.)
 
#892 ·
Yes, sometimes it will work. But sometimes it will randomly fail. Trust me. When I first got mine I thought the cablecard running the old firmware was working fine because I recorded six HBO/Showtime channels simultaneously a few times. But then schededuled recordings started failing at random times. After a few weeks of that I switched to having only 5 tuners enabled and the failed recordings went away. (Well, the "not authorized" failures, that is. I had separate problems with the tuning adapter causing recordings to fail, which had been a problem on my old Series 3 TiVo as well. The latest TiVo update has mostly addressed that on the Roamio.)
And you are correct, it did fail. One recording came back as not authorized. Then, when I clicked on the channel (HBO2) that failed to record - the message came up channel not authorized. Only way to tune in is by rebooting my TiVo. Then all channels are available again. So yes this seems to be a random occurrence. Damn. Update the software already.
 
#893 ·
And you are correct, it did fail. One recording came back as not authorized. Then, when I clicked on the channel (HBO2) that failed to record - the message came up channel not authorized. Only way to tune in is by rebooting my TiVo. Then all channels are available again. So yes this seems to be a random occurrence. Damn. Update the software already.
Set your TiVo to use only 5 tuners. (Then reboot.) That will most likely solve the problem.

Yes, it sucks not having that sixth tuner. But having reliable recordings is better. (And then someday when you get the updated firmware from the cable company, you can re-enable the sixth tuner.)
 
#895 ·
It looks like dropping down to 5 tuners solved my problem. Everything from Syfy recorded fine on Friday night. It just seems strange to me that 6 tuners worked fine for over 6 months and only now started to cause issues.
The problem isn't simply the use of N tuners simultaneously, but how the channels they are turned to are presently configured. I don't know that anyone (with real knowledge, more than anecdotal) has clearly stated the offending combinations. So it's reasonable that your cable system may have changed how channels are encrypted or copy protected such that now the offending combination is resulting in the decoding capabilities becoming temporarily corrupted.

Also unclear is whether the combination involved affects something peculiar to how TiVo interacts with the CableCARD that may not affect other manufacturers, or if it's some more general issue with potential to affect more than just how TiVo interacts with the CableCARDs. (i.e., I am not aware the handful of devices other than TiVo capable of using 5 or 6 tuners simultaneously have experienced an equivalent issue).
 
#896 ·
Great news just spoke to a executive Comcast is pushing the firmware to all TiVo boxes this Wednesday. So celebrate my friends enjoy life for 6 tuners is almost upon us crack open a bottle of wine and drink it has if you will never again have to fight with you wife about which show gets rescheduled.
 
#899 ·
After so many attempts for a cable card firmware update using regular channels, I finally yesterday emailed To : comcastcares_support@comcast.com with details. Today I received a call, 30 minutes later my cable card was updated to firmware 1.5.3 1101. I have reset my tivo to 6 tuners and so far, ok... :) They say they are pushing out the update in waves in my region, westminster, md, but scheduled mine special today.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top