Comcast Cablecard Problems (Motorola)

[erikinchgo]

Hi,

I've now gone through 4 tech visits, and about 8 cards on just one slot trying to get this to work. It appears that the Motorola card Firmware 4.21 just will not work. After the hit, my authorization says Program_missing_rekey. If we try these cards in slot 1, the same problems occur.

In Slot 1 is an older cablecard (Series1or2 Firmware 3.34) that has no problems at all with the unit. The various Comcast techs have been trying to track down another card.

TiVo doesn't feel that there is any hardware problems with the box and wants me to tell Comcast to update the firmware.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can try or tell Comcast to try? It's been two weeks already, and I'm at the breaking point to just return the unit, dump Comcast, and go to satellite.

Thanks

[moyekj]

FYI, Cox Orange County, CA here and I have Motorola cableCARDs both with firmware 4.21 that are working fine (well most of the time anyway) in my S3. I know this doesn't help you much but just my 2 cents that 4.21 firmware version may not be the issue.

[CrispyCritter]

Comcast needs to send a "hard reset" (or "hard init"?) ,which are not generally sent, to take care of it. Definitely fixable from Comcast's end. See
MISSING_PROGRAM_REKEY (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4543487&&#post4543487) for my experience.

[erikinchgo]

Comcast needs to send a "hard reset" (or "hard init"?) ,which are not generally sent, to take care of it. Definitely fixable from Comcast's end.

I asked the tech to do this, and apparently they said they did this twice now with no luck. Just not getting anywhere with Comcast. This last tech even admitted that they have had nothing but problems with those cards, and their training consisted of a four page handout on cablecard installs.

[hdtvoice]

i would tell them to remove the card completely from the sysytem and start from square 1.....

[jfh3]

i would tell them to remove the card completely from the sysytem and start from square 1.....

+1

I have 4 cards at the 4.21 level working fine.

Not sure if Tivo knows about a new Motorola firmware level, but AFAIK, 4.21 is current, if not the latest level. The only Tivo/Motorola issues I know about are at the 4.05 level.

Before you have them do anything else, run test channels on each card to see if you get the channels you are supposed to. "Missing program - rekey" can be a deceptive error message.

[20TIL6]

I am having no problems, no missing channels. I have Motorola cards.

One is 4.21, the other is 4.05.

The tech guy in me thinks they need to be at the same level, but the consumer guy in me thinks, hey, it's working, so don't mess with it.

Can the cable company remotely flash these cards? I'm wondering if one morning I wake up and the 4.05 has been flashed to 4.21.

[Roderigo]

One is 4.21, the other is 4.05.

The tech guy in me thinks they need to be at the same level, but the consumer guy in me thinks, hey, it's working, so don't mess with it.

Can the cable company remotely flash these cards? I'm wondering if one morning I wake up and the 4.05 has been flashed to 4.21.
Don't think there's any real reason they have to be at the same level. I don't think I've seen any posts here that implicate the 4.05 version in causing any problems. There's probably some minor bug that motorola fixed, but I'm guessing that if it were major enough, the cable company would have upgraded the cards.

Which leads to your other question: yes, the cards can be upgraded remotely.

[20TIL6]

Cool, thank you.

[erikinchgo]

Well we finally got it to work. I've had just about all the local advanced techs out trying to figure this out. Everyone knew of my job as the cablecard install from hell.

The cablecard guru at dispatch kept saying that the TIVO unit itself was bad, and there was no way that over 10 cards could be bad. Another tech drove out to a different warehouse in Denver to find the older cards so we can try that with the unit.

So after taking the good known card, and placing that in slot 2, everything was fine, thus proving the dispatcher was wrong. The last tech believes that something with their network and that firmware is not working right. When asked why other people with 4.21 aren't having problem, he suspected that they have a different cable network. Which did remind me that not all Comcast markets run the same cable network.

Well I'm happy that I finally have both slots working the way it should. It's on older cards, with older firmware, but just don't care. After two weeks, I can finally enjoy.

Thanks everyone for your input, do appreciate it.