Some HD channels not coming in

[Barb]

Not sure if this is related to the S3 software upgrade, but many (not all) of my HD channels are no longer coming in. Started happening this weekend and am just getting a blank screen on those channels. I am in the Boston area and a Comcast subscriber. Cable guy is coming out today. I haven't had any problems with my S3 before this (other than a few erratic situations where the signal on Fox was very very bad, but that hasn't happened in a long time and I think it must have been the Comcast signal, not the S3.)

Anyway, I browsed through the forum and didn't see anything specifically related to others having this problem...maybe I missed a thread, but anyone know what I should tell the cable guy (if anything) to help him solve this?

Thanks...Barb

[George Cifranci]

Have you tried to reboot the Tivo?

[Barb]

Rebooting doesn't help...and I just noticed that some of the regular non-HD channels are not coming in. (I originally thought it was just HD.) Seems that the major networks are all coming in just fine on both non-HD and HD...wonder why they come in, but other channels don't.

[TexasAg]

Rebooting doesn't help...and I just noticed that some of the regular non-HD channels are not coming in. (I originally thought it was just HD.) Seems that the major networks are all coming in just fine on both non-HD and HD...wonder why they come in, but other channels don't.

Major network channels are usually not encrypted. If you can only get those, it sounds like your cards lost their authorization, so they can no longer decrypt most of the cable channels. It's happened to me once when they first installed the cards. You can probably call Comcast and have them reinitialize the cards.

[Barb]

I sure hope it is that simple...I'll mention that to the person who comes out from Comcast tonight to take a look...thanks.

In some other threads, people were saying the channel mapping got messed up. Do you think that might be the problem here?

[TexasAg]

I sure hope it is that simple...I'll mention that to the person who comes out from Comcast tonight to take a look...thanks.

In some other threads, people were saying the channel mapping got messed up. Do you think that might be the problem here?

If you are only getting the analog channels (probably all channels under 100) and digital local channels (ABC, CBS, etc.), then the cards probably lost authorization. I'd call Comcast and tell them that so they can reinitialize the cards. If you're home, you should be able to verify if the reauthorization helped, and you won't have to wait around for the cable guy to show up.

[yanasina]

I lost all my HD channels BEFORE the update (grey screen). It was only the HD and not the other digital channels. Rebooting did not help. This was a cable card issue, and all Comcast customers in my area had the same problem. They finally got it fixed after a week. However, I did notice that after the update, when I went to the diagnostics screen for the HD channel, the cable card section said that there was a "wrong card state." The cards were authorized; it was just the HD that were the problem. You might check this to see if it is the same for you. I don't know what Comcast did to finally fix the problem, but apparently it has happened in other areas too.

[Barb]

So the cable guy just left...he tested my signal strength and said it wasn't great, so he changed my splitter from a 3-way to a 2-way (didn't need the third line anyway.) Then he reseated my cards and checked with the tech on the phone and everything supposedly looked okay. We then reran the Tivo guided setup...after that finished, one of my cable cards showed some of the channels that weren't coming in before, but the second cable card was in the same state. At that point, the cable guy had to leave to go to his next job...so, here I am stuck in the same state.

I am going to restart the Tivo and rerun guided setup once again...

Arg.

[Sy-]

Did you try ditching the splitter and plugging directly into the wall?

[Barb]

Haven't tried to ditch the splitter yet, but just went through Guided Setup again (after reseating my cable cards myself) and cable card 1 is definitely not working correctly when I go into the cable card screen. Cable card 2 is now showing all my channels properly, but Cable card 2 is hosed.

Something that seems fishy to me...I can't totally ditch the splitter anyway because one line is for my cable internet and the other is for my cable t.v...is this typical? I would have thought the internet would have been on a dedicated cable line.

I have a new cable guy coming out tomorrow night.

The saga continues...

[Necro]

I read somewhere else that a comcast customer had to call cust service and get them to reprogram those channels individually and something about Cx00 showing up on the cable card diag screen...

I've had intermittent problems like this for the last few weeks. I called cockcast last night to get a re-program and it seemed ok last night... Real test will be if it works over the next few weeks.

[Barb]

So, I think my issue is finally resolved. It took three service calls from Comcast and in the end, they swapped out one of my cable cards and after 5 minutes, it was set up and working properly. Now I have all my channels back.

Some things that happened throughout the service call that are worth noting:

-- the first guy focused on my signal strength...turned out to be totally unrelated
-- the next two guys (the first guy plus a supposed knowlegable Tivo guy) said my downstream had been messed up and accidentally switched to another town...they fixed that and said my issue was resolved, but it wasn't (should have made them wait while I finished testing)
-- third guy was extremely clueless...didn't even really know what a Tivo was...I was in the room as he was talking with the tech on the phone and several times he gave him the wrong numbers from the cable card screen and I had to correct him...I finally suggested that he just swap out cable card 1 and he agreed and that ultimately fixed my problem
-- cable card 1 had the "Enabled by CP: no" which was obviously the problem, but no one knew how to correct it...the process of swapping out the card and having to go through the provision process from start to finish seems to have forced the card to be provisioned cleanly...so who knows if the card was bad or just in a funky state that they couldn't figure out how to correct

All in all...a VERY frustrated experience with Comcast who really has very little experience with how to resolve these types of issues...they are supposedly giving me a month's credit on my next bill...we will see if that happens.