Comcast Unfair Business Practices Re Serial Port Change - Please Complain

[cjayr]

Comcast has made a software change preventing the use of the serial port on their Motorola boxes. This is a nationwide change and it is, in my opinion, an unfair business practice whose purpose is to reduce competition. We have rights as consumers. Please, lets all exercise our rights.

The cable industry is regulated both at the Federal and local levels. Regulatory responsibilities are split, in this situation the body governing this issue will be your local state body. You'll need to find out who that is.

In Georgia, the body regulating cable affairs in a mediation body which is a trade agency for consumers, the Ga. Coble TV Association, 1-800-321-311. The actual state agency regulating cable is the GA Public Service Commission but our point of contact is the former. For those outside GA, look for a state Office of Consumer Affairs, they will be able to point you to the right regulation/mediation body.

That said, as consumers, our first step is to contact a person of authority within the company.

1. The Comcast CEO is Brian L. Roberts. The Comcast executive office can be reached at +1-215-665-1700
2. Ask for the office of Brian L. Roberts. You will be transferred to an executive assistant. Likely Maria Baptist. Her email address is:
maria_graham-baptist@cable.comcast.net
3. Explain you are calling regarding the Serial Port Block which is preventing your TIVO from changing channels and that you wish to give them an opportunity to resolve the issue before lodging a formal complaint with your local regulatory/mediation body. It would be good to have the name of the body.
4. Document your conversation and all conversations. (A copy of my email to Maria documenting our conversation will be posted in a separate post as an example.) You will need this documentation if you need to proceed to the local regulatory body.

Maria will take ownership to contact your regional Comcast office and have your local office contact you. This is fine, this will not be a simple process, but one we must follow to get results. We have the numbers. It will be our volume of complaints and resolution that will achieve us those results. I’m retired from a large tech company and have seen how enough consumer complaints at the CEO level can effect change. Be positive, be resolute, we can make this happen.

In the Comcast loop, be prepared to be offered the IR Blaster workaround. This is not acceptable because the IR blaster is on the same frequency as your wireless, cordless phone, etc and is therefore much less reliable. Comcast has therefore either reduced the reliability and effectiveness of our TIVO service, or our ability to use the service, in an effort to force us to choose their competing product.

WE ALL NEED TO TAKE ACTION at the Comcast Corporate level to get this addressed. Call and write. WE can Effect this Change.

Thank you!! Cj

[timstack8969]

First off I agree with you. Second what Motorola box are you using and what does the software and firmware say on the configuration page on the comcast guide.

[cjayr]

Thank you for the private message received from the user who corrected my statement regarding the IR blaster reliability reason:

" This is not acceptable because the IR blaster is subject to IR interference from other remotes, reflections from walls and furniture, and is far slower and less reliable when changing channels."

The gentlemen's point is that the IR blaster is not on the same frequency as wireless and portable phones and therefore reliability is not compromised for that reasons.

Please be aware of this correction.

Thank you all!

[cjayr]

I'm on a Motorola DTC
SW Ver: 74.02-3319

[fredct]

I have Comcast and the serial ports are still working fine, so its not a nationwide change... at least not yet. I will keep a careful eye out though.

You are absolutely right on how to go about this and I encourage all to pursue it.

[jakerock]

I live in the New England area and had to reconfigure my box yesterday. The wife complained that the box was no longer working and indeed the serial port has been disabled.

Yet another reason to hate Comcast.

[cleverdevil]

Today, I was told by Comcast that the serial and firewire ports on all Comcast cable boxes are being disabled and will not be supported in the future. I demanded a reason that they would take functionality away from their customers and still raise prices, and they had no reasons.

Its time to raise hell. I am in Atlanta and called (770) 559-7516, ask for Denise White, operator number OIE. Demand to understand the reason that your serial port was disabled, and demand that you receive a call with the reason that the port was disabled. Make sure to make it abundantly clear that this is unacceptable, and that you are unhappy and frustrated with Comcast.

Denise White, (770) 559-7516, operator number OIE.

[timstack8969]

My serial port is still working here in Philly.

[Deedles916]

I most definitely agree with all of you... and trust me if it has not happened to you yet, it will.

I tried to email Maria Graham-Baptist but it came back as undelivered. Do you have the correct email address for her! I do better complaining in writing, rather than phone calling as I get to emotional and upset and do not come across as professional enough to be taken seriously. I like writing better.

Please if you could get a viable email address, I will be glad to join the fight. I have called Comcast for the last 2 days. I have a Job Ticket Number #ND003860444 that has been started in the Malden, MA Comcast Center. The more people call and complain and reference this Ticket Number, the more effort they will put into getting this resolved (IF it can be resolved...)

Comcast Customer Support 1-800-266-2278 and ask for Tech Support for Tivo, DVR and HD. Please be sure to reference the Ticket Job Number.

I feel that Comcast & Tivo know exactly what they are doing as they are integrating their services together. So it as it always goes... "Out with the Old and In with the New"!~

[Brainiac 5]

Today, I was told by Comcast that the serial and firewire ports on all Comcast cable boxes are being disabled and will not be supported in the future.It is illegal for them to disable everyone's firewire ports. FCC regulations require them to provide a box with a working firewire port if the customer requests it.

[fredct]

I feel that Comcast & Tivo know exactly what they are doing as they are integrating their services together. So it as it always goes... "Out with the Old and In with the New"!~

TiVo makes a lot more money off of standalone subs, so I doubt they'd be in on it. But that doesn't mean Comcast isn't doing it to force the change.

[danstrollo]

Folks,

I just sent an email to the Boston Globe localnews@globe.com encouraging them to look into the matter. While not a tragic event compared to a lot of other issues in the world, Comcast has a an image problem right now with their messing with Internet downloads....now this. It's a decent business story and will likely encourage a quicker response than just calling customer service.

I recommend you contact your local news paper...TV and Radio will pick it up if they do.

Good luck,

[EuroTrash60]

I have Comcast and the serial ports are still working fine, so its not a nationwide change... at least not yet. I will keep a careful eye out though.

You are absolutely right on how to go about this and I encourage all to pursue it.

Looks like they've done it in the Philly area too. Bastages!!! I am going to complain to my State Attorney General and to the FCC. Comcast must be STOPPED!

They had the gall on the phone to tell me that I shouldn't be using TiVO with their cable box! Unfair business practices indeed.

:mad:
:mad:
:mad:

[EuroTrash60]

My serial port is still working here in Philly.

Mine is not in Ardmore. :mad:

[OLdDog]

As much as I dislike Comcast and believe that they are disabling the serial ports to interfere with the use of devices like TiVo I cannot see that they are doing anything illegal by disabling them.

They, not the user, own the boxes.

The boxes are provided to enable the user to watch TV, not to provide a signal to any third party device.

The serial ports are not needed for any purpose in simply connecting to a TV and the are also not needed for the basic recording of shows for time shifting.

This is the not even at the same level as when TiVo turned off some unsupported features in their software, The user can complain but in no way are the companies required to continue a feature that they never supported or advertised.

While we might want these features and we might even need them for our equipment to function at its best; neither Comcast nor TiVo are required to provide them.

As far as the Firewire issue I have never seen that requirement on the FCC site but it could be there as that site is quite difficult to find things on.

I fail to see anything in the disabling of the serial ports that is against the law.

[boettcht]

My parents serial ports were turned off in North Andover, MA this week. Mine are still working in Brighton, MA. For how much longer I don't know. Has anyone made any traction with this? Is it best to open a service call in your local area and then go up to the top or just start at the top?

This completely sucks and is unacceptable.

[jalex]

Another course of action is to take your business elsewhere. I've been considering switching to FiOS for a month or so now (since it became available at my house - Arlington, MA) and this is the last straw. I'm done with Comcast and I'm going to call Verizon. The only thing I need to figure out is the best way to make sure Comcast knows why they lost my business.

[boettcht]

I wish I or my parents had another option, FIOS is not available in either one of our area and direct tv is out of the question. So we are stuck with monopolistic comcast.

[BobCamp1]

DirecTV did this for about three days with one of their receivers once. Enough people complained that they turned them back on within a week or two. They haven't done it since.

That serial port is really supposed to be used for testing only. It wasn't intended to be used like it is, and they have a good argument for turning it off. However, if they lose a lot of business and receive a lot of complaints, that's a good reason for them to turn it back on again.

I don't think the use of IR is "unacceptable". Many people have to use IR with their Tivo and it works just fine. I used to use IR, and it's around 99.5% effective. Serial for me is around 99.8% effective -- but using the serial port causes the box to freeze up completely. AN IR failure meant it didn't change channels for one show, but it always got the next show. YMMV.

It is illegal for them to turn off the firewire port.

[dmdeane]

Well my serial cable stopped working this morning/last night, too. I'm actually in North Chelmsford, near Lowell, MA now (haven't bothered to update my profile location info yet, I'm no longer in Waltham).

We all know that Comcast has the "legal right" to do this; the point is, cable companies are highly regulated monopolies and consumers are supposed to have some input into the regulatory process. We're supposed to be getting more choice and freedom, not less; that was the whole point, allegedly, of the "reforms" passed about a decade ago.

At the very least Comcast should understand that they are p!ssing off a large number of their customers. I haven't exactly been thrilled by Comcast's service recently; this may be the final straw for me.

It doesn't help that I can't seem to get my IR blaster working with my cable box, either. I don't have time and patience to waste on this $H!7M2^fR!u&k!Rrr>#!!! :mad:

[Brainiac 5]

As far as the Firewire issue I have never seen that requirement on the FCC site but it could be there as that site is quite difficult to find things on.From this page (http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_06/47cfr76_06.html), click one of the links next to "76.640 Support for unidirectional digital cable products on digital cable systems." From that page:

(4) Cable operators shall:
(i) Effective April 1, 2004, upon request of a customer, replace any
leased high definition set-top box, which does not include a functional
IEEE 1394 interface, with one that includes a functional IEEE 1394
interface or upgrade the customer's set-top box by download or other
means to ensure that the IEEE 1394 interface is functional.

[dmdeane]

Does anyone know the correct IR codes for Motorola DCT2500 series. I have a DCT2524 and nothing works. This post is not much help now as it says to use serial port, which no longer works for me:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1340519#post1340519

[nessus]

I called up Comcast and the representative blamed the problem on Motorola. They said that they have requested a fix from Motorola and will download it into the cable boxes as soon as they have received it. They said that it has never been their intent to disable this feature.

|>oug

[EuroTrash60]

don't work:

"Not that it comes as a huge surprise, but it looks like those Comcast TiVos have now started to make their way into the homes of a select few New Englanders..."
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/10/22/comcast-tivo-makes-it-into-the-wild/

And sorry, to the guy who posted above, that Comcast is doing nothing illegal. Bull. I consider their actions akin to slamming, making customers HAVE to choose Comcast's DVR. Whatever happened to free market?? :confused: :mad:

I've read Comcast has been trying to work the TiVO UI into their DVRs for over 2 years, and it has been difficult. Boston area is the test market.

[roxfinch]

I called up Comcast and the representative blamed the problem on Motorola. They said that they have requested a fix from Motorola and will download it into the cable boxes as soon as they have received it. They said that it has never been their intent to disable this feature.

|>oug

Obviously they need to get their stories straight because the Comcast person I spoke with said they purposefully disabled it with the most recent upgrade. She also gave me a little rant about how Comcast had never supported it, we should have never used it, Comcast was well within their rights to disable it and they had no plans to enable it in the future. Of course she also told me that I was the first person in the country to report the problem, so after that I took everything she said with a grain of salt.

Our problem happened on Monday evening and we're in Beverly, MA.

[EuroTrash60]

I just got a response from the Corporate Office of Comcast, a woman named Shayla Hopkins, National Customer Operations, Philadelphia. They promise to find a resolution, not sure what that is going to be (I did ask). Go to the Comcast website, click on Corporate Info, and then go to the PR press page, there are emails on there. Any PR person who gets wind of a potential marketing faux paux WILL pass this up the channel.

Keep the heat on Comcast folks, they know we mean business, and they don't need the aggravation or negative press!!

We will get our serial ports working come He!! or high water! -ET60

[nessus]

Obviously they need to get their stories straight

Clearly the Comcast spin patrol is in gear now, as the person I talked to read off of a corporate email stating that this was merely an unfortunate snafu and had nothing to do with Comcast's imminent introduction of their own TiVo service.

|>oug

[roxfinch]

For the time being, our household has actually disconnected our cable box. We have missed way too much because of a failed IR blaster and when you take the cable box out of the equation that's no longer an issue. For us, having the channels change reliably is more important than anything the digital cable box brings to the table.

We're holding on to the box for right now just to see if there's a resolution (the rental is only $4/month which is worth the aggravation factor to see it in and possibly have to get it back later). If Comcast doesn't resolve this issue, we're seriously considering taking our business elsewhere. I don't know much about what our other options are and it would be a PITA since we also have our Internet service through Comcast, but we will definitely be researching our options.

[rbtravis]

Check out DSL from the phone company. In spite of comcast commercials about their speed DSL is really faster. I have 768 up by 7000 down about twice comcasts speed for less money from my local phone company. When comcast bought out AT&T cable they promised not to raise rates for one year. The rates doubled in less than 30 days. My neighborhood is now peppered with Satellite Dishes. My advice to anyone who has comcast is to switch to Directv. You will be happier in the long run.:)

[danstrollo]

2. Ask for the office of Brian L. Roberts. You will be transferred to an executive assistant. Likely Maria Baptist. Her email address is:
maria_graham-baptist@cable.comcast.net


This email address did not work for me. Came back as no such address. Did anyone get a better one or another contact?

[KProuty]

See this post!

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2007-10/did-the-comcast-tivo-really-launch/


People may be waiting a LONG time for this fix...

[boettcht]

Finally got through to someone at Comcast that seems to have a clue about this issue. She said that they pushed out a firmware and software update to the older versions of the Motorola boxes, 2400 series and below. This update inadvertently shut off the serial port and it was never their intention to shut it off. She stated that they are working with Motorola on fix but had no eta. She does have immediate fix of switching out the affected boxes for a 2500 series, she said the 2500 series are not affect by this software/firmware.

We are going to hopefully going the comcast office today and switching out our boxes for 2500 series and hopefully that will really be an immediate fix. I'll keep you posted once we get it and test it out.

[rumbarrel]

Originally Posted by cjayr
2. Ask for the office of Brian L. Roberts. You will be transferred to an executive assistant. Likely Maria Baptist. Her email address is:
maria_graham-baptist@cable.comcast.net
This email address did not work for me. Came back as no such address. Did anyone get a better one or another contact?

I'm guessing that after the first 500,000 emails she received from angry Tivo owners, that she probably changed her email address. :D

[johnlomb]

I live in Taunton Ma, and just lost my Serial port yesterday, does anyone have a work around with having to go to IR cable ?

[nessus]

I sent an email off to one of the Comcast corporate relations addresses, and they replied via both an email and a phone call saying that they are working with Motorola to resolve the problem. They also said that they'd send a signal to the cable box that may or may not revive the serial port.

|>oug

[boochi3]

I contacted - Jim Collins James_Collins4@cable.comcast.com - He covers MA, NH, Maine area and this was his response:

I wanted to let you know that we are working on a fix and hope to have it shortly. We regret any inconvenience this has caused. I can be reached directly at (978) 848-5283 should you have any questions or want to contact me via the telephone.


Jim Collins
Executive Customer Care & Communications
Comcast
1 888 309-2583
fax: 978 848-5490

At least he acknowledges the situation.

[boettcht]

Finally got through to someone at Comcast that seems to have a clue about this issue. She said that they pushed out a firmware and software update to the older versions of the Motorola boxes, 2400 series and below. This update inadvertently shut off the serial port and it was never their intention to shut it off. She stated that they are working with Motorola on fix but had no eta. She does have immediate fix of switching out the affected boxes for a 2500 series, she said the 2500 series are not affect by this software/firmware.

We are going to hopefully going the comcast office today and switching out our boxes for 2500 series and hopefully that will really be an immediate fix. I'll keep you posted once we get it and test it out.

Update:
So we got a 2500 series box from Comcast, we had to fight and argue hard for it, stupid front line people.
(Note to any Comcast managers that might be reading this, please send your personnel to common courtesy workshops the woman we dealt with at the window was down right rude and unhelpful, we were finally help by a co-worker there who went in the back and came out with a 2500 box, after the rude woman insisted for the 20th time that they had no 2500 boxes and we got wrong information)
Got the box home & hooked it up and the serial port has been working for the past 24 hours. So it appears that it is true that the 2500 series boxes are not affected by this firmware/software update.

Hope this helps, maybe if enough people go to their local offices and demand 2500 series boxes and make this painful for Comcast they will be quick in resolving this issue and pushing out a fix.... One can hope.

[unagiboy]

See my experience in the other thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5713282#post5713282

[surge]

Today, I was told by Comcast that the serial and firewire ports on all Comcast cable boxes are being disabled and will not be supported in the future. I demanded a reason that they would take functionality away from their customers and still raise prices, and they had no reasons.

Its time to raise hell. I am in Atlanta and called (770) 559-7516, ask for Denise White, operator number OIE. Demand to understand the reason that your serial port was disabled, and demand that you receive a call with the reason that the port was disabled. Make sure to make it abundantly clear that this is unacceptable, and that you are unhappy and frustrated with Comcast.

Denise White, (770) 559-7516, operator number OIE.

I'm also in Atlanta and lost my serial control as well.

I've updated a blog and added the Atlanta supervisor info.

http://mypageaboutrandomstuff.blogspot.com/2007/11/comcast-disabled-serial-port-control.html

[EuroTrash60]

I am onsite, have a Motorola DCT2500+ cablebox, so now I am wondering if this is a TiVO software problem for some Series2 users? I used to get a blue bar that would come up on the bottom of my screen to announce the channel. I still get it when using the cable remote to physically change channels, but not when using my TiVO remote (or my SlingBox PRO virtual remote peanut) I won't know more for a few hours.

[fredct]

I am onsite, have a Motorola DCT2500+ cablebox, so now I am wondering if this is a TiVO software problem for some Series2 users? I used to get a blue bar that would come up on the bottom of my screen to announce the channel. I still get it when using the cable remote to physically change channels, but not when using my TiVO remote (or my SlingBox PRO virtual remote peanut) I won't know more for a few hours.

Whether the cable box displays its banner sounds like it has to be a cable box settings. Perhaps its set not to display it when changed via the serial port? I have a hard time seeing TiVo having an effect on that.

[nessus]

I just got a call from Comcast claiming that they have fixed the firmware issue on our Motorola cable box and now the serial port should work again with the TiVo.

|>oug

[boochi3]

I live in MA and I contacted the head of the New England Comcast Tivo Division a couple of days ago. I got bounced around to a few people and in the end I sent my name, address and telephone number via email and it ended up with:

Jeff_Vandeberghe@cable.comcast.com
Jeff Vandeberghe
Director of Product Deployment
Comcast - Northern Central Division
603-695-1546

I can now change the channel on my Tivo!!!!!!!

[snakeimay]

THANK YOU THANK YOU

That did it. I left a vm for Jeff last night and it was fixed this morning along with a vm from him telling me I should be all set.

For all the evil that exists in that company, this guy is making a difference. I'm guessing they have a solution but may be testing more or getting ready for a wider roll-out.

[notesGoddess]

He did it for two out of my 3 boxes... the third is not connected to TiVo, so I can let that one go for now.

He did mention a couple of things:
He's not surprised that many or most of the CSRs do not know what a serial port it.
Not everyone at Comcast has access to the servers necessary to apply this fix.
The "fix" involved disconnecting the boxes from their servers, selecting the services and PORTS to enable, and restarting the boxes.
He's working on an escalation process as he will be out of the office for a couple of days, but he's peddling as fast as he can to catch up with the calls and eMails resulting from this posting.
He reiterated that Comcast did not intentionally do this.
He told me that if it were to happen again, keep his info handy.

You ROCK, Jeff!

[roxfinch]

Thanks to all who have been posting about their serial port working again. We'll be plugging the cable box back in today and seeing if we get the update. If we haven't gotten it by end of day we'll put a call in to see when we can expect it.

I have to admit, I'm very pleased at how this has all turned out. I know a lot of people have plenty of gripes about Comcast, but I've been a customer for both cable and internet for several years now and have always had good service (even if it sometimes took a little prodding :-)). I was really disappointed at how they handled the whole thing, but figured what was done was done. I'm so glad to see a company respond to customer pressure! Who knew consumers still had any power these days?!?!

[jakerock]

Two of us from work emailed him and he got back to us very quickly indicating that we should be all set. Can't test it until tonight, but am optimistic seeing how things have been going for other people.

[EuroTrash60]

I got 2 voice mails from the Comcast corporate office, they had a tech out here on Weds AM, the guy was very good, has a TivO himself. TiVO has not diabled the serial port in the PA area. He swapped out the motorola 2500 box, Slingmedia send me a new SlingBox.. I have hooked the TiVO directly to the TV and the problem remains. I did the camera test on the TiVO, and can see no IR emitter signal coming from the front of the box. I think this is a TiVO problem.

Next step is to call TiVO service and see if they can figure out what the heck is wrong here. Hope to get this covered under warranty, unit is less than a year old.

So, hat's off to Comcast, they were really on top of this problem. -ET

[roxfinch]

Just a heads up that apparently you need to contact Jeff (who ROCKS) to get the fix. We didn't know if it was something like firmware that needed to be pushed to our box and/or if it would come automatically. We plugged our cable box back in and connected the serial port and waited two days to see if it would happen on its own. When it didn't we sent Jeff a quick email today (Sunday) and figured we'd hear from him sometime next week. Imagine our surprise when at 10pm tonight, just ten hours after sending the email, we received an email from Jeff apologizing for the problem and telling us we should be all set. We just tested it and we are indeed all set!

So, just for the record, if your serial port isn't yet working again, it looks like you do actually have to contact Comcast to get them to do it.

When we sent him back an email thanking him and letting him know that the serial port was indeed working again, we were sure to point out that it was his actions that have kept us as a Comcast customer. I hope someone in their organization recognizes his attention to customer service.

[EuroTrash60]

Whether the cable box displays its banner sounds like it has to be a cable box settings. Perhaps its set not to display it when changed via the serial port? I have a hard time seeing TiVo having an effect on that.

It's finally working again, I sat and cried because I managed to fix it all by myself. I live overseas right now, and SlingBox/TiVO is my one real connection with home. I consider it a lifesaver. I had 4 days left to fix all of this, and Sunday I got it to work again.

I have to say Comcast has been super responsive to our problems. :up::up:

[RojCowles]

Just as an FYI, we were hit with the same issue with our ST Series 2 boxes. Within a couple of days of contacting Comcast they had a guy out who replaced our old DCT2244 Set Top Boxes with DCT2524 (??) boxes and the serial port has been working just fine ever since.

If Rob and Zoe from the Comcast office are lurking over here, big thank you for your time and help !

--
Roj

[surge]

I have a Series 1 and before I call Comcast, I'd like to confirm something:

Those of you having this issue.. Are you seeing the following in the System Information?

Cable Box Software: cable box not responding

thanks.

[dmdeane]

I live in MA and I contacted the head of the New England Comcast Tivo Division a couple of days ago. I got bounced around to a few people and in the end I sent my name, address and telephone number via email and it ended up with:

Jeff_Vandeberghe@cable.comcast.com
Jeff Vandeberghe
Director of Product Deployment
Comcast - Northern Central Division
603-695-1546

I can now change the channel on my Tivo!!!!!!!This worked for me as well. I sent an email to Jeff yesterday afternoon around 1pm and he had replied and fixed the problem around 10pm. Jeff may or may not get to your email right away, but he will get to it and fix it without any problems or runarounds, so this is the perfect solution for those of you in the New England area who haven't gotten a solution yet. Kudos to Jeff. He's probably preventing a lot of us from leaving Comcast over this serial port thing. You don't realize how nice it is to have that serial port until it's gone. I never did get my IR blaster to work with my Motorola DCT2524. Once Jeff or someone else at Comcast has fixed the problem, you will have to go back into your TiVo settings to set up serial cable channel switching again (or anyway I did) before it will start working, but once that is done you're all set.

From the TiVo help forums I gather what Jeff did was a "Factory Default Reset"; since I have a DCT2500-series box, I don't think it is true what people are saying; ie, these boxes also have been getting the serial port disabled. I think what happens is if you get a new box, it hasn't been plugged in so it never got the upgrade which disables the serial port, so the serial port works. But it could get disabled in future, unless Comcast has disabled this automatic Motorola patch update (which they should have by now, but who knows). Comcast say they are working on a fix to the Motorola patch but who knows when that will roll out. Calling or IM'ing or emailing and asking for a "Factory Default Reset" seems to be a much easier thing to do than getting the actual cable box replaced.

[gamndbndr]

Is there an HQ email or contact at Comcast who will resolve this? It appears that Jeff is working in the northeast but I doubt he wants to support the entire country.

Not really wanting to go through the painful phone call again without resolution when it appears that people who know how to do it can fix the problem fairly quickly.

[dmdeane]

Is there an HQ email or contact at Comcast who will resolve this? It appears that Jeff is working in the northeast but I doubt he wants to support the entire country.

Not really wanting to go through the painful phone call again without resolution when it appears that people who know how to do it can fix the problem fairly quickly.If no one has posted any contacts here, try the help forums on the TiVo website.

Or you could try the phone or IM help route; if you explain the Factory Default Reset solution you should be able to find someone who knows how to take care of this; others have had success with that route.

[lorenbc]

Thanks for the info; Jeff fixed it for me within an hour of my sending an email.

Kudos to boochi3, dmdeane, and, of course, Jeff Vandeberghe of Comcast!

Loren

[mc2wheels]

Before reading this post, I tried calling comcast support. I had found a blog about what happened in atlanta, but hadn't seen the posts in this forum. I wasn't sure that they had done the same thing here in MA.

Anyway, I told the customer service rep that I thought they disabled my serial port. The CSR told me that my box was faulty, that I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet, and that Comcast would never do anything like this. I have no way of knowing whether he really did not know about the problem or was just trying to diffuse the situation with a lie. I ranted at him, and had the directTV number out when I saw this post.

Thank you for posting the contacts that you found. I just sent mail to Jeff. I hope my box is fixed soon.

I dumped Comcast for internet a couple of years ago when they were having DNS issue. After weeks with intermittent internet outages, I finally figured out they were having a DNS issue. I called and asked them to refund me for the month for all of the aggrevation. They offered to refund me for only the days that I had called to complain that my service was down -- which I had only done 3 times. I told them that I had been having the problem all month and that I had to diagnose and fix the issue myself (by switching to a public DNS server). They told me to go ahead and switch. So a month later when I had DSL setup, I called back to cancel. The guy on the other end of the phone this time admitted to me that there had been a denial of service attack on their equipment. I asked why they hadn't just been honest about it, and he said, "I really wish they had been." And he also said that they should have credited me for the month to keep me, but it was too late.

Bottom line: If FIOS was in my neighborhood, I would have already switched. As it is, I just don't want a dish on my house. I just can't believe that they messed with my TiVo.

[WayneCarter]

Sorry to dredge this up again, but we also lost serial control of our Motorola cablebox last November as well. We seldom use the cablebox so I just switched to IR control and never got around to griping it to Comcast.

Yesterday, I tried switching back to serial control -- it works again!! Apparently, ComCast has implemented the fix across the board, at least in our area. So it might be worthwhile to try serial control again if you are using IR because of this problem.

[silicide]

My serial port stopped working in Nov 2007. I created a workaround by plugging the cable directly into Tivo, and bypassing the cable box altogether.

With the roll out of the all digital signal by Comcast, I needed to find a fix quickly. Fortunately, Jeff is still working in the MA market, and was able to update my Motorola SDT2244 and get the serial port working again.

'Jeff_Vandeberghe@cable.comcast.com'
Jeff Vandeberghe
Director of Product Deployment
Comcast - Northern Central Division
603-695-1546

I'm very happy to say that Tivo's back up and running with a fully operational serial port!

[ah30k]

And sorry, to the guy who posted above, that Comcast is doing nothing illegal. Bull. I consider their actions akin to slamming, making customers HAVE to choose Comcast's DVR. Whatever happened to free market?? :confused: :mad:Which law states that IR support has to be enabled on STBs? If you are going to challenge someones statement that they are doing nothing illegal then you should really have something better that a silly statement about the free market.

Anyway, calls from angry customers are really the best way to solve this problem and it seems to be working in several markets.

The setting to enable the serial port is a setting within the headend that gets propagated out to all of the STBs within that headend's control.

[AStar617]

My serial port stopped working in Nov 2007. I created a workaround by plugging the cable directly into Tivo, and bypassing the cable box altogether.

With the roll out of the all digital signal by Comcast, I needed to find a fix quickly. Fortunately, Jeff is still working in the MA market, and was able to update my Motorola SDT2244 and get the serial port working again.

'Jeff_Vandeberghe@cable.comcast.com'
Jeff Vandeberghe
Director of Product Deployment
Comcast - Northern Central Division
603-695-1546

I'm very happy to say that Tivo's back up and running with a fully operational serial port!

I'm *extremely* glad to hear that this avenue works still. :up: I'm in Cambridge and in the exact same circumstances as you (procrastinated because I never cared about the "high-number" channels for my TiVos, until the current cutover forced it).

I'll try the normal CSR methods first, but if I get any pushback whatsoever, I'll be in touch with Mr. Vandeberghe. :)

[AStar617]

Wanted to follow up my above post with my actual experience. FWIW, my account is in Cambridge MA, and I'm pretty sure that at this point we don't have *anything* left on analog besides local programming.

I called 800-COMCAST this evening and ended up talking to a gentleman in Tech Support named Ethan. I explained my request politely but matter-of-factly without hiding my intent (a hard factory reset on both my DCT2000 series boxes to reenable serial port functionality for TiVo channel control). He was unfamiliar with the backstory, so I filled him in on what happened in Nov '07, and the workaround I was requesting. He put me on hold for a few minutes, came back, and performed the hard remote reset without hesitation. It turned off both boxes, and they needed to be manually powered back on. Within minutes, my cable boxes were accepting input from the TiVos via serial. Yes. :up:

As always, YMMV, but I'm glad to report that I didn't even have to bother Mr. Vandeberghe at all. Working in a call center environment myself (I'm a tech support engineer for multivendor UNIX platforms), I know firsthand that the only time management generally hears about you is when someone says you screwed up. So I made sure to get Ethan's supervisor's email to report how happy I was that he made it a painless experience. I encourage you all to do the same and give credit where credit is due.

Good luck to anyone else in a similar position.