no program guide data

[doghead1098s]

My comcast service keeps losing it's program guide data. The cable co spent 4 hours trying to solve the issue the other day and did. the next day with a brand new box I lost all program infromation. Not sure if these guys know what they are doing. Has anyone had this issue?

[stevegarfield]

Hi,
I lost my program data yesterday and called Comcast. They sent a signal and I powered off, waited a minute, powered on the box.

The program guide came back.

Today, no program guide.

I powered off, waited a minute, powered on the box.

Nothing.

I powered off, unplugged the unit, waited 15 minutes, powered on the box.

No program guide.

[stevegarfield]

they are rolling out a truck on monday

[needadvr]

I've had the same problem. Guide data gone one day. Back the next. Called comcast about 2 weeks ago. they did the usual box reboot without luck. Next day, the data was back. Rep told me they'd have to schedule an appointment and come to replace the box. Standard response I guess. Who has time for this?? I just want a reliable HD DVR that has a reasonably fast and responsive user interface. I don't ever see the comcast/Tivo solution getting there.

What's a "truck"?

[stevegarfield]

What's a "truck"?

It's a vehicle with (4) wheels that says Comcast on it, but that's not important right now.

My TiVo was swapped out today. The initial sympton was that the GUIDE was not being populated with data.

It now seems that this is a more widespread problem and the Comcast Guy tells me that they are working on it.

At the same time, the TiVo Guys want to do an autopsy on my specific unit. So my existing TiVo was removed with all the unwatched shows on it.

Goodbye:

Making the Band, Mad Men, That Masterpiece Contemporary show where London turns into a police state, Heroes, Terminator and Monk. I'll be able to catch some of these on Hulu and others on repeat.

[Naugahide]

It now seems that this is a more widespread problem and the Comcast Guy tells me that they are working on it.

At the same time, the TiVo Guys want to do an autopsy on my specific unit. So my existing TiVo was removed with all the unwatched shows on it.

Goodbye:

Making the Band, Mad Men, That Masterpiece Contemporary show where London turns into a police state, Heroes, Terminator and Monk. I'll be able to catch some of these on Hulu and others on repeat.

I had 4 different comcast boxes in my house before I gave up and bought a tivo series 3 box. Loosing the recorded programs was a pain, but loosing the season passes was a bigger pain. I have something like 30 season passes, and re-installing them all was a pain, given how slow the comcast tivo was.

And I don't buy that malarky about wanting to autopsy your dvr. They were 4 for 4 in doing box swaps when I had issues. I think they are doing what is easiest for them i.e. spending as little time as possible diagnosing problems by just giving you a new (refurbished) box.

I was always curteous to the comcast guys who came out to do the service calls. It's not their fault that there are so many problems, and complaining certainly wouldn't help anything. But by the time I was on the 4th box, I was really resenting the need to stay home from work to let them in, and the time I'd be spending reprogramming my season passes.

With regard to program data, the comcast tivo needs to talk to servers at comcast to get the program data. During my time as a comcast tivo dvr customer, I saw two issues with this.

1) comcast just seems to not be good at keeping these servers on-line, reachable and up-to-date

2) you need to have a two-way path between your comcast tivo box and the comcast server. I do not have comcast internet service, and I found that the comcast tivo had a lot of problems keeping that two-way connection functioning. At least 1 of my 4 box swaps was due to the transmitter on my comcast tivo burning out. It was a really bizarre failure mode: I could see digital tv, but anything that needed to have a two-way connection to comcast at first became flaky, then totally went away. This include receiving the program guide info, as well as any attempt to record any program, either via season pass or by using the remote to record live tv.

Bottom line is tivo itself is better at running its servers than comcast is, and I can access them using my (non-comcast) internet connection as opposed to a catv upstream connection, and it's been 100% reliable since I returned my comcast tivo and bought a tivo series 3 box a few months ago.