Comcast CableCard activation is so frustrating!

benna12 · 07-09-2012, 11:12 AM

Getting my Tivo boxes activated through Comcast has been the most
frustrating thing I have ever done. *I bought two Premiere boxes, one was
an XL4 and the other was a base model.

After calling the Comcast activation number 5 times, they said they could
do no more and had to send a tech out. This was also after a three way call
between Tivo, myself and Comcast, the Xl4 box would not activate. *Comcast
kept saying they did all they could do and they sent the correct signal and
the card was activated. *They swear they are doing everything correctly,
but the Con was showing as "Yes", which I know is correct, but the Val was
remaining at "?", which I know is incorrect.

So, I had no choice but to wait three days for the tech to come out, which
he did on last Thursday. *I explained what the problem was and he said to
me "I am not going to do anything different than than you have tried over
the phone". *I agreed with him on this, but he picked up his handheld
device and talked to someone who I could tell by the way she was talking
knew more about this than the 5 other people I talked to in the days prior.
It seems like he was able to talk to an Advanced Support person or
something like that. *Within a few minutes, whatever signal or activation
she sent, she had the Cablecard working within minutes. *We went through
the menus and the On Demand feature was working as expected.

I did let him know I had another box that I would be setting up later that
night and he left. *Of course, I set up the other box and I get the same
exact issue that I got on my first box when I call to activate the
Cablecard. *I call Comcast and explain to them that the same thing is
occurring and they kept telling me they are doing it correctly, which
obviously they are not because the tech was able to talk to someone who
knew what the issue was and had the Cablecard working in minutes. *I keep
telling them they are missing a step and they keep telling me they are not
missing a step and it is just the most frustrating thing to deal with. *I
can tell that the CSD reps I am speaking with really are not sure how to
troubleshoot at all and just are reading from scripts and templates. *So
Frustrating!

I ask this last CSD rep to connect me to the support rep that the Tech
talked to and of course he cannot connect me to her. *Wht can they not
connect me to the rep who knows how to solve my problem? *Of course, they
say there is nothing else they can do for me, so they have to send a tech
out again, which will be this Thursday.

Why does comcast not have their act together? *Why can one person know how
to activate my Cablecard, but numerous other reps have no idea? *Why is it
that only the rep the tech talked to know how to do this? *Why not train
all the reps to handle this situation?

I am going to see how the tech does on Thursday, but I do need to write a
complaint letter to Comcast so they iron this process out for future
customers.

- Ben

billbillw · 07-09-2012, 01:15 PM

Sorry to hear about your problems, but they are not typical these days. In the last 2 weeks, I was able to activate my Premiere and my TivoHD with absolutely no headaches. For both, I did local office pickup of the card (one at a time), went home, went through guided setup, and called the cable card activation # after the cards were installed. With the Premiere, it took them a little longer to pair successfully, but I was still done in 20 minutes. The TivoHD took less than 5 minutes for them to pair successfully.

benna12 · 07-09-2012, 01:20 PM

I just wonder why it is difficult to activate the Premiere boxes and why do the reps not know how to do it? I have no problem waiting the twenty minutes, but the reps on the phone seem to be missing some step in the activation process.

moyekj · 07-09-2012, 01:28 PM

I recently had trouble with CC pairing for a new Elite where CC Conditional Access screen kept showing Val=?
Calling in to Cox the tech kept sending a signal which would update the Data ID on the CC but would not result in Val=V which is the desired setting for proper pairing. Tech did it 3 times to no avail. Finally a 4th time he did things a little differently where he claimed the only change was timing on his part in sending the signal. I think the first time they send a signal the Data ID changes and needs to be updated on their side, then once that has been updated wait a little and send another signal or something along those lines.

I could swear in the past there were different signals that could be sent to CC from headend but this tech kept insisting there is only 1 signal which takes care of all the handshaking. I don't know enough about the process to argue but that is not what I recalled from past pairings.

benna12 · 07-09-2012, 04:06 PM

Now, I have no idea how this happenned, but I called to activate my CableCard on Thursday and it has not worked any day since I called, I even checked this morning before I went to work, but when I just got home and checked, the TiVo box with Cablecard is now working.

This is so odd, not sure how it fixed itself, but it did. All HD channels are working, along with Premium channels and the On Demand is working.

Still a frustrating process none the less.

lessd · 07-09-2012, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by benna12

Now, I have no idea how this happenned, but I called to activate my CableCard on Thursday and it has not worked any day since I called, I even checked this morning before I went to work, but when I just got home and checked, the TiVo box with Cablecard is now working.

This is so odd, not sure how it fixed itself, but it did. All HD channels are working, along with Premium channels and the On Demand is working.

Still a frustrating process none the less.

Read this post #5 and #6 http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=489291

Tennberg · 07-10-2012, 03:27 AM

I had a very frustrating experience getting my CableCARD activated. I had received a letter from Comcast a couple weeks back, saying they were shutting off the Tivo service on my Motorola box. The letter had the offer of a free Premiere DVR if I signed up for 1-year of Tivo service. I got the box from Tivo, and went in on a Monday afternoon to switch my Motorola box for a CableCARD. I had to explain to the woman at the local office 3-4 times why I was doing what I was doing, as she had not received any notice of what Comcast was doing.

I finally get the CableCARD home, and call Comcast to activate it. The first woman didn't even ask for the info (Host ID, Data ID, etc.), and said it would take 45 mins to 1 hour to work. After 1 hour, nothing. I called back, and got someone new who only asked for part of the necessary info. She saw the card, and sent a signal. Again, it should work in 45 mins. Nothing 45 mins later. I probably spoke to at least 10 reps over 2-3 days, each of whom said they could see the card, they could send it a signal, but had no idea why it wasn't working. The last guy I spoke to said that since the screen said Val: ?, my card was defective and he'd have to get a tech out here to replace it.

That Friday, a tech comes out, and calls someone in their advanced support office with the "defective" card still in the Premiere. All he said to the person on the other end was, "Yup. Mmhmm. Yup. Yup." 45 seconds later, it's working. Apparently, the card was provisioned on the wrong server. Why not a single person at the CableCARD activation center realized this, I have no idea.

EDIT: Just to update, I was calling 877 405 2298 each and every time to activate the card. It was written down on a sheet that was given to me when I picked up my CableCARD.

philw1776 · 07-10-2012, 08:03 AM

You guys are making me really nervous about activating my card with Comcast, hopefully tomorrow when the TiVo arrives. Putting my TiVo 2 out to pasture as I got sick of lo-def on the HDTV after 10 years.

benna12 · 07-10-2012, 08:31 AM

I was calling the 877-445-2298 number as well an they were clearly doing something wrong in their end, but did not know what. The tech talked to the right person last week for me and got my first box working in 10 minutes.

I tried to activate the second box on my own after he left and got the same error as the first box, after two hours on the phone, they set up a tech appointment again. But, last night the box started working without anything further being done on my end. So strange it started working four days later in its own.

I think Comcast is really missing something on their end when they try to activate the cards that go in the Premiere boxes. I wonder if someone saw my issue and resolved it without me knowing?

sharkster · 07-10-2012, 10:27 AM

The CableCARD installation is the difficult part, for some anyway. I had the cable guy come here to do mine, as they said that is the only way they do it.

It practically took an act of Congress, and him calling in half a dozen times, to get the first one installed. The second one just wouldn't work and he had to come back the next day with a new one for my second Premiere.

Fortunately, he took my advice of bringing more than one with him.

I don't think I could have handled it without a great deal of rage, so I'm glad he did the installs and I'm glad he was very helpful about it and kind enough to come back first thing the next morning to my house.

I have Charter, FWIW

It didn't seem, at all to me, to be a matter of him not knowing what he was doing. It seemed to be the Tivo/CableCard relationship can just be obstinate.

miwi98 · 07-11-2012, 12:23 AM

I live in the Washington, DC area and had no problems activating my Cable Card, with my Premiere, but I did loose signal on many stations so I purchased a Cable TV Amp from Radio Shack and everything is fine now. Comcast is upgrading their signal equipment which caused low signal output. I hope your problem will facilated very soon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benna12

Getting my Tivo boxes activated through Comcast has been the most
frustrating thing I have ever done. *I bought two Premiere boxes, one was
an XL4 and the other was a base model.

After calling the Comcast activation number 5 times, they said they could
do no more and had to send a tech out. This was also after a three way call
between Tivo, myself and Comcast, the Xl4 box would not activate. *Comcast
kept saying they did all they could do and they sent the correct signal and
the card was activated. *They swear they are doing everything correctly,
but the Con was showing as "Yes", which I know is correct, but the Val was
remaining at "?", which I know is incorrect.

So, I had no choice but to wait three days for the tech to come out, which
he did on last Thursday. *I explained what the problem was and he said to
me "I am not going to do anything different than than you have tried over
the phone". *I agreed with him on this, but he picked up his handheld
device and talked to someone who I could tell by the way she was talking
knew more about this than the 5 other people I talked to in the days prior.
It seems like he was able to talk to an Advanced Support person or
something like that. *Within a few minutes, whatever signal or activation
she sent, she had the Cablecard working within minutes. *We went through
the menus and the On Demand feature was working as expected.

I did let him know I had another box that I would be setting up later that
night and he left. *Of course, I set up the other box and I get the same
exact issue that I got on my first box when I call to activate the
Cablecard. *I call Comcast and explain to them that the same thing is
occurring and they kept telling me they are doing it correctly, which
obviously they are not because the tech was able to talk to someone who
knew what the issue was and had the Cablecard working in minutes. *I keep
telling them they are missing a step and they keep telling me they are not
missing a step and it is just the most frustrating thing to deal with. *I
can tell that the CSD reps I am speaking with really are not sure how to
troubleshoot at all and just are reading from scripts and templates. *So
Frustrating!

I ask this last CSD rep to connect me to the support rep that the Tech
talked to and of course he cannot connect me to her. *Wht can they not
connect me to the rep who knows how to solve my problem? *Of course, they
say there is nothing else they can do for me, so they have to send a tech
out again, which will be this Thursday.

Why does comcast not have their act together? *Why can one person know how
to activate my Cablecard, but numerous other reps have no idea? *Why is it
that only the rep the tech talked to know how to do this? *Why not train
all the reps to handle this situation?

I am going to see how the tech does on Thursday, but I do need to write a
complaint letter to Comcast so they iron this process out for future
customers.

- Ben

ostimu · 07-11-2012, 02:01 PM

1) I'm having the exact same issue (I'm in Boston, where they're discontinuing the Tivo Motorola box). 2) I, too, picked up cable cards (at my local office, they seemed to at least know why I was doing the swap), but the cards won't activate, and the people on the phone are clearly reading from a script and don't know how to fix anything. Even the tier 2 person at activation had no idea how to diagnose anything, and he also failed to authorize my second box correctly. So, two TiVos, two cable cards, two failed authorizations. And at the moment, as a result, no TV.

I have a tech coming tomorrow afternoon. I hope I have as much success after that as you did, but it's insane that this requires a tech visit.

I wish I'd seen this thread when I first received the letter about the move away from the Motorola boxes. I'd have given the switch over a few more weeks, in the hopes that more of the Comcast staff would get a clue of how to activate the cards correctly.

The best part is that I'd scheduled a tech visit in the first place, remembering what a pain cable cards were when I had them on an older TiVo. The tech never showed, and calling Comcast resulted in the claim that "no appointment was scheduled." Thus, the attempt at self-install, which I absolutely, positively do not recommend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tennberg

I had a very frustrating experience getting my CableCARD activated. I had received a letter from Comcast a couple weeks back, saying they were shutting off the Tivo service on my Motorola box. The letter had the offer of a free Premiere DVR if I signed up for 1-year of Tivo service. I got the box from Tivo, and went in on a Monday afternoon to switch my Motorola box for a CableCARD. I had to explain to the woman at the local office 3-4 times why I was doing what I was doing, as she had not received any notice of what Comcast was doing.

I finally get the CableCARD home, and call Comcast to activate it. The first woman didn't even ask for the info (Host ID, Data ID, etc.), and said it would take 45 mins to 1 hour to work. After 1 hour, nothing. I called back, and got someone new who only asked for part of the necessary info. She saw the card, and sent a signal. Again, it should work in 45 mins. Nothing 45 mins later. I probably spoke to at least 10 reps over 2-3 days, each of whom said they could see the card, they could send it a signal, but had no idea why it wasn't working. The last guy I spoke to said that since the screen said Val: ?, my card was defective and he'd have to get a tech out here to replace it.

That Friday, a tech comes out, and calls someone in their advanced support office with the "defective" card still in the Premiere. All he said to the person on the other end was, "Yup. Mmhmm. Yup. Yup." 45 seconds later, it's working. Apparently, the card was provisioned on the wrong server. Why not a single person at the CableCARD activation center realized this, I have no idea.

EDIT: Just to update, I was calling 877 405 2298 each and every time to activate the card. It was written down on a sheet that was given to me when I picked up my CableCARD.

jrtroo · 07-11-2012, 02:38 PM

What will the on sight tech do? Nothing that you cannot do already on the phone with the right people. (ie- they are wasting your time- don't let them charge for the visit)

If the cablecard hotline does not get you up and working, use the executive complaint email address. We_Can_Help@comcast.com

I have had success with that approach.

benna12 · 07-11-2012, 03:05 PM

From my experience I know that most of the reps for the activation of these cards are missing a step. I firmly believe this. I really do think it has to do with the on demand functionality and them being Premiere boxes. Luckily both my boxes are now working.

ostimu · 07-11-2012, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by benna12

From my experience I know that most of the reps for the activation of these cards are missing a step. I firmly believe this. I really do think it has to do with the on demand functionality and them being Premiere boxes. Luckily both my boxes are now working.

Are you in Boston or San Francisco? To your point, I also wonder if it's an issue with the whole "Comcast On-Demand" capability that they're rolling out in these markets. If that's the case, it seems like they must be getting more and more of these authorization problems, at least from these markets.
Congrats getting your boxes working. I hope I magically get your same tech tomorrow afternoon.

ostimu · 07-11-2012, 06:45 PM

To follow-up on my last post, my problem has been resolved. How'd I do it so quickly, and before a tech visited the house? Twitter. Yes, I tweeted that I was having an annoying Comcast problem, and a guy named ComcastWill replied. We exchanged info via Twitter DM, he couldn't fix it but said somebody would call me, and I got a call from executive tech support an hour later. I gave her the ID#s for my two Tivo boxes, and a half-hour later, a tech called and said she'd fixed it -- and she had. Some "bad network setting" on my account. Fixed.
Woo hoo!

bareyb · 07-11-2012, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by benna12

Now, I have no idea how this happenned, but I called to activate my CableCard on Thursday and it has not worked any day since I called, I even checked this morning before I went to work, but when I just got home and checked, the TiVo box with Cablecard is now working.

This is so odd, not sure how it fixed itself, but it did. All HD channels are working, along with Premium channels and the On Demand is working.

Still a frustrating process none the less.

It almost always comes down to there being a communication problem between HQ and your local head end. If it makes you feel any better, I've been activating TiVo's for 10 years now and they still haven't gotten any better at Comcast, than they were back in 2006. They don't seem to have learned a thing, or made any changes to the Protocols. Why? You have to look at people's "incentives" (read Freakonomics) and clearly the Cable Co's have a conflict of interests here. It is in their best interest to sell the services of their own DVR rather than helping people hook up their TiVo's. On the surface, they really have no incentive to help you and they don't put much time or money into making it any easier. They still make all the same stupid errors that they always have...

What they seem to be missing is that many of us will simply follow TiVo wherever they go. For many like me, TiVo is the only reason I'm with Comcast at all. DirecTV dropped TiVo, so I dropped them. Now that's no longer true. If Comcast keeps messing with me I'd be tempted to bail on them for the DirecTV TiVo service like I used to have. It was WAY more reliable. Of course I just spent a truckload of money to get the Premiere Elite with lifetime so they kind of have me there... I'd still bail if the service wasn't somewhat reliable once they get it up and running. AFter the initial install, I've only had to have them come out about once a year for various problems. With DirecTV I never had single issue, ever.

ltxi · 07-11-2012, 07:18 PM

I learned a long time ago......just do a truck roll. Our local techs are excellent. The CSR guys in India.....not so much

bareyb · 07-11-2012, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ltxi

I learned a long time ago......just do a truck roll. Our local techs are excellent. The CSR guys in India.....not so much

Not so easy to have to stay home all day and then hope you get a decent tech. Always make sure to ask for a true Comcast tech and not a "Contractor". That seems to help. It's just ridiculous that they can't get this right after all these years. Makes one think they aren't trying very hard.

ltxi · 07-11-2012, 08:44 PM

I repeat with elaboration.....our local techs are excellent and they work on two hour windows pm, less in the morning, and tend to show up early. YMMV

gtaylor · 07-11-2012, 09:02 PM

I tried to self-install a while ago after picking up the card at the Comcast office, but after calling to have them activate it, no-go.

Lots of time in chat and then on the phone, but they said they had to roll a truck.

It was near the end of their work day, I guess, as three trucks showed up (at the scheduled time) and we all had a good time, but accomplishing nothing until one tech decided to call 'his guy' somewhere.

His Guy looked at the card remotely and told him that the card had been activated as a MODEM card.

Contacted Comcast central to deactivate, activate, and all was good.

gary

benna12 · 07-12-2012, 07:12 AM

I am so glad to get my boxes finally activated, it was a frustrating process and I hope they iron out the kinks for others in the future. There was no need for a tech visit, the reps should have been able to activate my cablecard over the phone, but I spoke to 6 different reps and none of them could activate the card. I could tell they were not "local" reps and were reading from a script. I hope Comcast updates their scripts for them soon.

sharkster · 07-12-2012, 10:46 AM

Glad you got it all going, Benna. Yup, it's frustrating for sure! For what the cable guy had to go through to get mine, one of them in particular, set up I would have been in some kind of anxiety freak out. heh

I agree that it should be simpler. It is so touchy that I'm afraid to even look at the CC settings because I don't want to set anything off so I just hope nothing happens that they have to be dealt with again. I'm four months in since I replaced my S2 machines with Premieres and so far, so good.

jrtroo · 07-12-2012, 10:56 AM

Yep- the trucks almost always do nothing effective themselves on their trip. Hope nobody paid for all of these visits I'm seeing in this thread.

It is pretty much the rule, the one who knows the right back end contact that can reset/correct/update their system correctly gets the job done. Sometimes a smart CSR or manager can escalate, sometimes a tech can do it, but it really comes down to finding someone with rights and knowhow in the back office (I had a case where they need to get someone in IT to make a data repair).

Unless there was a unknown signal issue I have yet to see a case where the truck roll corrected this situation (not that the field techs don't want to help or go through a lot of troubleshooting).

It all comes down to ComCast training and inability to change data in certain screens.

sharkster · 07-12-2012, 10:59 AM

I guess that my cable co, Charter, charges $49 for this but they didn't charge me. They are pretty good about stuff like that here, thankfully. It would suck to have to pay for something that we SHOULD BE able to do ourselves.

The fact that they seem to make it nearly impossible (and when I called about this they said that it wasn't even an option for me to just get the CCs myself and do it) for us to do it, would make it really irksome to be charged.

philw1776 · 07-12-2012, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by philw1776

You guys are making me really nervous about activating my card with Comcast, hopefully tomorrow when the TiVo arrives. Putting my TiVo 2 out to pasture as I got sick of lo-def on the HDTV after 10 years.

Installed my cable card in the TiVo yesterday, called Comcast and the CSR presumably in India provisioned it in a couple minutes; she had no problem. So there are those who know what they're doing.

About 2-3 years ago I had a home visit by Comcast after lightening fried all my Comcast equipment. We troubleshot together and the guy knew what he was doing (I'm a retired Internet engineer) and was also very pleasant. Completely unlike the cretins who run their phone systems.

djones18 · 07-12-2012, 05:19 PM

Sorry to hear about continuing difficulties with Comcast. With Cox here in Northern Virginia, did my own TiVo XL4 self-install yesterday. Picked up the M-Card and Tuning Adapter in the morning. Guy on desk scanned them into my account. Several hours later, when I called Cox to pair these with my TiVo, they weren't in the system. Knowledgeable CSR recorded info over the phone and had me fully activated within 20 minutes. What I learned:

1. Set my TiVo up without cablecard and tuning adapter two days early allowing time for downloads, updates, platform stabilization. Activated XL4 with TiVo. Checked to ensure TiVo had latest updates and active TiVo account before starting cablecard installation.
2. Read and reread TiVo and Cox instructions for cablecard and tuning adapter installation.
3. Activated cablecard first without tuning adapter connected.
4. Once cablecard activated and working, connected tuning adapter and activated it.
5. Activated cablecard and tuning adapter on same phone call with CSR. They waited while I connected tuning adapter once we completed cablecard activation.

Slow and deliberate process led to smooth overall activation for me. This, despite system not having my cablecard and tuning adapter on file after I picked them up at Cox store. Cox at least, has come a long way from my first cablecard and tuning adapter activation years ago when they were first released. What a nightmare. Back then it took days to work out the bugs. Techs and customers were learning and training each other to get it all working.

newton456 · 07-15-2012, 04:44 PM

My Comcast (Boston) activation was mixed. It started out on the wrong foot when I went to the local office to get a cablecard and was told they were all out - fortunately a nearby office still had them.

Installation and activation went smoothly except that I didn't see the icon for VOD. I stupidly called Comcast activation and was told I had the wrong cablecard and I would need to swap it out for a different (multicast) card. Fortunately it was in the evening so I had some time to research before another trip - I quickly realized that I could record two programs and so I must already have the right card.

Some research on the Tivo site revealed that a forced connect and a reboot might cure the problem, and it did.

Still have an issue with an ERR-2 in some VOD circumstances, but mostly it's working fine.

aadam101 · 07-15-2012, 05:53 PM

According to this commercial, Comcast is promising to install the Tivo at "no additional cost"

This commercial is slightly different from the one I saw on TV today where they said they will install it for "free." Triple Play was also $89 in the commercial I saw on TV vs $99 in the commercial below.

TiVo and Comcast

Close

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Phantom Gremlin · 07-17-2012, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newton456

Some research on the Tivo site revealed that a forced connect and a reboot might cure the problem, and it did.

QFT. Believe it or not, this might actually work. It's not just something a CSR says to get you off the phone line.

I recently switched from Frontier FiOS to Comcast, and needed to change out a bunch of CableCARDs. On most boxes there was no problem, but on one box in particular, Comcast and I just couldn't get it to authorize.

Power cycling the TiVo fixed it! So when all else fails, fall back to the standard "power cycle the device" trick.