CC were working but now just gray screen

taba469 · 10-07-2006, 06:00 PM

I had my 2 CC's working but I came home today to find my Tivo only showing a gray screen. Of course when I call TW-Houston, they first asked me to pull out the card and reinsert it...buzzer... no good. Now they are telling me that I need to exchange them. Can someone tell me how I can look on my Tivo to see if the cards are getting the "activation" signal from TW?

jfh3 · 10-07-2006, 06:05 PM

Go into Settings/Remote, CableCARD & Devices/CableCARD Decoder/Configure CableCARD 1/CableCARD Menu

Then, depending on who made your cable card, Conditional Access (Motorola cards) or the SA equiv (which I forget at the moment) and post the results. Ditto for the other card.

Greeby · 10-08-2006, 08:49 AM

I have the same problem.

Have 2 Series 3 boxes and 4 cable cards from Adelphia (now Comcast).

Had them installed on 9/26. Took 4 techs 5 hours to get them going. On 9/30 all the HD Plus channels poofed off of all 4 cards. After much discussion the supervisor did a "repair" command followed by a re-hit. In about 90 mminutes the HD Plus channels were back.

Sometime overnight between midnight and 7am on 10/5 the cards stopped decoding all channels. The cards still have channel info and see the programming, just is not authorizing it. After several calls I was told that the migration from Adelphia to Comcast took place overnight on 10/5 and a lot of cable card customers in Miramar, Fl were out.

Saturday morning I talked with Tasha, a supervisor at Comcast, and she was trying to help me. She issued repair/re-hits to all cards and called back after 90 minutes to see if that had worked. It did not. She said that maybe they had to remove all the cards from my account to get them to activate. She was working with another agent to get the cards removed and re-added to the account. I gave her the CC serial numbers and all the pairing info and she wrote it all down and repeated the info to me correctly. She promissed to call back later that day once they had completed the work.
Guess what? No call back and still no programming.

My CA Screen is the same on all the cards:

The Card tuned to 752 STARZHD says:

Unit Address: 0011D09DDA
000-02988-84570-253
State: Not Subscribed
ECM PID: 0x00A9
Component PIDs
0x0090 0x0091 0x0092
0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
Host Validation: Valid 00
Copy Protection Key: Enabled
CCO: 0x02

The Card tuned to 102 SCIENCE says:

Unit Address: 0011D09E02
000-02988-84610-047
State: Not Subscribed
ECM PID: 0x0069
Component PIDs
0x0050 0x0051 0x0059
0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
Host Validation: Valid 00
Copy Protection Key: Disabled
CCO: 0x00

Cable Card status screens say:

Manufacturer: 0x00 Motorola
Version 4.05
Unit Address: Same as above
Download satus:
Segments left to download 0
State: Wait to start
Entitlement management messages
nothing there

Network Setup screens say:

LKC: 75.250 EMM: 0
Status: TUNED_STATE
OOB Msgs: 117471 (I'm guessing that this is telling me that the card is tuned to the "command" channel and is receiving authorization commands from the cable company?)
HUNT is displayed with reverse highlighting.

I'm thinking these screens are telling me that Both cards are paired correctly just not authorized to decode the channels. STARZHD has copy protection enabled but Discovery Science does not.

As long as I leave the cable cards in I still get the chanel mapping for the local HD channels so at least I can record basic cable and the HD locals.

Other than spending another 5 or 6 hours with a tech trying to install more cards....how do I get this fixed? How do I contact someone at Comcast that has a clue about how to fix this?

Dan203 · 10-08-2006, 10:26 AM

Just call the cable company and ask them to re-hit the cards. Sounds like it lost authorization some how.

Dan

slimoli · 10-08-2006, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan203

Just call the cable company and ask them to re-hit the cards. Sounds like it lost authorization some how.

Dan

I don't think it will work. I have the same problem with a CC on my Mitsubishi TV. Card was replaced 3 times, several "re-hits" , deleting the card from the account and re-registering it, nothing seems to work. My only guess is that for some reason the host-ID gets "contaminated" and nothing else will work. I have been dealing with this problem for more than a week now and already involved engineer from Mitsubishi and all the tech staff at the cableco. They simply don't know what to do.

Got my S3 yesterday and hope that they can activate the 2 CC next week. I had the CC working for 3 months on the Mitsu without any problem

Sergio

Greeby · 10-08-2006, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slimoli

I don't think it will work. I have the same problem with a CC on my Mitsubishi TV. Card was replaced 3 times, several "re-hits" , deleting the card from the account and re-registering it, nothing seems to work. My only guess is that for some reason the host-ID gets "contaminated" and nothing else will work. I have been dealing with this problem for more than a week now and already involved engineer from Mitsubishi and all the tech staff at the cableco. They simply don't know what to do.

Well, that's not encouraging

I've had re-hits and repair commands galore. I just find it incredible that all 4 cards would go down at once if it's not an authorization issue.

I'm thinking that Aldephia/Comcast is running a sweep program every few days to de-activate unauthorized cards. Seems odd this happens every three or 4 days like clockwork...

ah30k · 10-08-2006, 12:34 PM

I got the billing CSR to remove my second outlet fee and low and behold all of my digital services went out on the second tuner within a couple of days.

I spent hours on the phone with the tech CSR and even though I practically told them how to fix my own problem, all they ended up saying was 'we don't support TiVo'.

I actually called the service cancellation line and the tech there helped and quickly agreed that when they removed the second outlet fee they de-authorized my service on the second tuner.

Call the CSR and ask them to make sure that your CableCARDs are both tagged for the appropriate level of digital service.

jacksonian · 10-08-2006, 05:21 PM

One of my cablecards lost my premium and HD tier channels last night. They popped up again for a little while, but then were gone again this am. I just unplugged the TiVo and let it reboot and it was fine again.

taba469 · 10-08-2006, 07:18 PM

jfh3, out of nowhere my first CC is now working again. Still getting gray screen on the 2nd. Here is the info from my Tivo & CC:

CC #1:
* CC Status:
- Mfg = Motorola
- Version = 4.21
- Download status
- Segments left to download: 0
- State: wait to start

* Conditional Access:
- Unit Address: (matches what I provided TW)
- (matches what I provided TW)
- Encyrption: DES
- Connected: yes, EnabledByCP: yes
- Auth: SUBSCRIBED
- CA enable: possible
- ECM PID: 0x0431
- Component PIDS:
(seq of numbers)
(seq of numbers)
- Host Validation: Valid 01
- Copy Protection Key: disabled
- CCI: 0x00

CC #2:
* CC Status:
- Mfg = Motorola
- Version = 4.05
- Download status
- Segments left to download: 0
- State: wait to start

* Conditional Access:
- Unit Address: (matches what I provided TW)
- (matches what I provided TW)
- State: Unknown
- ECM PID: 0x0000
- Component PIDS:
(all zeros)
(all zeros)
- Host Validation: Valid 00
- Copy Protection Key: enabled
- CCI: 0x03

jfh3 · 10-08-2006, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taba469

jfh3, out of nowhere my first CC is now working again. Still getting gray screen on the 2nd. Here is the info from my Tivo & CC:

Card 2 needs to be initalized.

Card 1 looks fine.

taba469 · 10-08-2006, 10:01 PM

jfh3,

How do I initialize the 2nd card?

Cloud · 10-08-2006, 10:21 PM

I beleive the head end does that.... Call the cable company....

rtmoore4 · 10-08-2006, 10:30 PM

I think I have figured out the key to diagnosing this problem. It is in the Network Setup screen, underneath the CableCARD menu. I was able to figure this out when faced with the same problem by using the Test Channel mode for each CableCARD. CC1 would only give me a black screen (I changed from the grey default) on channels 100+, whereas CC2 would give me those channels just fine. See attached pics for CC1 info.

rtmoore4 · 10-08-2006, 10:31 PM

See attached pics for CC2 info:

rtmoore4 · 10-08-2006, 10:48 PM

Following a simple TiVo reboot (first option on the Reset menu) CC1 started working just fine, with the attached screens showing the changes.

I suspect this is some type of compatability problem between the TiVo CC firmware/software and the CC's themselves. Having been a long-time CC user with a Mitsu TV, I faced the same problems in the early days of CC. It took several firmware flashes on the first CC-enabled Mitsu TVs before they would continue to work with a CC for longer than about 24-36 hours. Something in the programming stream the card was processing over that timeframe was corrupting the card. A hard reset of the TV would always bring it back just fine. You never had to call the cable-co, which is good because they really couldn't help. Funny thing was, they would say, "We don't support Mitsu TVs." It's just a standard line, I guess. "Oh, which brand of TV/DVR do you have? Oh yeah, we don't support that." You really can't blame them, with all of the hardware out there, but the whole CC thing was supposed to have a certification process that guaranteed the things would work, right? What happened to that? Is TWC-Houston (my provider) putting info in the stream that is not according to the CC spec?

FYI, I've also discovered that if you use the CC menu Test Channel feature and then go to LiveTV, you will be using whichever tuner you last tested. So, if you are getting a black screen with CC1, but CC2 is working, you can use the Test Channel feature for CC2, switch back to LiveTV and you're good to go again. The only real fix I've been able to identify, though, is a reboot of the unit. I've had to do it twice so far in the four days I've had it. Not looking good for the whole user-friendly TiVo concept.

If anyone from TiVo would like to put a diagnostic box on my cable line and see what TWC-Houston is doing wrong so you can write code that will filter it out, that would be great. I'd love to see this unit become more stable.

pac1999 · 10-09-2006, 12:34 AM

I have had similar issues with Time Warner San Diego. When the installer first left one of my cable cards was stuck in a firmware update cycle that prevented me from using live TV on the Tivo at all until two days later when I removed the one card while on the phone with the cable company. The second card received most channels but several of the HD channels were grey. Time Warner said that the firmware issue was with the cable card manufacturer and they refused to replace the card. They said that they had a trouble call in to scientific Atlanta and they would let me know when they got a response. They would not come out until two weeks later when I asked to move the cable card from one series 3 to another at which point they said they had to send a tech for that and he showed up with another working card.

After installing the cards in the second Tivo they seemed to work fine for two days. Then one card lost the authorization for all premium channels. I was able to figure out which card was screwing up by going to test channels in the cable card menu. I called the cable company and reported the problem they attempted to re authorize the card and it had no effect. Within thirty minutes of that call both cable cards would not receive any premium channels. They would start to tune them, the picture would show up then a gray screen showed up saying that the channel was not authorized and to call the cable company.

The tech that showed up two days later was completely useless and said his supervisor would call back the next day. The supervisor who called the next day was able to get both cards working again. Four days later and two of my premium HD channels have become gray again. The Tivo says searching for signal when tuned to those channels. I am afraid to screw with it since all the other channels are still working on both channels.

Of the three techs that have been out to my house in the last month only the second seemed to have ever installed a cable card before. My series 3 was a first for him but at least he was familiar with the cable card.

I love my series 3 but this cable card thing is turning out to be much more work than I anticipated. I had a cable card in my TV from Comcast when I lived in Connecticut last year and never and an issue with the card. I agree that this might be a Time Warner issue.

s2kdave · 10-09-2006, 06:01 PM

pac1999,
I have TW SD also and had similar problems with the free preview on Showtime this past weekend. It sometimes just doesn't tune the channel. It would show the movie for about a second, then the cable card info would come up saying it wasn't authorized and to call TW. Did you ever get this resolved? The guy that installed my cards said he did do some TiVo installs, but didn't seem too knowledgeable about them. I also tried recording some things on Showtime this weekend. Some recorded, others were Partial recordings with 0 duration. I've also had some tuning problems on the base HD channels like 704.

I guess were in the same boat.

David

slimoli · 10-09-2006, 09:52 PM

There are 2 kinds of TIVO S3 users: Those who have already had CC problems and those who will very soon. CC is not reliable and because they actually have a processor and memory they can act up. We must bug Motorole and SA to give us decent cablecards or the S3 can become a big disaster.

Sergio

ctakim · 10-10-2006, 12:02 AM

I returned my Series 3 after 3.5 weeks of futility. Never got any of the encrypted channels to play.

slimoli · 10-10-2006, 11:06 PM

Ok, here is my horror story:

Got the cablecards installed on my S3 today. After 2 minutes , they both got the authorization. I went to "test channels' and to my surprise got no premium channels at all. Exactly the same problem I have with my Mitsubishi TV. Since the host ID is different and it looks like the cableguy did everything by the book, I wonder what else can be wrong. We checked with the person in charge of registering the CC to my account and she confirmed that everything looked OK. The chief engineer at the headend also confirmed twice that host id and cablecard numbers were OK. The fact that I got both authorized means that the communication between their system and my CCs apparently worked. The problem is that I still can't get premium channels, it's like I'm not authorized to receive those channels.

Since the TIVO host id is different from my Mitsu, the idea of contamination of the host id is wrong. All I can think now is the contamination of my account in their system but how can we solve this? They already looked at my account several times and everything looks normal.

Guys, do you have any clue on how can I get the CC to receive premium channels? I had a CC working on my TV for 6 months before but recently got the same problem (no premium ch).

To make things worse, the cableco told me that there are more than 20 S3 working without problems already.

Thanks for any help.

Sergio

PatMcNJ · 10-12-2006, 07:34 AM

If it is contamination somewhere in their system, which sounds like it could happen to Me, could they close your account and open a new one, as if you were a new customer? (At no cost to you of course)

Good luck. My install is tomorrow.......