Anyone have any issues with Tivo losing your encrypted channels?

Do you know the manufacturer of the CableCards? Are they Scientific Atlanta, or Motorola? At one time many people with Scientific Atlanta cards had this problem. It seemed to be mostly fixed by subsequent TiVo software updates, but I've been experiencing it lately again myself.

 

I don't recall people talking about this happening with Motorola cards, but then again I have Scientific Atlanta cards so I've only read the threads about those.

Maybe someone more familiar with Motorola cards can provide some information. Anyone...?

 

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What are HD encriypted Channels?

I had USA HD for about a week during the olympics with TW, but now it's gone.

 

Usually all channels except the local ones are encrypted.

 

Same problem here. TWC rep tells me that they sent out a "Copyright Protection" update to the cards and that it has caused issues for lots of people. They of course can't send anyone out today or tomorrow, so I get to wait till I have time next FRIDAY...... I even offered to drive my TiVo to them to swap out cards at the warehouse. No luck.
Not very happy right now.

Brent

 

This week I activated a cable card in my new Tivo HD. The service worked fine for one day (thursday) and today I can't receive my HBO channels. I just spent an hour with tier 3 support and they can't figure it out.

 

Usually calling TiVo's cablecard support hotline is most helpful as the can properly determine what the issue is and work with the cable provider to fix the problem.

 

If it's a Comcast cable card, the number to call is posted in the Official Comcast Cablecard thread. If it's not a Comcast card, you could still try calling the number to see if the same techs can help.

Of course, when you say "today I can't receive your HBO channels", what message is TiVo or the cable company displaying on your screen... and do you have HBO on any non-cablecard box that you have in your house?

 

Comcast note: Twice now Comcast has had to come out because all my channels >100 disappeared-- once on both cards (S3HD) and once on card 2 only. The tech had no idea except "cable cards are a problem" - he had to give the cards a 'hit' by calling in on his phone. He said the local service people weren't allowed to do this for 'security reasons' - probably they don't trust them or whatever - who knows. These 2 failures were after the cards had been in for a number of months were within 3 days of one another. We'll have to see how long they hang on this time.

 

Do you get the grey "cablecard" screen (with a message saying that the screen is provided for your cable company) appearing after the black screen?

I had that problem with HBO on Comcast last week. Comcast sent a guy out who said that some "brilliant engineer" at Comcast sent out a signal that killed the authorization of pay channels on all cable cards. He said that he had spent the last two days going from cablecard user to the next, restoring the cable cards to correctly showing the pay channels. He fixed mine in about 20 minutes (most of that time he was on hold, waiting for help from the office).

 

Now we know why Comcast's rates are so high - they roll trucks instead of fixing CC problems with a simple customer phone call.

 

Most likely a weak signal issue, and the CCs are losing their provisioning. Happened to me with Comcast until I cleaned up their signal (never happens with FIOS).

 

The signal booster may actually BE the problem. Ground loop isolators can cause similar problems too. Have you tried removing everything from the line and just plugging directly in? If you signal is that bad you may need a truck roll...