Disappearing channels on my S3

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I have not heard from either party! Interestingly, after 7 days of reinserting cc1 after the card was "invalid" that has stopped for the last several days.

I am wondering if that is related to the fact that I am recording less because many of the network shows are repeats!!

In any case I probably just jinxed myself and I await for the problem to reoccur.

If anyone does here anything please post.

 

Just adding to this thread with my experience.

I had the Tivo HD for about two months and never had the problem (or so I thought). I haven't really recorded anything on it due to repeats, so I never really needed to go to the other tuner. Today I tried and viola, no picture on ANY channel on the other tuner. However, it's cablecard 1 that gets no channels when I do "test channels" in the setup.
All diagnostics tests show both cards are ok.
I am scared to take the card out and put back in for fear of losing all channels on card 2.
Would I just pull the card out and put it back in or should I do a reboot?

At this point, I am happy with having only one card working since there is nothing to record yet and it seems everyone is working on some sort of fix.

 

Ok. So I have been having the same issues as most in this thread. Essentially with Cablevision blaming TIVO and both blaming NDS. I have had a number of pleasant and not so pleasant phone calls with both companies.The good news is that these issues have finally risen to the level where all parties (Cablevision, TIVO and NDS) are cooperating and actively trying to find a solution. I received a phone call from the manager in charge of cable-card issues at TIVO (pretty much "out of the blue" having last lodged a complaint a month or so ago) asking if they could replace my S3 with a new one. They mentioned that the new machine in all likely-hood would NOT solve these issues but that NDS was asking them to send some number of machines that are affected so that they could test and find the problem. Thus far, NDS has not been able to replicate the issue concerning the dropping of channels. They did however find an issue with the newer HD boxes where upon update the cablecards were not initialized properly. This issue has been fixed. But for those of us with the original HD S3 the problem remains. The best guess is that it may be a combination of communication protocol issues between TIVO and NDS. I had a lengthy discussion with the manager and referred the manager to this thread. In terms of the attenuator issue that was posted, they have used this to fix issues with Verizon(non-NDS cards) where the incoming signal was at 100% but they didn't think that this would help with the NDS issue. By the way a previous posting referred to a tech that said "a 96% signal is recommended" - not true anything 80% or more is considered a good signal. Another point is that there are different electronics used in CableCard 1 and 2 as Cablecard 1 is wired to accept M Cards where 2 is not.
I was able to provide some info that they were unaware of concerning the "Cablecard is initializing" screen while watching a recorded video. My thinking is that for those of us that have this issue that the card loses communication any number of times and the TIVO software attempts to regain communication. Sometimes it can because I do not always lose channels after seeing this message but I am thinking that sometimes it cannot and may have a limited amount of retry attempts. This info has been relayed to the NDS folks. Maybe a heat issue? I am going to set up a small fan directed at the Cablecards and see if this makes any difference. Anyway, I came away convinced that this issue has finally percolated to the level where it is being taken seriously.

 

Well I was about to make a post about my new Tivo HD but the problem that people are describing in this thread may be the same issue I'm having.

Basically I just purchased a new Tivo HD and have the updated 9.2 Software on it. I live in Phoenix AZ and we have Cox Communications here. I have an M-Card (Multi-Steam Card) and everything seemed to work okay for the first couple days until all of a sudden, I was not able to tune in any channels and my screen would be a gray color. I went all through the channels but I could only seem to get in lower channels, I.E. 2, 3 and so forth. Anything high, I could not get. Not sure what the problem was so I did a Tivo restart and after a few minutes of rebooting and coming back, the channels seemed to work again. Now this has happened two times on me. I was dead-set that it was the card and as I have read here, replacing the card may end up doing nothing. Has there been any updates since to this problem?

 

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Their CC activation process is so stunningly inefficient and wasteful of installer time that it's hard for me to feel any sympathy in that direction. And it's not the installer's fault.

Back on topic, my machine is having ongoing problems with both CC1 and CC2. Reinserting the cards worked in the beginning but now I'm not having much luck, and it's pretty darn annoying. If I have to run guided setup one more time I'm gonna lose it.

I have an appointment for Cablevision to come out and troubleshoot, presumably to install new cablecards. My question is: is there any realistic chance that the problem will be fixed in this way? Because if not, I'd really rather not waste the time with the whole ordeal.

I feel like the only true fix is going to come when Tivo/NDS/CV straighten out their collective problem and issue a true fix. I'm getting ready to pop both cablecards and run the unit in low-def until then. Or maybe try the antenna in so I'll get the locals in hi-def, but only if I get proper guide info with them (otherwise: useless!)

 

That is interesting because I've seen that message a couple of times and it has been able to keep sync. I haven't seen the problem over the last week or so but I haven't recorded too many shows. The other interesting thing is that I'm no longer getting channels I'm not supposed to. Isn't technology fun

 

What was the message? Did you check to be sure if the channels were gone? If so, this would be good to pass on to TIVO.

 

I figure the next time my channels go out I will leave them out for 24 hrs and see if they come back. I will let you know.

 

I have left my channels out for a few days, nothing. Hopefully you will have better results.

 

Well I have had to re boot my Tivo HD 4 times within a 1.5 week period. I decided today to take back my cable cards until either Tivo or the Cable Card providers can fix this.

 

I'm having the lost channels on CC2 problem also. Tivo S3 on Cox Cable in Phoenix. One bit of anamoly with my install.. my CC2 is an m-card because the installer only brought 2 s-cards and one was bad.

 

Here is something interesting that happened to me this morning...

The reason I'm posting this is because I really think its a tuner issue or something with the TIVo. This is my 3rd Mcard in 1 week and they all behave the same way.

THD
Mcard
Cox/Phx

Turned on my TV and it was on Live TV (705 HD CBS). Good, like it should be.
Changed the channel to Noggin (106) for my kid...nothing. Got the usual blank screen.
Looked at the progress bar and it wasn't moving. No response to pause, play, FF, 30 sec, nothing. Pressing Live TV button just toggled me between the the Channel (705) that was showing and a blank station (106).
However when I press the channel up from 106, it went to the next channel and showed that. Went back down one to the original channel and nothing.
So I did it again and went up one channel and press record so it would lock that tuner to record that station. Pressed Live TV and went back to 705. I then changed the channel to 106 and NOW it showed.
I went back to the show that was recording and stopped it, and then changed the channel to 106 and everyother channel, switching between tuners and they seem to all work fine.

Something happened in the Tivo to stop showing the channel and after playing around with the tuners, it released it and started to show it again. If I remember right, the channel that was blank (106) was one of the last channels we watched last night but I will have to make sure tonight.

After 3 cards and Cox checking all signals, etc, I'm starting to lean towards a Tivo/CableCard issue thats causing this.

 

From what I have determined, I'm leaning towards the Tivo having the issue more than the Cable provider. Though is the cable card company did any type of firmware update, it may of changed how the tivo utilizes it. I'm hoping Tivo comes out with a fix soon.

 

Also posted in the S3/HD forum...

All,

*UPDATE*
I called Tivo support again last night and it was the first time that a tech admitted that there was an "Known Issue" and their engineers are working on it.

I described the problem and we tried to look at the "Diag" screen in the CableCard Menu and I got an error. I have seen this error before and a reboot clears it. We restarted the box to get some info from the card.

I gave him my HardWare number and a few other Version numbers he requested. He also asked for my daytime phone number so an engineer can get a hold of me if needed. He told me that the problem isn't the box, isn't really the card, the connection or with the cable company. He told me that there is an issue with the card communicating with the cable companies server and when it can't communicate anymore, you will see those errors in the CableCard menu and start losing channels.

The only official fix (according to Tivo) right now is to restart the box until their engineers find a fix.

 

Well at least Tivo is admitting there is a problem and I hope there is a fix soon. I can't imagine that it will take long to fix but you never know.

 

Here's my own quick update: yesterday Cablevision came in and put in a new card into slot 2. So far (less than 24 hours) it's working OK. I have to say, the installers have all been very nice and pretty knowledgeable as well. This particular tech said they have lots of cablecard problems with TVs too, not just TiVos.

Anyway, he mentioned that Cablevision is planning to roll out M-cards fairly soon. If so, it will be interesting to see if M-cards (even if from NDS) work more reliably than two separate S-cards.

Here's hoping...

 

Having an S-Card or an M-Card will give you the same result with losing channels. Against my better judgement, I decided to retry a cable-card with my Tivo HD. I got another M-Card and everything seemed to work well until I woke up this morning, and surprise surprise, guess what, my channels went blank today. I can only get channels 1 through 22 and the higher HD local channels.

I was thinking, to better compare notes, maybe we should give some basic info about our setup and service to see if anything can be discovered int eh near future.


I'll Start:

Cable Service: Cox
Service Area: Gilbert, Arizona
Tivo Type: Tivo HD
Software Version: 9.2
Cable Card Type: M-Card X 1