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Question about cable card authorization renewal

Discussion in 'TiVo Help Center' started by tivochiguy, Jan 16, 2021.

  1. Jan 16, 2021 #1 of 7
    tivochiguy

    tivochiguy Member

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    Interesting cable card question for the community. About six months ago I moved my TiVo to a new location in my home. On Jan 1 channels like HBO, CNN, etc stopped working and reported they were not authorized. I called Comcast and they tried to send multiple signals to the card to reauth it and nothing worked. I called TiVo and they confirmed by going through the cable card settings that it didn’t look like the card was communicating properly with Comcast. So I replaced the card and no change with all the typical pairing, etc. A guy from Comcast told me I should try moving my TiVo to another location which I thought was silly, but it turned out he was right. I moved back to the old location, the card was reauthorized, the stations returned and I moved back to the prior location where I couldn’t get it to work.

    So it looks like the cable card required some periodic reauth to function correctly. Jan 1st seemed to be the date the cards “Expired” for me. Anyone know how that works? Is the auth configured on the card to expire on certain dates? To only last for a certain period of time?
     
  2. Jan 16, 2021 #2 of 7
    slowbiscuit

    slowbiscuit FUBAR

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    Sounds more like you have a signal issue at the TV that's not working right. You might want to check your cables.
     
    krkaufman and Teeps like this.
  3. Jan 16, 2021 #3 of 7
    snerd

    snerd Well-Known Member

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    I agree that this sounds like a signal issue. Try to find the Diagnostics page. On my TiVo, I can access using menu: Setting & Messages > Help > Account & System Info > Diagnostics. It may be in a different menu location if you are running Hydra/TE4.

    The Diagnostics pages shows a bunch of information about each tuner. I'm guessing none of you tuners will be getting a signal, which probably means the other end of the coax isn't connected properly if at all. Near the bottom of the diagnostics, there are entries that include OOB which stands for out-of-band. This is the channel used to communicate with the CableCard. If your tuners are getting a signal but the OOB isn't, then something really weird is happening somewhere in your coax.
     
  4. Jan 16, 2021 #4 of 7
    Jed1

    Jed1 Well-Known Member

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    There is a signal issue in the low band VHF spectrum of your cable feed. This is where the OOB signal is located.
     
  5. Jan 16, 2021 #5 of 7
    JoeKustra

    JoeKustra in the other Alabama TCF Club

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    To see if the OOB is functioning, find the cable card menu and select Network Setup. In the middle is OOB Messages. Every hit of Select/OK should cause that number to increment. The line below is OOB Rate: and it should be non-zero. BTW, this Motorola cable card Roamio lost its pairing about a year ago.
    ccNET.JPG

    Also, the OOB Frequency is on that display.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2021
  6. Jan 16, 2021 #6 of 7
    krkaufman

    krkaufman TDL shepherd

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    ^^^ what all these people said ^^^

    ... but also, what is different in how the current location is connected to your coax plant vs the original location? Can you review your coax setup and provide a description or sketch a diagram of how things are connected, including through what componets?
     
  7. Jan 16, 2021 #7 of 7
    ej42137

    ej42137 Well-Known Member

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    I have this exact problem; TAs in the back of my house have trouble getting the update signal and eventually would go bad. For a while I handled it by swapping the TAs once in a while, but these days I don't use my TiVos much.
     

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