Random channels go black on TIVO HD

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Yeah, for whatever channel it's on at the moment, but it usually just shuffles around which channels are black.

9.2a, BTW.

 

I have same problem with my THD, and brighthouse cable. Sort of good to know not just me, but hopefully other than a long reset to fix will come out.

 

I have Cox Cable in northern Virginia. They have started adding new HD channels but they are only supported by two-way devices (i.e., their digital set-top boxes and their DVRs, but not one-way cable cards in the Series 3.) Their solution (after a visit from the tech today) was to get rid of my Series 3 box and get a Cox DVR. Needless to say I was not pleased, and have no intention of doing so.

TiVo says they are committed to deploying a USB device that will plug into the back of the Series 3, allowing it to have two-way communications, by the 2nd Quarter of 2008.

 

same problem here in Las Vegas COX cable with 2 tivo HD. I have 2 tivo HD and happens at same TIME! SO it must be a combination of both. Why doesn't tivo have a solution. If a channel doesn't come in in 30 seconds to autorefresh the cards. doesnt seem hard. computers can log out and log back in to refresh. why cant tivo.
Oh well I will call Tivo and COX and Monday. My $ is on the fact they blame each other and deny any knowledge of the problem RESETS SOLVE THE PROBLEM< BUT ARE TIME CONSUMING

 

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Still seeing this issue - every day or two - rebooting is still fixing it but is a pain. Let us know what you find when you call Cox.

 

What happens if you just remove and reinsert the card? What do the cablecard and tivo diagnostics screen say when things aren't working. Maybe there's a clue as to what's going on wrong there.

 

I've been having this problem ever since the 9.2 update as well. 8.x and 9.1 were perfect for me, my TiVo would stay up for days. The worst part is I sometimes leave for a week and come back to find my TiVo has only recorded a couple days worth of shows. Are there any stats I can look at to help narrow down the cause?

 

You're not unique. My Tivo HD is experiencing the same problem. I've tried resetting the box, repeating guided setup, everything short of doing an erase everything on my tivo and crossing my fingers. I had the comcast guy out over the weekend. He verified that the cards are properly authorized. In fact, I haven't had problems with my premium channels, only the extended basic cable channels between channels 40 and 100.

I did some extensive checking and troubleshooting while looking at Tivo's website. I did learn the following. All of the channels under 100 show as "Not_Subscribed" when you are looking at the "conditional access" screen under the cable card menu. What's odd about this is that all of the basic non-premium channels show up as unsubscribed; some of them work and some of them do not.

My working theory of the problem is this, and it may be entirely wrong. Comcast's boxes do not require authorization to display any channel under 100, they are all fiat authorized from the factory to do so. The cablecards, however, require conditional authorization for every channel. Why do some work and some don't? I suspect that some of the channels are digitized in a way that renders them in higher quality. The cablecard's permission settings do not allow decrypting of an unauthorized channels.

So what's the solution? If I'm right, the cable companies need to add authorization to their flash packets for all the basic and extended basic channels. I'm going to call TiVo tomorrow and ***** about it because I wouldn't be having this problem if I was using comcast's DVR. (despite the fact that I'd want to kill myself every time I had to use it...)

 

I am still seeing this. And last night, a reboot wasn't actually bringing the channels back. Everything was fine for first few months - just start seeing this. Did anybody find out anything?

Are you all still seeing this issue?

 

As a follow up, I removed the CableCARD and was able to tune channels 2-99 without issue. Reinserted the CableCARD, and the same channels went back to black.

 

I have the same problem. There are some other posts on the board with the same sympthom. None have a solution.

It sure would be nice if Tivo support was reading and commenting on this forum on a regular basis.

This is a major problem and there's no fix in sight. I've had a case open for a couple of weeks now and they told me the other day that they were sending it to level 3. I told the tech that this is on the fourms with a lot of people with the same issue.

 

I'm posting this response to see if this may be a cause. I'm in the Cox Phoenix area with two TivoHD's using an M-Card in each. I've begun to notice that a specific group of channels drop out the day I schedule a recording online and usually after Tivo sends the record message to my Tivo.

The last thing I do before going to sleep at night is change all tuners to one of my non-HD movie channels. I don't change anything else or look at my Tivo's until returning home from work the next evening.

The channels I lose are 100 and above and include my movie channel tiers which have a gray background. My HD local broadcasts are there but "premium" channels above 715 have black background as well as my HD movie channels. A reboot clears the problem up, but I'm wondering what triggers the loss of these channels during the day. I talked with a Cox cable tv technician and he assured me that Cox doesn't do any random or routine hits on cablecards but will send some hits to their cable boxes. If Tivo is sending updates or regularly connecting to my TivoHDs for whatever reason, some of those connections seem to cause a disconnect for extended basic and premium channels.

I came home yesterday to see my recording lights on and when I tuned to the HD movie channel I thought was being recorded, there was no picture to view.

It is irritating to come home and find your scheduled recordings are recording only a black background and you have to reboot to get back your entire tv lineup.

 

My cable company, Charter, has an option on their phone support system to reset cable box(es). It has been over week since I did this, but I have had no more random channels going black on my series 3 TiVo.

 

I have the same problems in Houston.

 

Exact same problem here in Phoenix with Cox. Black screens on 100-700 every couple of days. Resetting of Tivo always works but extremely frustrating.

 

Same kind of thing in Fairfax, Va. I lose the digital Channels and non local HD channels about every week or 10 days on my Tivo Hd. This doesn't happen on my S3 with 2 SA S cards. Its already taken 3 HD boxes from Costco to try and solve other problems. Ready to pull my hair, what little I have of it out...or take it back to Costco and get an 8300 DVR. Not very bright, but at least it doesn't lose channels...and Cox has been out and changed the M Card twice. Found no problems with it.

 

I have the same problem with my new TIVO HD. Restarting the TIVO seems to always resolve the issue but it doesn't fix the hours of blank screen recorded instead of the show I wanted.

 

Just adding . . . . me too (Cox in Phx). Tonight is the first time that resetting the Tivo doesn't bring them back. Can anybody post if you have this problem and are NOT using HDMI? I was thinking it might be that connection before reading these posts.

 

Same issue here with Cox in Phoenix. All channels that are not basic cable (all HD and digital cable channels) go black/grey. VERY frustrating and happens every 2-3 days using a single m-card. Wish Tivo would do something about it!

 

Add me to the list...

Cox / Phx
Single M-Card
Tivo HD
Component Video

Random channels go blank and a restart fixes it.

I replaced my S3 with the THD because of pixelation issues. When the tech was out, the single cards never really worked with the S3 but when we installed a M-card into the THD, my pixelation went away. Now I have this issue with the channels going blank every couple days.