TivoHD CableCard problem "not staged" plz help

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the brand new tivoHD has been on for at least a week prior to the card install, latest software, and ran the guided setup etc. the cable guy (time warner orange county CA) came out today to setup my cable card. he had 3 scientific atlanta M-cards with him.

none of them could be activated. he would insert one, wait until it showed in the hostID screen, read off the serial# & hostID to the dispatch person. "Not Staged" was always showing in the CA screen after spending 2hrs at my house, he was convinced that THEY did all they could do. "it must be something with Tivo"
he's coming back on monday to try again with some cards that they will test prior to coming out to see if they work. i told him to bring a couple S-cards just in case.

i even called the tivo cable card hotline number. they weren't that helpful, only telling me to have the cable guy activate the cards via their dispatch people. it sounds like it all depends on how they go about activating it on your account.

is there anything else i can do? i'm afraid that if they still don't work on monday, they'll just tell me i'm SOL and there's nothing else they can do for me. i'm getting very frustrated and don't know what to do....i only get about 6 HD channels after spending >$2k on new HD equipment!

thanks in advance for any help...

 

thanks for the tips. it may be hard to get the installer to hang out for the 30 mins at the house though.

i've tried calling in 3+ times by myself and the techs i can reach are mostly clueless when it comes to cablecards. the installers call the dispatch people who are generally more "up to speed" on cards.

 

why all these problems with cable cards?

i tried calling level 3 TWC today to get my scientific atlantic M-card activated. no such luck - again. it's going on a couple weeks now with a non activated card. (i checked inside the slots, no bent pins) i don't understand what could be so difficult. it seems as if TWC is trying to make this not happen so you end up getting one of their DVR's.

so far i've tried 3 different M-cards, and all were still "not staged" after the in-home tech called in the numbers.

we have the whole package, could any of these be the cause?
digital phone w/ their modem & internet, but no other cable boxes...

how many times do i try with these people? i mean, am i supposed to give in and get a cable box and somehow get it to co-exist with the tivoHD? how would that work? a tech is coming out on thursday for another try.

sorry for all the questions, i'm just really pissed with the whole thing. i buy a brand new tivoHD w/ upgraded hdd from weaknees, and i'm pretty sure i can't just exchange it since it's already been activated.

/rant

 

thanks.
i told them to be sure to bring S-cards this time also.

 

success!

the cable guy (sub-contractor - not TWC employee) came and spent 4hrs here. ended up getting 2 S-cards to work. after a few different dispatchers trying different things, finally one girl knew what she was doing and we got both cards paird up correctly. in retrospect, i bet the M-card would have worked fine if we had talked to the right person on the dispatch end. but i don't care if i'm charged a couple bucks more a month, the pain is over, now i get all my channels. (huntington beach, ca)


thanks for all the help and advice you guys gave me. weaknees was also very helpful and stood behind their sale and would have replaced the unit if needed.

 

it was only 1 M-card. that didn't work, but i'm pretty sure it was just due to the fact that the person on the other end of the phone wasn't doing someting right. eventually, it was 2 S-cards that worked.