Wide Open West (WOW) Cable Cards

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FYI only.

I just submitted a line-up change via the Tivo website to correct several problems with channels in the digital line-up for the Chicago suburbs.

1) The Tivo guide data for Channel 317 lists WLSDT2, but the channel actually showing is ABC News Now.

2) The Tivo guide data for Channel 101 lists WLS, but the channel actually showing is WLSDT2.

3) Channel 329 (Fox Business News) has a video signal, but no audio signal on the Series 3 Tivo. (Both video and audio signals are available on my other cable boxes, and my Series 2 Tivo for that matter, so the problem appears to be isolated to the Series 3 or the Scientific Atlanta cableCARD.)

 

1/25: Install Tech was out and brought four Single Stream CC's. The tech stated "I am not good at doing the TiVo's, they don't make it very user friendly."

The tech installed the first card, then had to swap it out. The tech called in to the office and registered the second and third card.

The second card was inserted in the #1 slot, then went through a firmware update. At that point, he said that the card was doing a firmware update, and that it could take up to an hour. He left the other registered card, told me that if things didn't do what they should, to call the office.

After the first card finished the firmware update, I inserted the second card. I did not test all the channels. The TiVo recognized the second card, and it synced with the cable company. I went through the HD channels I knew I should be getting, and it receives them just fine. The card in #1 does not.

1/26: Called the WOW customer service number, and asked them to check the cards, to make sure the service authorizations were correct on both cards, as I thought it interesting that one would receive the encrypted channels, and the other would not. They re-activated the card in slot #1, and I rebooted the TiVo. By the way, the CSR only had a instruction screen for doing this with TV's, not TiVo's. The TiVo rebooted, and I checked the channels on Card #1, still no go.

They made an appointment for a Tech supervisor to come out on Monday 1/28 to check it out. I asked them to put a note in the work order to send someone with TiVo HD experience. The CSR agreed, and included the comment.

1/28 11a-3p: The WOW "Supervisor" came out today, and was here 4 hours. He brought several cards. He switched the card in #1 to the #2 slot, and all of the channels that I should be getting came in. He switched the card back to slot #1, and it exhibited the same issues as before. The supervisor surmised that the #1 slot is bad.

9:15pm I finally got time to mess with the setup. I checked the channels available on each card. The card in slot 2 was receiving encrypted channels, card in slot 1 was not. I tested the tech's theory, and swapped the cards to opposite slots. The cards re-registered, and now the card in slot 1 was working, slot 2 was not.

I then went to www.tivo.com/support and found the troubleshooting guide for the SA cards. I then called Customer Support, and had them hit the troubled card, and let them her know I was not receiving encrypted channels on that card. She asked me if my TV was off, I told her yes, ejected the #2 card out, and plugged it back in. The black/grey screen appeared, and I saw that he card was responding to the hit.

I went through the Guided Setup again, all is well.

 

WOW tech is currently installing cable cards in my TiVo HD. The first card is going through a firmware update. Not sure how long that will take, and/or if it is normal. I just realized that it looks like he is impatient and decided to put the 2nd card into slot 2. Not sure if that is going to cause problems.

Still keeping my fingers crossed. Will post back with additional details about the install.

Update 1 10:25am: Card 1 just finished the firmware update. So far so good. Card 2 is in the process of an update. Currently waiting for the tech to authorize the card.

 

This sounds like my experience yesterday as well. Card 1 didn't receive any of the "encrypted" Digital Basic or HD Pak channels. Finally, after the tech called the NOC (after 2 hours of trying), he got that card to work.

Now onto Card 2: Inserted, tried "pinging" it multiple times, called NOC, still nothing beyond basic HD channels. After inserting the 3rd card in slot 2, TiVo gave a service update on re-boot, but still nothing.

At this point, my WOW techs (very nice guys, btw) had spent nearly 4 hours, and still no Digital Basic or HD Pak channels on slot 2. At that point, it was nearly 9pm, so we all called it a night.

Looks like I'm heading for a visit from an "expert" in the next couple of days...

As I look at it, it seems as though the techs ran through the process too quickly, and as a result, the cards simply never "took" and got correctly connected to WOW's network.

The weird thing is: why would one card work (eventually) just fine, yet the second card won't even though they went through (apparently) the same process? Definitely odd!

We'll see how things go...I'll post any "a-hahs" that occur that get me over the hump.

 

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I think that's a big part of the problem. These guys don't do this installation enough on a day-to-day basis to know exactly what works and what doesn't. I'm sure that cost them at least two hours yesterday...

 

Go to the tivo.com/support. There are great "If this than this" explanations of how each manufacturer's cards work/don't work, and what to tell the cable company CSR when you call them.

The Cable company may just need to hit the card again. Take down the serial # of the card that is having a problem, and call them. Tell them what channels you are not receiving on that card, and make sure that they have the card set up for it when they hit it.

Go in to the cable card diagnostics in the settings menu, and you will see the card react, or not react to the hit in the CP Auth page Black/White.

 

Both cable cards have been installed, and I have gone through guided setup, but I am not getting any of my digital channels. I am able to receive a few HD changes 200-206 I believe.

It appears as if both cards are not receiving any decryption information, so I am trying to get WOW to fix that. Unfortunately the installer left prior to completing the set up.

Other thing that I noticed is that if I look at the diagnostics in the menu Tuner 0 says it is card 1, and Tuner 1 is card 2. What I read on the TiVo site says Tuner 0 should be 2 and Tuner 1 should be 1.

 

Tech spent 8 hours at my house today trying to get both scard to work. He finally left. 1 card works perfectly the second won't pick up digital channels or high def channels. I insist this is a problem on WOW's side but how can I prove it?

 

djexort, I just noticed you are in Arlington Heights. So am I. At least we can fight this one together.

 

I found this page quite useful.

There is a link about half-way down the page for the Scientific Atlanta cards that WOW uses.

Call customer service, and tell them you need your encrypted channels authorized on your new cable card, and you need the card hit.

They will tell you to turn off your TV (because their support screen says so), pop the offending card out of the TiVo, and re-insert. Then go to Configure CCard slot "Offending card slot" and to the CP Auth screen. You should see the hit come in to the card, as the display will change as the information is transferred.

 

Thank you for your help. I tried this and they said everything is fine on their end. If I flip-flop the cards, the first tuner gets all the proper channels still while the second tuner does not. Could this be a Tivo HD hardware issue with slot 2?

 

It could be a hardware issue if the same tuner has the problem, regardless of which card is inserted.

Have you checked your signal strength? I had an issue with my initial Series 3 installation where one card did not get certain digital channels. Before he left, the tech gave me a long run of RG-6, which I used to replace the run to the Tivo after the initial split. Once I replaced the older cable, the second tuner was able to get all the channels.

I know it sounds strange that one would get them and one would not, but it seemed to be the case in my situation. I think Signal Strength is under Settings/Channels. It is going to switch both tuners to the same channel, so I am not sure if it will work in your current situation.

 

I am not having any fun. I got both Tivo and Wide Open West on the phone and after 2 more hours of trying things we all agreed to next step is to swap the Tivo UNIT itself. Will receive replacement unit in about 5 days. Had I known this hassle upfront I never would have purchased Tivo.

 

It turns out the problem was with the Tivo. Tivo sent me a replacement and without having to call WOW, I booted it up put in the new cards and walah! Tivo sent me a refurbished replacement when they were supposed to send me a brand new unit but a quick phone call back to them fixed that and the new one is schedulded to arrive in a couple of days... So Foamy you were spot on that this was a hardware issue. One would think Tivo Support could look at the Tivo logs and in fact retrieve data that there is a hardware problem but I guess that's not the case....

I am very impressed and pleased with Tivo support.

 

There is a key command that puts a timestamped marker in the Tivo's log files, so I assume that there is some flag that support is able to set that tells the Tivo to upload diagnostic info on the next service call. I have never seen it used, though, which is dissapointing, since I am sure it would help them diagnose many of the recurring problems we see posted here.

 

Anyone else having pixelation or loss of signal on the new HD channels in the Chicago area? Within the past couple days, I have been getting both on TLC HD and Disc HD. I checked my signal strength on both and it was 92-95, so I don't think that is the issue. Haven't really noticed it on any other channels as yet. I may e-mail the head-end on Monday to see if they have changed anything because I hadn't seen the problem up until a couple days ago.

 

I am not very impressed with WOW at all when it comes to TIVO. I am on card # 7 and mine continually lose their authorization.

 

Can anyone suggest *anyone* at wow's technical support who knows their stuff? Today's call to rebounce my cable card authorization got the usual "we don't support Tivo" rant from WOW followed by (my hand up to God) "I didn't know cable cards fit in a Tivo".

I have noticed my EMM count does not increase from zero and when it does, it stops shortly after the call.

WOW now tells me with a straight face that I need to shut my Tivo off every night because the cable cards need to reset every night at 2 AM to reset the EMM count. That, she said, explains my lock ups.

The WOW cable boxes and DVRS, she said, shut off at 2 AM every night. (Not that I believe that.)

Anyway, does anyone know anyone with any technical chops?

 

My only head-end contact is in Illinois, which I don't think would help you. I have an e-mail address for Bill, a Senior Customer Advocate who has gotten me in touch with the right people in the past. PM me and I will send you his e-mail address, as long as you promise not to post it or abuse it.

 

My dad has a new HD TiVo and WoW and is having a very frustrating problem.

The first time we installed the TiVo and CableCARDS, everything seemingly went fine, but after about a day, he started having channels disappear (go black). The problem seems confined to HD and SD channels above channel 206. WoW came back out and worked with TiVo, and it was determined that the TiVo must be bad. The replacement came on Friday, and we set it up, and all worked fine until Sunday. Same exact symptoms.

After a TiVo restart, my dad tunes to his favorite channel, 485 (Encore Westerns). Channel surfing up and down seem fine, all is well, so back to channel 485. Then to TiVo Central, and right back to channel 485, and now it's gone. All other channels are still there. Back into TiVo Central, and right back to live TV, and now ALL channels above 206 are black.

When working with TiVo support over the phone, they try to go into CableCARD diagnositics, but the diag screen stays on for only a brief moment, and then right back to the TiVo menu.

Restarting the TiVo gets things squared away for a very short time, and then it starts all over again. This is a very repeatable problem.

Any ideas?