[mike_camden]

I have a TivoHD.

For those of you out there who are cable card experts, I need some advice for what to tell Comcast when they come to my house tomorrow afternoon for the third time (hopefully to actually finish setting up my ivoHD). I finally was able to troubleshoot the issue with my not being able to access programming to Cable Card 2. When I have Cable Card 2 installed, I can only get about 20 channels on both cable card. When I first reboot the Tivo, I can get all of my channels on Cable Card 1 and nothing on Cable Card 2 for about 10 minutes. After about 10 minutes are up (I'm assuming after CC2 initializes or whatever they call it for a cable card); boom, I lose everything on BOTH cable cards except for those 20 or so channels (I know how to switch between tuners to confirm that the channels have gone for both cards).

I was messing around with it for a while tonight and figured I'd unseat both cable cards. After a couple of minutes, I reseated CC1, waited about 5 minutes, and did a channel scan. I had everything listed for that card. I then went to Live TV and messed around for 30 minutes or so expecting to lose programming, and I kept all of my channels. So I popped CC2 back into the Tivo and kept checking the Conditional Access and Test Channels option for CC2. After about 10 minutes, I finally get Subscribed under Conditional Access for CC2. I then went to the Test Channels for CC2 and all I have listed are the 20 or so channles. I switched over to CC1, and all of the channels that I had just been enjoying for the past 30 minutes are gone, and all I have are the same 20 or sothat are listed for CC2.

So I took CC2 back out again and no change. I unseated CC1 again and about five minutes later, I have all of my channels back. That was about five hours ago, and I still have al lof my channels.

I'm not sure if this means the mapping for CC2 is bad, the card itself is bad, or the slot may be bad, but I'm sure there's a problem there. I also have no idea why the problem with CC2 is causing CC1 to only receive a very limited part of my programming. If I were a betting man, I'd put $ down that the tech Comcast sends tomorrow will be just as familiar with cable cards as the other two (first time ever seeing one). My question for the experts is what does this sound like, and what do I tell Comcast they need to do to resolve it? They have already sent an init, hit, and refresh to each card seperately.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[jfh3]

What type of cards do you have (SA, Motorola, NDS)?

Can you post the Conditional Access info for each card from the CableCARD screen?

 

[mike_camden]

Both cards are Motorola s-stream. Same model, but CC 1 has a more recent firmware version.

CA:
CC1 (without CC2 installed):
Encryption: DES, Connected: Yes, Enabled by CP: Yes, Auth: Subscribed, CA Enable: Possible, Host Validation: Valid 01, Copy Protection Key: Disabled, CCI2:0x00.

When I just reinserted CC2, within 10 minutes, CC1 lost all of the channels that had been working except the 20 or so from before. Within 10 minutes of inserting CC2 in its slot, the Test channels (in the CC setup menu) for CC1 reseted to only including the 20 or so that I can get on either card when the second card is inserted. This behavior is repeatable (I did it twice last night to confirm this was happening).

Here are the readings for both cards when CC2 is inserted.

CC1 (with CC2 inserted):
Same as before

CC2:
State: Subscribed, Host Validation: Valid 01, Copy Protection Key: Disabled (when I first insert CC2 and the channels still worked on CC1 for that 10 minutes or so, this reads enabled), CCI: 0x00 ((when I first insert CC2 and the channels still worked on CC1 for that 10 minutes or so, this reads 0x03).

Thanks,
Mike

 

[jrm01]

very strange. My guess would be that the cc2 is defective, but it is starnge that it would affect cc1 also.

BTW I'm also in Pittsburgh and have had (of course) mixed success with the tech guys. One or two really do know what they are doing, most not.

On one occassion I was able to get the tech to swap out one card just because it had a different firmware version and I wanted the two to match. He did, and it seemed to work. Mine are both version 1045. You can check this by going to Settings => Account Info => Diagnostics.

The Copy protection Key 0x00 just means the station you are tuned to does not have copy protection. Any other number indicates copy protection. If it first said 0x03 and changed to 0x00 it implies that you changed channels on that tuner to a non-protected channel.

 

[mike_camden]

Thanks. I'm actually in Wheeling, but we are serviced out of Pittsburgh.

Hopefully the tech brings an extra cable card or two. I requested it when they scheduled the visit, but that's sometimes hit or miss.

 

[mike_camden]

It's working!!!! Turned out it was a bad card in slot 2. This was the second bad card, which according to the tech, is what was throwing everyone.

Thank goodness that I can put the drama behind me.

 

[jrm01]

Mike:

great news. Know you'll enjoy it, especially with the Steelers in HD this Saturday (maybe even enjoy the Pirates on Fox HD on Saturday also).

 

[jfh3]

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - today was a rough day. Glad to hear everything is working.