Comcast Houston + Series3 = Works no more

4141 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by ajwees41, Oct 17, 2007

bluetex

Discussion Starter · Oct 6, 2007

I hope this isn't the toll of doom posting, but this is where I am now.

1. on Wednesday 9/26, Comcast did some "Video on Demand" upgrades in my neighborhood (Copperfield)
2. Prior to that point, I had a working configuration on my Series3 for a year - no issues, no ifs ands or buts
3. After that point, I lost access to a wide range of channels. Pretty much any channel from 72 and up wasn't tuning in
4. I removed the cards from the tivo and rebooted, after putting them back in, I hadn't gained any channels, but I was then seeing the "pairing screen" when accessing those channels.
5. I called their support line for cable cards. They tried to "reauthorize" my cards -- no luck. Support said "swap em out". We did.
6. Set 2 they couldn't seem to activate properly. We then got no channels above 20 -- they said "swap em out". We did
7. Set 3 they can't activate one of the two cards. The other card will "activate", but still won't operate "normally" .. meaning I don't get the unencrypted digial channels. The unencrypted HD channels come in, the channels under 20 are fine -- the rest no luck. They said.. go to another retail front.. get different cards.

The techs don't seem to know ANYTHING about the possibility of this being a rollout of Switched Digital Video. Even the good techs don't seem familiar with the terminology. (not the level one monkies, the CableCard techs).

I'm still running tivo software 8.3 and my other SD cable box and internet work fine.

Does anyone have any ideas how to stop this madness?

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lethcoeb

· #2 · Oct 6, 2007

Hi,
I had similar weirdness a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, where I basically lost all cable channels above 70 something (except for a handful of the local HD channels in the 309-313 range). I called Comcast, who resent the reactivation signals to my cable cards and my Comcast 4250 HD box. After about 30 minutes, everything cleared up and all of my channels returned (I remained on with the first level tech the entire time).

I did eventually get kicked up to the CableCard techs, but by the time I got there off of hold, everything was working again.

BTW, ever since I have not received guide data to my Comcast 4250 HD box, but since I only watch that TV when I'm working out (and I have been severely slacking lately) I have not bothered to wait on hold for the 30-45 minutes required to talk to tech support.

My recommendation is to try it one more time, but get like 6 or 8 cable cards from the storefront, find two that you confirm work and return the others - saves you the cycle time.

Good luck.

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 6, 2007

That's *somewhat* ecouraging, but .. the part that bothers me is that I can't get the things working that the techs felt *should* be working even prior to the "activation" going through.

I think there's probably a larger issue going on here and they don't have any idea how to fix it. I'm really wondering if there are any other Copperfield (290 NW) Series3 Comcast folks seeing anything like this.

By now, someone else would have probably noticed something. I'm going to take your advice and run out to another front and get 6 cards (or as many as they'll give me).

Jeff

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renkablue

· #4 · Oct 6, 2007

I am in Houston but not in your area. I was thinking about cable with Comcast, but I read alot of problems on the boards....yes, keep the post up so we can see how this develops.

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andyf

· #5 · Oct 6, 2007

I'm just on the other side of 249 and having no problems.

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 6, 2007

I took lethcoeb's advice and picked up 4 new cards from the Comcast location on 249. Up to this point I'd only tried S-Cards, so I got all 4 new M-Cards.

I got home... called up the CableCard activation line. Got lucky. I got picked up by the tech who does weekend activations. He took the pairing info and decided to access the activation server immediately and manually try to push this through. When he questioned me on why I picked up 4 M-Cards for one device -- I said, since I'd been having so much luck I decided to increase my odds.

He attempted to activate the first M-Card (with it and it alone in the tivo)... he said that activation failed. Then proceeded to try the remaining 3 cards (without putting them in the Tivo, just in the activation server). All 4 failed ultimately. We put in one of my remaining S-Cards. It activated, but I'm still not getting the bulk of the digital channels.

Bot cards display the same ranges

001 - 098 are OK
100 - 292 are missing
294 - 324 are OK
327 - end are missing

Even the music channels are not coming through.

He said he'd have to escallate this to the next level up, and took my contact number for a call back. This is somewhat encouraging on one hand, and discouraging on the other.

Something is seriously amiss in my neighborhood or maybe even just at my house. The signal strength seems fine, I never see anything under 90. My internet is fine, my SD cable box is fine.. (no pixelation or dropouts).

Hopefully this gets better soon.

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lethcoeb

· #7 · Oct 7, 2007

Stupid question, but can (did) Comcast confirm that they have your channel lineup in their system correct, and resend the authorization signals?

Assuming the S card is working, it looks like you've lost all non-basic channels. When Comcast took over for TW back in June, I decided to go ahead and upgrade to get all movie channels, and it basically took about 3 days to get it straightened out, because their system did not recognize the codes for the new Comcast lineups. I went to two storefronts, neither of which could update my account to the digital premier tier with all premium channels due to a bug in their system, and basically I had to call in and go through "new accounts" to have my lineup configured properly (they actually messed it up and shorted me on HDNet, but I got that fixed later on).

Long story short, until my account was fixed, I had a similar channel lineup (this was back in June).

Also, the same thing happened again a couple of weeks ago like I previously mentioned, and it was fixed as noted above.

Keep trying, be patient, and please keep us posted...

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 9, 2007

I made another call last night to see if my status had been updated since Saturday.

Nuthin.

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #9 · Oct 13, 2007

I took another pass at the cable card support tonight. Another fruitless exercise. They said they're still "looking into it". It's starting to seem like there is really nothing wrong with their setup and something IS just magically wrong with either the TiVo S3 or my conneciton/setup.

I just can't stand the idea that this works flawlessly for a year then one day.. Bang.. nothing works.

I'm currently trying just ONE M-card to see if that will fly when they "authorize" it tomorrow. The tech tonight corrected me twice when I said, "activate" them = she said, they're all Pre-activated.

I keep trying to be nice, but I'm now 3 weeks+ without my subscribed channels. It's just not kewl. They've gone over and over my settings. *sigh*

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Terial-DeVo

· #10 · Oct 13, 2007

Woot someone else in houston with my same issue, i am in sugarland though... but we have the same exact issues!

Okay we have the same story with almost the same timeline lol.

Here is where i stand now, i swapped out my 3 cards, and turned off all my systems and put them all in

1 Single stream into TV
1 Multi Stream into S3 slot 1
1 single steam into S3 slot 2

I then called up Comcast, and i got someone who was finally clued into what was going on, after talking with him for like 40 minutes here is what he found out.

The updates in the area for Video on Demand are _preventing_ the cable cards from activating correctly because the M cards are suppose to allow Video on demand, so the upgrades they are doing are directly interferring with cable card activation processes. He actually refused to try to set up my cable cards because he knew they would not activate untill they resolved this issue which they only discovered was happening to the cable cards today (friday the 12th).
he took down my number and put all this info into my ticket. I convinced him to take all my cable card info and have them try to activate it once they video on demand conflict with cable card activation was cleared up... he agreed and they will call me once it is cleared up and they try to activate.

on a side note, i also got them to credit me for the time i have not have my premium channels.

Hope this helps, i post here with my updates as well, but glad and sad to hear that we have the same issues.

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #11 · Oct 17, 2007

They fixed my issue last night @ 10:30. I finally got my call back on Saturday when the same tech who worked my issue last weekend picked up the case. He (his name was "eh-bear"-- Hebert?) said they knew there was *some* issue, and they were still working on resolving it.

Yesterday, things lit up at almost 10:30 on the button. We called one of the other M-cards so I now have 2 working slots.

I'll call in tomorrow to get my credit for the last 3+ weeks. The VOD upgrade did it, they now know it -- and finally called me today to say it's all better.

*sigh*

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ajwees41

· #12 · Oct 17, 2007

Terial-DeVo said:
Woot someone else in houston with my same issue, i am in sugarland though... but we have the same exact issues!

Okay we have the same story with almost the same timeline lol.

Here is where i stand now, i swapped out my 3 cards, and turned off all my systems and put them all in

1 Single stream into TV
1 Multi Stream into S3 slot 1
1 single steam into S3 slot 2

I then called up Comcast, and i got someone who was finally clued into what was going on, after talking with him for like 40 minutes here is what he found out.

The updates in the area for Video on Demand are _preventing_ the cable cards from activating correctly because the M cards are suppose to allow Video on demand, so the upgrades they are doing are directly interferring with cable card activation processes. He actually refused to try to set up my cable cards because he knew they would not activate untill they resolved this issue which they only discovered was happening to the cable cards today (friday the 12th).
he took down my number and put all this info into my ticket. I convinced him to take all my cable card info and have them try to activate it once they video on demand conflict with cable card activation was cleared up... he agreed and they will call me once it is cleared up and they try to activate.

on a side note, i also got them to credit me for the time i have not have my premium channels.

Hope this helps, i post here with my updates as well, but glad and sad to hear that we have the same issues.

I think the tech was confused the Multistream cards have nothing to do with ondemand.

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bluetex

Discussion Starter · #13 · Oct 17, 2007

ajwees41 said:
I think the tech was confused the Multistream cards have nothing to do with ondemand.

I agree.. I had problems with both Single and Multi-stream cards after the VOD upgrade issue. NONE of them would talk back to the head-end.

They all failed authorization.

The most obvious sign was they never would get the Music channels (777+), and the techs were baffled by that.

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ajwees41

· #14 · Oct 17, 2007

I don't know much about cable cards,but could the issue be that the upgrades to the ondemand missed up the frequencies that the cablecards use?

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