[series5orpremier]

My letter says on or after April 4th. Probably a function of when your billing period ends. They figure now is a good time to capitalize on the anger of customers over the CC price increase to get them to switch.

 

[suzannesstud]

Update since technician came today about CableCARD and HSC after receiving in and installing the HSC on Monday.

Everything is now back to working.

There is a known problem, on the back end, with the CableCARDs and HSCs showing activated to the support representatives when actually they are not. Technician showed both as being disabled in his mobile system.

Both the CableCARD and HSC were actually still disabled as, when the switch gets flipped for high split, it automatically deactivates and kicks the CableCARD off the account, but the back end was able to get it back on and working along with getting the HSC fully provisioned.

Also, with Motorola CableCARDs, when the switch flips, the CableCARD is getting recategorized as a Cisco card which doesn’t allow the representative to provision it because it won’t accept the Data ID since Cisco cards don’t use that in their provisioning like Motorola cards do.

The back end was able to recategorize it back to a Motorola card, and the DataID was able to be successfully provisioned back into the system.

New hits were sent, and everything came back alive as it was before.

On the CableCARD Decoder Diagnostics Screen under:

Settings → Remote, CableCARD, and Devices → CableCARD Decoder → CableCARD Installation → CableCARD Menu → Conditional Access

the following three fields should show like in the picture below:

Con = Yes
Val = V
Auth = S

If any of these show ? or a different value other than those above, then the CableCARD is not provisioned and enabled properly to take the authorization, and all channels, whether SDV or not, will display a V58 message.

On the Tuning Adapter Diagnostics Screen under:

Settings → Remote, CableCARD, and Devices → Tuning Adapter → Diagnostics

it should look similar to the one displayed below if signals are coming in properly.

Signal Strength should display a %, and Signal Lock, Program Lock, and Search Complete should all show as a Yes for all tuners. If these have a - instead, power-cycle the TiVo. They should change to a % and three Yes’s for all tuners

If -‘s are still showing then a strong enough signal is not being detected.

If it does show % and three Yes’s, and the CableCARD Decoder fields don’t show as described, then problem is the CableCARD not being provisioned and enabled properly in the controller system.

I hope this will help if any of you experience the same problem I had.

Everything is now working as before.

 

[SirKnowsALot]

...Everything you said...

This is super-helpful! I've been away for a week, but last Saturday morning my Ring doorbell captured a dude with some coax cables and a box at my door (completely a surprise to me). I'm only assuming it was my HSC to be installed.

All your info gives me confidence that it will work in the end.

Funny thing, right now with my old TA and all, everything is still working fine. I almost hesitate to call them for an appointment.

Anyhow, if I have anything of value to report afterwards, I will be back here.
For the record, I am in Lexington, KY.

 

[suzannesstud]

This is super-helpful! I've been away for a week, but last Saturday morning my Ring doorbell captured a dude with some coax cables and a box at my door (completely a surprise to me). I'm only assuming it was my HSC to be installed.

All your info gives me confidence that it will work in the end.

Funny thing, right now with my old TA and all, everything is still working fine. I almost hesitate to call them for an appointment.

Anyhow, if I have anything of value to report afterwards, I will be back here.
For the record, I am in Lexington, KY.

I was hoping this might give some help for others.

It took a while to get it back, but everything came back. I know a decent bit about what those installer screens can reveal, but the only thing is I’m not the one who has the access to be able to provision everything like it needs to be.

With us being one of the very early markets to convert, there is still a lot that is being learned as they go along.

The technician checked signals with his equipment to rule out any chance of not getting the proper authorization and provisioning hits, and since I knew about which variables from the installer screens were showing where the authorization and provisioning problem was, he was able to tell the person on the phone exactly what needed to be updated without really having to do any trial and error.

The problem was several fold, and my type of issue seems to be the most common of those being seen by customers who are having issues after the conversion. The person on the phone, and the back end they were working with, identified other parts of what seems to be automatically happening behind the scenes when the conversion takes place.

Some of it has to do with certain things getting updated incorrectly in the controller system when the switch flips which results in the CableCARD getting disabled, and the HSC won’t properly provision with information not matching in the system. The CableCARD support staff sees some issues to fix, but those particular fields in question have to be updated by the back end. To the representatives, it looks like everything is fully paired and provisioned, but they are unable to see the fact that the data in those particular fields are incorrect or even what data is in those fields at all. When they contacted the back end, the technician gave them the information I had about what specific data needs to appear in those fields for everything to work so they could have the back end manually update it. After that, one more round of hits, and everything came nicely back to life.

If your TA is still working in Lexington, I don’t know how much longer it will because I know the Lexington system is a different headend, but I imagine it won’t be too long because Lexington is supposed to be part of this round. When it happens it will be instantaneous, and the HSC will be what gets it back. If that alone doesn’t get it back then it might end up being this same problem of which this same solution should likely fix it.

I was also told that once the conversion is completed, and then everything else beyond that is implemented for high split, the internet will become equal download and upload speeds along with 500MB and 1G options will become available.

Since the conversion happened last weekend, I’m now showing I can upgrade to either of those options if I so choose. The equal upload speed is not fully implemented yet, but I was told it would be soon. Right now I have 300MB which is still 300/10, but soon it will be 300/300, and I was told the others will become 500/500 and 1000/1000.

Hopefully, you will be able to avoid the issues I had, but if they do happen, hopefully this might be able to help you reach a quicker resolution. My understanding is that the issues are more so with the Motorola CableCARDs because of the extra data elements they use that Cisco cards don’t so if you have a Cisco CableCARD you may be less likely to have an issue.

I will wish that all goes well when the change occurs.

 

[shrike4242]

My buddy, who lives in unincorporated South StL County, rec'd the same letter indicating "CableCARDS will lose compatibility and no longer function starting on or after March 23, 2023." He called Charter this evening and talked to someone nice and knowledgeable. The rep checked his address and indicated they are not scheduled for the cut-over in his area until early 2024, which is why the letter said on or after. Not sure why they mailed it a year in advance. The rep was also unable to order any HSC boxes for him because it's so far out. They indicated another letter will be sent as it gets closer, at which time they should call to get the HSCs.

The rep that talked to your buddy is wrong. I live in that area and have been going through switching out my TAs for HSCs through the past week, two done and one to go. I had the same March 23rd date sent via email a week ago, with the postal mail version showing up the middle of this past week, Had another email show up yesterday with that date now moved back two weeks to April 7th, same verbiage about the sky is falling, doom is on the way and my cable cards will promptly explode on the date in question. A CC support rep I spoke with yesterday said that the HSC is live to do the swaps for the HSC converters, otherwise they wouldn't work at all. I ordered my HSC boxes back in mid-to-late December of last year and had them show up the next day from FedEx. I know that after that initial availability, those boxes have been impossible to get for reasons only known to Spectrum, though I'd guess it's likely they way under-estimated need and demand for them, expecting most to all users of Tivo units with CCs to switch over to their Cloud DVR "product".

Both of TA to HSC swaps have needed assistance from Spectrum to get the TAs to work, as it's some related issue like suzannesstud had encountered, with the rep on the phone needing to send another activation signal to the CCs as removing the TA does something to the CC pairing that causes it to disable itself. The hit fixes the issue, after the HSC had gone through its multi-step activation process. The first rep who I worked with on Monday said it was "programming" that they needed to change on their end to fix the HSC not working, so my guess is that it was an activation hit that needed to go out to the CC to fix it. I have a different process I'm going to try when I do my last TA to HSC swap today, which is power off the Tivo through the entire swap process and power it back on again once the HSC appears to be complete with its activation process. I assume that I'll need to talk with Spectrum to get another hit sent to fix the CC activation issue, though we'll see what happens later today.

 

[bobg573]

This is super-helpful! I've been away for a week, but last Saturday morning my Ring doorbell captured a dude with some coax cables and a box at my door (completely a surprise to me). I'm only assuming it was my HSC to be installed.

All your info gives me confidence that it will work in the end.
...
For the record, I am in Lexington, KY.

I'm also in Lexington. The HSCs I requested back in December arrived by FedEx last Monday. My cable cards were still working fine but the TAs had ceased working back in the fall. So I went ahead and installed an HSC. It took some fiddling about (*) to get it acknowledged but it finally locked in and has been working fine.

I have Motorola cable cards so I also appreciate suzannesstud's knowledge dump. Maybe I'll get lucky and the eventual network changeover will now be transparent to me, but I'll be surprised if so and that extra knowledge will be helpful.

(*) At the TiVo's location, it wouldn't connect (light stayed blinking) for over an hour and a couple of restarts. So I carried the HSC to the cable entry point into the basement and connected it to the two-way splitter that feeds the cable modem. My plan was to call support and not get into any arguments about my indoor cabling. But it locked in fairly quickly -- 10 minutes, maybe? -- and did so again when I took it back to the TiVo. It's been that way for six days now.

 

[shrike4242]

Little surprise yesterday with the one Tivo that has been on its HSC since Monday. I rebooted after doing an update since the guide information wasn't correct, and when it came back, the CableCard wasn't working, none of the channels were coming up. I called the CC line at Spectrum and the rep said that the CableCard had unpaired itself from their network and they had to send a pairing hit to it again to get it back. They had no explanation to why the CableCard deactivated itself on a reboot, though I made it clear to the rep that if this would be something that I'd need to do every time I had to reboot a Tivo, this wasn't acceptable in any manner.

The second Tivo I have on a HSC hasn't been rebooted since it was moved over to the HSC on Friday, though I'll likely reboot it and see if the same issue happens with the second one.

A FYI in case this happens to anyone else on rebooting their Tivo once moved over to a HSC and the idiocy that may be tied to this reboot for the time being.

 

[drquest]

I'm still being told they can't send me HSC's and my current tuning adapters are still just flashing away looking for an out of band signal that's not there anymore.

 

[Bob Louder]

I have a Bolt on cable card using Spectrum (Charter) as my provider. In inquiring about possibly changing packages, I was told that the current plans do not allow for cable card and that it is possible that Spectrum may obsolete cable card in the future. It sounded like more a matter of when than if. Or am I misunderstanding this? I love my Tivo and have had a Series 2 and HD prior to my Bolt. I hate the thought of losing it. I've resisted the lower prices and better offerings from Hawaiian Telcom because I wouldn't be able to use my Tivo.

I'm just now learning about this... have been a TiVo customer for 15 plus years.

This happened because of THIS GUY ... and everybody needs to understand that and who appointed him.

Biography of Former Chairman Ajit Pai
Ajit Pai was designated Chairman by President Donald J. Trump in January 2017 and served through January 20, 2021. He had previously served as Commissioner at the FCC, appointed by then-President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate in May 2012. Regulatory...


And I see no evidence that the current Chairwomen (of course) has attempted to change this. The current potus appointed her.

Neither side really gives a crap about competition ... it is all talk. They care about their donors and the TeleComm & Internet providers do a lot of lobbying.

While it is too late at this point, I will contact the FCC & state service commission. Will also contact US Reps as they continue handing over the power granted to them by the Constitution. These decisions were by unelected bureaucrats whose only allegiance is to the person who appointed them.

 

[dmrshop]

I have been receiving the cable card letters from Spectrum for months, but not one of them mentioned the high split converter. I finally just called today and asked about it. I was put on hold to check to see if it was available in my area (St. Louis); it is. The representative ordered it for me and I should have it next week. I mentioned that I am happy that I don't have to give up my TiVo, and he commented that there seems to be quite a following because they have gotten quite a number of requests for converters.

So, for all of you who have received letters from Spectrum with no offer of the HSC, try calling the cable card number. I found it by going to Spectrum.net/hsc (and it has been posted here in earlier comments).

 

[dcrowson]

I have been receiving the cable card letters from Spectrum for months, but not one of them mentioned the high split converter. I finally just called today and asked about it. I was put on hold to check to see if it was available in my area (St. Louis); it is. The representative ordered it for me and I should have it next week. I mentioned that I am happy that I don't have to give up my TiVo, and he commented that there seems to be quite a following because they have gotten quite a number of requests for converters.

So, for all of you who have received letters from Spectrum with no offer of the HSC, try calling the cable card number. I found it by going to Spectrum.net/hsc (and it has been posted here in earlier comments).

I'm in the Saint Louis area (O'Fallon MO) as well. I went to the link and ordered some of these a few months back. I ended up installing one but have not installed the rest. I think the drop dead date I was given was at the end of February and everything is still working so far.

Dan

 

[dmrshop]

I have been receiving the cable card letters from Spectrum for months, but not one of them mentioned the high split converter. I finally just called today and asked about it. I was put on hold to check to see if it was available in my area (St. Louis); it is. The representative ordered it for me and I should have it next week. I mentioned that I am happy that I don't have to give up my TiVo, and he commented that there seems to be quite a following because they have gotten quite a number of requests for converters. So, for all of you who have received letters from Spectrum with no offer of the HSC, try calling the cable card number. I found it by going to Spectrum.net/hsc (and it has been posted here in earlier comments).

I'm in the Saint Louis area (O'Fallon MO) as well. I went to the link and ordered some of these a few months back. I ended up installing one but have not installed the rest. I think the drop dead date I was given was at the end of February and everything is still working so far.

Dan

I missed being able to order online, and I never got a letter offering the converter in the first place. I just recently received a postcard saying that Spectrum was coming through upgrading internet, so I got worried that the drop dead date is finally coming. We shall see!

 

[dcrowson]

I missed being able to order online, and I never got a letter offering the converter in the first place. I just recently received a postcard saying that Spectrum was coming through upgrading internet, so I got worried that the drop dead date is finally coming. We shall see!

I have yet to receive something about the HSC splitters, too, and received the drop dead date letter on cable so I'm not sure on what, if anything is actually happening. I guess I'm saying you shouldn't be in a hurry to install them.

Dan

 

[argie916]

There have been several reports similar but then when people talked to the cable card experts at Spectrum they were told that isn't true. Who knows

Yesterday I wrote the FCC about this, and today I got a call from Spectrum. The woman was not familiar with Tivo or any other technology, but she confirmed that they will stop supporting the cable cards. When I asked her when, she said that it would be in the near future, but that there's no date yet.

 

[cwoody222]

Yesterday I wrote the FCC about this, and today I got a call from Spectrum. The woman was not familiar with Tivo or any other technology, but she confirmed that they will stop supporting the cable cards. When I asked her when, she said that it would be in the near future, but that there's no date yet.

So basically, no new info.

Vague, verbal threats.

 

[thefisch]

My two Cisco TA's has been stuck on 'ready - broadcast only' status for weeks due to a head end issue. Supervisor is looking into it but there's been no movement. Feels like they have no intention of trying to fix this.

 

[bobg573]

I'm also in Lexington. The HSCs I requested back in December arrived by FedEx last Monday. My cable cards were still working fine but the TAs had ceased working back in the fall. So I went ahead and installed an HSC. It took some fiddling about (*) to get it acknowledged but it finally locked in and has been working fine.

Just this week I received notice (email and letter) from Spectrum that June 20 is our local deadline to install the HSCs to keep our cable cards functioning. But we've stopped using our TiVos in favor of Channels DVR and I expect to drop our cable TV plan shortly. For what it's worth, the HSCs I installed in February have been working solidly. One is now serving an HDHomeRun Prime connected to Channels DVR, but that experiment was mostly a bust due to Spectrum's policy of copy-protecting almost all channels.

 

[madderthanhellny]

Dear fellow Tivo lovers: If they haven't already, Spectrum will soon be effectively disabling your Tivos. I have bought used Tivos on eBay for many years, and use each until it stops working. A number of years ago I ended up with my first Tivo that required a cable card. I had no idea what that even was but Time Warner helped me out. I most recently have had three Tivos going, two of which use Multistream cable cards and Cable Card Receivers, and one of which is so old that it still uses just a Tuning Adapter. My Series 4 recently croaked, but I had a refurbished Bolt standing by and thought I had it made. The second I removed the Multistream card from the 4 and installed it in the Bolt, the card was disabled by Spectrum. They won't admit this, and even went so far as to send out a technician to try to resolve the problem, but their system "can't identify this cable card, so we can't activate it". I, at one point, was going to take the card out of the other Tivo to try in the Bolt, and am sure glad that I did not. There is no doubt in my mind that card would have also mysteriously stopped working. The tech suggested that I attempt to get another card from Spectrum, saying that the techs in my area no longer carried them on their trucks. I called Spectrum's 800 # and was initially told that they could mail me a card. I was then put on hold for several minutes and then was told that they had no cards to send, and are no longer supporting cable cards.

So my Bolt is useless. I can buy Multisteam cards on eBay for as little as $3.99/ea, but Spectrum will never activate them. And I live in rural New York and have no other options except for DirectTV or Dish, neither of whom support cable cards. I'm guessing that, with the blessings of the FCC, that it won't be long before no cable company will support cable cards.

Spectrum is offering me (a) free DVR for 24 months + free cloud storage for 24 months, after which time, presumably, I will miraculously have enough money to pay for these things I am used to having. But my household lives on a very fixed income, so I would, once again, be stranded. Additionally, we are still technically customers of Time Warner Cable, as we have not upgraded anything since the buyout. But I have little doubt (haven't tested this yet, but will) that accepting their free DVR + storage will count as an upgrade, and suddenly we would be paying more for everything, AND, as far as I can tell (again, will test this theory), they are only offering me one special DVR deal, which means that I would somehow have to pay for one or two other tuners.

So nurse and coddle your existing Tivos and do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES remove the cable card until the unit is beyond hope. Let the FCC hear from you -- I'm sending them this post in the form of a letter. And, BTW, the letters and emails that some of you got from Spectrum last summer, warning you of the impending removal of services -- I never got any of those notices. So this whole thing has REALLY come as a shock. I can't remember when I was last so angry.

And if any of you have figured out a workaround for this, by all means share it here.

 

[cwoody222]

Dear fellow Tivo lovers: If they haven't already, Spectrum will soon be effectively disabling your Tivos. I have bought used Tivos on eBay for many years, and use each until it stops working. A number of years ago I ended up with my first Tivo that required a cable card. I had no idea what that even was but Time Warner helped me out. I most recently have had three Tivos going, two of which use Multistream cable cards and Cable Card Receivers, and one of which is so old that it still uses just a Tuning Adapter. My Series 4 recently croaked, but I had a refurbished Bolt standing by and thought I had it made. The second I removed the Multistream card from the 4 and installed it in the Bolt, the card was disabled by Spectrum. They won't admit this, and even went so far as to send out a technician to try to resolve the problem, but their system "can't identify this cable card, so we can't activate it". I, at one point, was going to take the card out of the other Tivo to try in the Bolt, and am sure glad that I did not. There is no doubt in my mind that card would have also mysteriously stopped working. The tech suggested that I attempt to get another card from Spectrum, saying that the techs in my area no longer carried them on their trucks. I called Spectrum's 800 # and was initially told that they could mail me a card. I was then put on hold for several minutes and then was told that they had no cards to send, and are no longer supporting cable cards.

So my Bolt is useless. I can buy Multisteam cards on eBay for as little as $3.99/ea, but Spectrum will never activate them. And I live in rural New York and have no other options except for DirectTV or Dish, neither of whom support cable cards. I'm guessing that, with the blessings of the FCC, that it won't be long before no cable company will support cable cards.

Spectrum is offering me (a) free DVR for 24 months + free cloud storage for 24 months, after which time, presumably, I will miraculously have enough money to pay for these things I am used to having. But my household lives on a very fixed income, so I would, once again, be stranded. Additionally, we are still technically customers of Time Warner Cable, as we have not upgraded anything since the buyout. But I have little doubt (haven't tested this yet, but will) that accepting their free DVR + storage will count as an upgrade, and suddenly we would be paying more for everything, AND, as far as I can tell (again, will test this theory), they are only offering me one special DVR deal, which means that I would somehow have to pay for one or two other tuners.

So nurse and coddle your existing Tivos and do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES remove the cable card until the unit is beyond hope. Let the FCC hear from you -- I'm sending them this post in the form of a letter. And, BTW, the letters and emails that some of you got from Spectrum last summer, warning you of the impending removal of services -- I never got any of those notices. So this whole thing has REALLY come as a shock. I can't remember when I was last so angry.

And if any of you have figured out a workaround for this, by all means share it here.

Your card was not disabled.

Your card needed to be re-provisioned, which they are no longer doing.

Same end result but important minor distinction.

 

[NashGuy]

Your card was not disabled.

Your card needed to be re-provisioned, which they are no longer doing.

Same end result but important minor distinction.

It's hard to keep up with all the turmoil at Charter regarding CableCARDs but I was under the impression that they are still re-provisioning functioning CCs that are already in use and active on someone's account. But they won't replace a defective CC, or activate a CC on an account that doesn't already have one.