# New Tivo Bridge and no MOCA connection



## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

I have a Roamio and 5 mini's and run MOCA on the cable LAN. Up until 2 weeks ago, everything worked perfectly for 3 years. All of a sudden the Mini's lost connection. There was a Comcast complementary speed upgrade the same time as my MOCA outage, but there were no other changes. I suspected a router issue but that seems to be fine as all other connected devices work with no issue. I then suspected the Actiontec bridge which I had been using, so I bought a Tivo MOCA 2 Bridge. But now after installing the new Tivo Bridge, I still have the same problem. The Roamio is in a different room than the bridge/router/modem. I have tried reestablishing a client connection but the Roamio does not see the MOCA network. The Tivo bridge seems to be working although I notice only 1 of two lights is on on the top (power is on, not sure what the other light not on is for). The bridge ethernet port lights are flashing. The cable network has not changed. I do get a TCP failure at the Roamio, but I'm not sure that is an issue. Any ideas?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Try powering everything OFF, then power back ON one device at time, starting with the modem, letting it power up and be active, then move to router, etc.

When Comcast upgrades your data speed, they would have you power cycle it to access the new speed.

You never even mention power cycles but instead to buy more Tivo bridges (AKA MoCa adapters) and it never fixed the issue.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Comcast may have turned off MoCA in your router, too.

Log in and turn it back on.

-KP


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

The suggested full power reset has been seen to solve odd MoCA issues in the past, provided *everything* is powered down, including modem, router, standalone switches, MoCA adapters and any MoCA-capable TiVo boxes.

But if that doesn't solve your problem...

What brand and model is your cable modem & router, and owned or leased from your provider?

What is your new spec'd download/upload speed from Comcast? And are you seeing your spec'd rate via speedtest.net using a PC wired to your router?

Do you know if you have a "PoE" MoCA filter installed at the provider point-of-entry to your home?

Do you have two coax runs to the modem location or just one? Do you have any location with two coax runs, one unused?

Anyway, aside from a missing "PoE" MoCA filter, one other possibility the above questions are considering is that your region is going DOCSIS 3.1 for cable Internet service, which could interfere with MoCA operation. That your problems cropped-up after a modem reset to unlock additional bandwidth could be merely coincidental or causal.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

And just to be clear...

What model Roamio do you have? 6-tuner Plus|Pro, or 4-tuner basic model?

And you were previously using an Actiontec MoCA adapter at your modem/router location to establish your MoCA network? And have tried unsuccessfully to do the same using a TiVo Bridge?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jay Hamlin said:


> The Tivo bridge seems to be working although I notice only 1 of two lights is on on the top (power is on, not sure what the other light not on is for).


The other LED status light on top of the TiVo Bridge is the MoCA/coax link light, which will only light-up once the first MoCA client connection is made.

A quick test of your two MoCA adapters: direct-connect them to each other and verify all the status lights indicate connections. Connect a Cat5/6 cable between their Ethernet ports, and a coax cable between their "IN" coax ports, and then power-up the adapters and check the LEDs.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Bonus points if you can gain access to your modem's UI and report the frequencies being used by all the downstream and upstream channels.


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## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

Thanks for the quick replies. 

I just tried a complete power down (I had sort of done it before but not disciplined). No go. Same issue

Modem is Arris Surfboard SB6190 - owned
Router is Netgear R6300 - owned
Download was upgraded from 100 to 150 Mbps
speedtest.net just a minute ago was 145.62/5.76 with PC wired to the router
Yes - I installed the PoE at the entry to the house 3 years ago
Only one coax run to the modem
I am aware of the potential move to DOCSIS 3.1, but not aware if it has happened. This would be interesting if it has. 
I have the Roamio Plus 6-tuner
Yes - I just replaced the Actiontec with the TIVO Bridge (I see it is also an Actiontec device) at the same location


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## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

I can access the modem UI - looking for the frequencies...


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Well, not many routers with built-in MoCA and the 6190 is not one of them, so that just leaves the splitter layout.

What's it like?

-KP


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## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

I used the splitter that came with the TIVO Bridge. Nothing else on the network has changed for 3 years.

The modem has 24 frequencies for downstream between 543 and 681 Mhz. Upstream has 4 frequencies between 17.30 and 36.50


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Be that as it may, it's not working now...

MoCA can only tolerate 2 splitters deep and likes a splitter with LOW port isolation and the higher the frequency it can pass the better.

What are the signal levels like on those 24 downstream channels?

-KP


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## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

kpeters59 said:


> Be that as it may, it's not working now...
> 
> MoCA can only tolerate 2 splitters deep and likes a splitter with LOW port isolation and the higher the frequency it can pass the better.
> 
> ...


I don't know how to check the signal levels.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Jay Hamlin said:


> I don't know how to check the signal levels.


It's not important to your MoCA issue, but it should be a dB level indicated next to each channel.

-KP


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## coredump4 (Aug 8, 2009)

Jay Hamlin said:


> I used the splitter that came with the TIVO Bridge. Nothing else on the network has changed for 3 years.


Splitters are a big deal for MoCA. All splitters on a MoCA network should have an upper range of 2400Mhz. It's possible you have non-MoCA splitters that happen to leak enough signal above their upper limit that you got lucky for 3 years.
Replace the splitters if necessary, and then reconstitute the network a section at a time to see if you can isolate the problem. Good luck, and do report back what the cause is.


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## Jay Hamlin (Jan 19, 2018)

Yes - am very careful with the splitters. It is good advice.

I'm happy to say my issue is resolved. I called Tivo support and they were great. One thing I had not done was to power down all the Mini's. It seems that at least one of the mini's was causing a MoCA issue. I powered everything back down - modem, router, Roamio and all Mini's and then powered back-up and - surprise it started working.

The agent focused on the Tivo Bridge lights. Both are supposed to be lit. The fact that the right side light was not lit was telling her there was a MoCA issue and she concentrated on fixing that. Turning off all the Mini's was her suggestion.

Thanks for all the help. All comments were good advice.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

The initial suggestions/comments from Thursday...


ThAbtO said:


> Try powering everything OFF, then power back ON one device at time, starting with the modem, letting it power up and be active, then move to router, etc.





krkaufman said:


> The suggested full power reset has been seen to solve odd MoCA issues in the past, provided *everything* is powered down, including modem, router, standalone switches, MoCA adapters *and any MoCA-capable TiVo boxes.*
> 
> But if that doesn't solve your problem...





krkaufman said:


> The other LED status light on top of the TiVo Bridge is the MoCA/coax link light, which will only light-up once the first MoCA client connection is made.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Sorry...I should have told you to do that. Whenever anything on an existing MoCA network changes, the thing to do is bring everything on line in a hierarchical order. Start at the internet and work your way back.

-KP


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

krkaufman said:


> The initial suggestions/comments from Thursday...
> 
> ​


People need to carefully follow the Moca guru's instructions!


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

UCLABB said:


> People need to carefully follow the Moca guru's instructions!


I was just seconding @ThAbtO. Unfortunately, we didn't double-check that the power reset had been done. Live and learn.

edit: p.s. Heh, I just noticed this from up-thread:


Jay Hamlin said:


> I just tried a complete power down (I had sort of done it before but not disciplined). No go. Same issue


... so feel slightly vindicated, as I recall reading it at the time. Now I'm just not sure where this earlier reset fell short, though the latest post from the OP seems to indicate that he may not have included the Minis in the earlier power reset.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

A rule of thumb: If everything was working fine, then suddenly something was not working and no hardware changes.... Power cycle everything on the network.


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