# Bolt & Comcast Cablecard



## csmith0406 (Jul 1, 2002)

So I got my new Bolt, set it up with OTA and really liked it. Today we got the cable cards from Comcast and it did not go well. First we were told it would take a while, then when we called back, we heard it was a TIVO "service provider" issue, that Tivo had to send something to the box. Called back a third time and was told my two new cablecards were bad. Now I am waiting for a technician on Saturday. 

Any experience or suggestions for others who have done this?


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

There are a million threads on this. The cards are NOT bad and it should not take a truck roll. Call the cablecard hotline, not the normal folks.

Call back to the correct number, and most often they can fix you up. If that does not work, escallate, escallate, escallate until they address properly. These cards are almost never bad, but can be set up incorrectly in their system.


----------



## csmith0406 (Jul 1, 2002)

Thanks for your reply, I did see the threads, sorry I didn't mention that. I was a little frustrated with Comcast when I posted. 

I guess what I meant to ask was, other than calling a million times until I win the lottery of getting someone who knows what to do, any magic bullets out there? Probably not.....

I searched on the Comcast forum and sent a DM to ComcastPhil, who others say helped them with similar issues. Hoping that will help. Now that I am done with work I might make another try at calling the cable card line, and hopefully, cancel the service call they scheduled for me.


----------



## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

csmith0406 said:


> So I got my new Bolt, set it up with OTA and really liked it. Today we got the cable cards from Comcast and it did not go well. First we were told it would take a while, then when we called back, we heard it was a TIVO "service provider" issue, that Tivo had to send something to the box. Called back a third time and was told my two new cablecards were bad. Now I am waiting for a technician on Saturday.
> 
> Any experience or suggestions for others who have done this?


Comcast CableCARD Support Line: (877) 405-2298

Comcast TiVo Support Department: (855) 484-1453 (link)

ComcastTeds on the Comcast support forums, via PM

Comcast Cares team via email, at: [email protected]

NOTE: When contacting "Comcast Cares," please include all of the following in your email: The full name on your account, the telephone number on file for you, in addition to the best contact number, the full address where service is active (or location where service is being installed) and a detailed description of the problem.


----------



## Hilbe (Sep 5, 2005)

csmith0406 said:


> So I got my new Bolt, set it up with OTA and really liked it. Today we got the cable cards from Comcast and it did not go well. First we were told it would take a while, then when we called back, we heard it was a TIVO "service provider" issue, that Tivo had to send something to the box. Called back a third time and was told my two new cablecards were bad. Now I am waiting for a technician on Saturday.
> 
> Any experience or suggestions for others who have done this?


It will take a truck roll. Cable Card folks are idiots.


----------



## Purepain (Jan 13, 2014)

I struggled for a long with my Premier until I reached out to ComcastPhill via the xfinity forums. I dealt with a Tivo that only got about 80% of my channels due to Comast indicating that my equipment was defective After numerous cable cards and 5 in house visits where they rewire everything in an attempt to fix my missing channels issue and tried at least 10 different cards over a 30 day period. I finally gave up because I could afford to miss anymore time from because the local cable card "experts" only work from 9-5. In December I decided to upgrade my "defective" equipment and get a new Bolt. I made mistake of moving cable card from old Tivo to new Tivo and calling cable card pairing team to re-pair card to new TiVo. I say this was a mistake because this resulted in two non working TiVos and I had to go to local office a get another cable card because cable pairing agent had indicated that cable card had become disabled. They informed that in needed a tech to come to my house. The tech that shows up was completely untrained on cable card and basically called the same number I had been. After two unsuccessful visits and two weeks of no cable in my living I asked tech to try cable back in old TiVo. He failed at setting that one up as well. He gave up because it got late and told me he would have to back with more cable cards After he left. I decided to retry pairing again on my own via cable card pairing line and was successful in getting old back to previous state of approx 80% of channels. In meantime I had also started Private message conversation with ComcastPhill who escalated my issue to Tier 3 support person Denver. I lived in South Florida. He was able to quickly diagnose that the problem with cable card was that signal was running on a different downstream from head unit than the other cable boxes in my home. He opened an internal ticket with an engineer a day later my "defective" TiVo was getting all the channels. When I explained to tier 3 tech the issues I was having getting Bolt to work with cable card. It was getting stuck on aquiring channels screen, he assured me the he could resolve issue the next tech came to my home. I coordinated visit to align with Denver tech schedule and let him know when appointment was so he could be on stand by. Well finally Bolt is working great and old is working better than ever.
I must note that the tuners in Bolt are better than Premier. Picture seems sharper and I get no pixelation on any channel on Bolt but do had a couple of channels that do pixelate on older TiVo. 

Do not hesitate to reach out to Comcast Ted or Comcast Phil you will save yourself a lot frustration. Unfortunately Comcast does not have a lot of people that experienced in cable cards or TiVo equipment so you may need to reach directly to the real experts. Good luck the struggle is worth the end result. TiVo makes a great DVR. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Hilbe said:


> It will take a truck roll. Cable Card folks are idiots.


I don't think that is the typical advice here. The typical advice is to call the right number.

I certainly have never needed to have a truck at my house to setup a Cablecard on any device.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Hilbe said:


> It will take a truck roll. Cable Card folks are idiots.


What happens with a truck roll? They call the office to fix the problem. Thus, no need for a truck roll. Caveat- line problems clearly warrant a truck roll, but should not have an influence on the ccard.


----------



## kevbo82 (Jan 22, 2016)

definitely call the cable card number. I just switched to comcast yesterday, they told me the tech coming to setup our service would bring me an Mcard (which it turns out they were suppose to mail to me but they didn't know that...) he happened to have a card laying around his truck, it looked like it was found UNDER his truck, it didn't work well and the bolt kept thinking there was no card. Any way, after getting a new card today from a local service center, I popped it in, called the comcast cable card number and gave the girl the data and host info, she paired it and sent an activation signal that had everything up and running in less than 10 minutes.


----------



## Hilbe (Sep 5, 2005)

GoodSpike said:


> I don't think that is the typical advice here. The typical advice is to call the right number.
> 
> I certainly have never needed to have a truck at my house to setup a Cablecard on any device.


If you look on the Comcast forums for CableCARDs you'll find a lot more people getting stuck at 72%.

The CableCARD # isn't what it was a few years ago - I was with them for 8 to 10 hours on my activation day. Went to xfinity store and got a new card - still had issues. They just have a certain limit on what they can do as a level 1 support script they follow. Truck roll fixed my issue along with many others on the Comcast forums.


----------



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Hilbe said:


> If you look on the Comcast forums for CableCARDs you'll find a lot more people getting stuck at 72%..


I haven't looked at any of those threads, but I don't see how that would have to do with the pairing. It doesn't get paired until after that.


----------



## dderrig (Dec 25, 2015)

GoodSpike said:


> I haven't looked at any of those threads, but I don't see how that would have to do with the pairing. It doesn't get paired until after that.


Wrong (Respectfully  ) , mine was stuck at 72% because it was not paired, once it was paired it worked fine.


----------



## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Hilbe said:


> If you look on the Comcast forums for CableCARDs you'll find a lot more people getting stuck at 72%.
> 
> The CableCARD # isn't what it was a few years ago - I was with them for 8 to 10 hours on my activation day. Went to xfinity store and got a new card - still had issues. They just have a certain limit on what they can do as a level 1 support script they follow. Truck roll fixed my issue along with many others on the Comcast forums.


The tech can call a person you can't, that person can re-program the cable card from scratch, the Comcast person at 877-405-2298 can't do that, and most of the time it is not required, but when a cable card re-program is needed, a tech at your home is needed, I asked once for that number and was told it is only for Comcast techs, even if I had the number they would not talk to me.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Mostly true, but you can get there though escalation. Just did this myself in November.


----------



## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jrtroo said:


> Mostly true, but you can get there though escalation. Just did this myself in November.


For a cable card problem the truck roll is free. So it is no problem for me to use a truck roll, in CT we get a 2 hour time window and a $20 cr. if Comcast does not meet the time window.


----------



## danix (Aug 9, 2010)

I just activated and thankfully had little trouble.

Installed the card, called Comcast and had them activate the card.
Then called Tivo and activated my Bolt.
It's not the easiest process in the world but compared to past experiences, it wasn't bad.


----------



## mchappell (Jul 1, 2008)

My Comcast cable card activation experiences:

Bolt 1 - On phone for about 30 minutes with Comcast cablecard support. Activated/paired, reset card, reset bolt, Comcast sent reset signal. Lather, rinse, repeat. Final instructions from Comcast - card bad, get at least one replacement and call back. 5 minutes later, all channels available. Oy...

Bolt 2 - On phone for about 5 minutes. Tech said pairing was successful(?), 'have a good day'. Based on first time, fine with me. No channels - reset bolt - no luck. Go through guided setup again - still no channels. Wait another 5 minutes - all channels.

So, in the Chicago area, it appears that channel reception is not instantaneous, but takes 5-10-30 minutes after pairing. Pretty frustrating, especially when the tech is asking you if you have channels immediately after the pairing.

Mark


----------



## ADent (Jan 7, 2000)

New Bolt, no working CableCard after a couple of calls and a truck roll. Aaargh.


----------

