# New Bolt cable card (Cox) losing Premiums and paks.



## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

New Bolt, with a Cox cable card. Worked fine for a few days, then premiums and paks were displaying as "looking for a signal v52"
Anyone else have this problem with setting up a Bolt? Of course, Cox wants to blame Tivo, but it's been my experience there's a great deal of mis-guided knowledge over at the cable card activation department. Anyone else, at any cable company, having the same problems with a fresh install in a Bolt?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Sounds like the card became unpaired.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jrtroo said:


> Sounds like the card became unpaired.


Yeah, that was my thought too, but the Cox csr seemed to think it was paired. Then whatever she did lost me HBO, then she said call Tivo. :/
It's csr roulette when it comes to cable card issues...


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## delgadobb (Mar 6, 2004)

tvmaster2 said:


> It's csr roulette when it comes to cable card issues...


... and now with the overseas call center there's a whole lotta zeros on that roulette wheel 

(Whaaat? Cut me some slack. I'm in Las Vegas, after all ...)


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## osu1991 (Mar 6, 2015)

Cox cable card department is terrible in general. Usually want to roll a truck and then the tech gets to stand there and ask them to try this or do this. I've had a couple of good Cox techs that knew what hits needed to be sent and walked the phone car thru it step by step.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

tvmaster2 said:


> New Bolt, with a Cox cable card. Worked fine for a few days, then premiums and paks were displaying as "looking for a signal v52"
> Anyone else have this problem with setting up a Bolt? Of course, Cox wants to blame Tivo, but it's been my experience there's a great deal of mis-guided knowledge over at the cable card activation department. Anyone else, at any cable company, having the same problems with a fresh install in a Bolt?


Unfortunately, you can't rule out a wanky set of Bolt tuners. I would start checking the signal strength on some of the problem channels, also double check and tighten all the coax fixtures you can reach. See if you can figure out if the cable card is properly paired according to the Tivo cable card setup pages and/or call Tivo and ask them. 
The premiums suddenly dropping out though does sound like some kind of "account" issue not being properly entered.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I would try reseating the card, crapshoot but I've had it work.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

osu1991 said:


> Cox cable card department is terrible in general. Usually want to roll a truck and then the tech gets to stand there and ask them to try this or do this. I've had a couple of good Cox techs that knew what hits needed to be sent and walked the phone car thru it step by step.


Two questions I asked the CSR: did my account billing date occur this week? (yes) And, were any of your crew doing work in my neighborhood in the last couple of days ("no, not that we see here"). Well, the funny thing about home security cameras is - they take pictures. lol. Guess I'm narrowing down the possibilities...


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## delgadobb (Mar 6, 2004)

osu1991 said:


> Cox cable card department is terrible in general. Usually want to roll a truck and then the tech gets to stand there and ask them to try this or do this. I've had a couple of good Cox techs that knew what hits needed to be sent and walked the phone car thru it step by step.


Confirmed.

Numerous times Cox has insisted on a truck roll. This is the MO - tech arrives, often admitting they've never seen a Tivo, calls supervisor about cable card, they try a bunch of useless stuff spinning their wheels, scratch their heads, then I suggest what I think it is & it usually works.

When my Roamio Pro was new-ish (few years ago) & some HBO/Cinemax channels stopped working on my TivoHD, I called & they scheduled a truck roll. In the meantime, research I did here & elsewhere indicated they were starting to broadcast secondary HBO/Cinemax channels using MPEG4/H.264 (main 1-2 channels still normal) - this fit the channels I received & didn't receive. Roamio received them fine, TivoHD did not. When the tech came out, I explained this but they (he & supervisor) wanted to test other things first. Nothing. So he put phone on speakerphone & I suggested the MPEG4/H.264 thing to supervisor. Guy literally started screaming at me (condescending/derogatory) that I was wrong & didn't know what I was talking about, even though he couldn't explain alternative. His answer was they were Contour channels & I couldn't receive them without their special box. He couldn't answer why the Roamio received them ("you're not supposed to"). So basically "Because I say so" without supporting evidence. I called Cox to escalate, explained situation, they eventually connected with an engineer (which they rarely do) who confirmed some channels had migrated to MPEG4/H.264, including the ones problematic for my TivoHD. (This was long before the SW update for the HD allowing those channels to work.)

So basically I knew their system better than the tech's supervisor. Scary.

Now it looks like they've instituted a $20 'self-install kit' fee if you pick up the cablecard & do the work yourself. Greed is good, I guess.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

delgadobb said:


> Confirmed.
> 
> Numerous times Cox has insisted on a truck roll. This is the MO - tech arrives, often admitting they've never seen a Tivo, calls supervisor about cable card, they try a bunch of useless stuff spinning their wheels, scratch their heads, then I suggest what I think it is & it usually works.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the $20 tip - the guy at the retail store never mentioned that as he handed me the cable card and tuning adapter. And I too can confirm the only way this EVER gets done properly is when you luck out and find a phone-tech support person who actually knows what cable cards do.
Awful. 1st world problems


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## Teddyboy (Nov 26, 2014)

Oh Brother... I can certainly feel your pain and frustration. I bought a Roamio from a forum member in 2015. It was my first TiVo I've ever owned and I'm very happy with it. Before I bought the TiVo, I was using a Windows Media Center PC that used an InfiniTV cable card tuner. It's the same process to pair a cable to media center or a TiVo. You need the cable card ID an the host ID. You give them the two numbers. Verify that the two ID's are correct. They pair them in the system, initialize/hit the cable card to authorize it to receive what you subscribe too. I went round and round with several csr's over the phone trying to get it set up. They kept insisting that they already had the host ID, and I kept telling them that it was from the old system. Finally after a truck roll and over an hour of no change that I was finally able to get them to look at the host ID read it back to the CSR for her to type it into the system and BOOM all the channels came up! 

It all comes down to inadequate training and thier failure to allow escalation to someone that actually knows what they are talking about.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

Teddyboy said:


> Oh Brother... I can certainly feel your pain and frustration. I bought a Roamio from a forum member in 2015. It was my first TiVo I've ever owned and I'm very happy with it. Before I bought the TiVo, I was using a Windows Media Center PC that used an InfiniTV cable card tuner. It's the same process to pair a cable to media center or a TiVo. You need the cable card ID an the host ID. You give them the two numbers. Verify that the two ID's are correct. They pair them in the system, initialize/hit the cable card to authorize it to receive what you subscribe too. I went round and round with several csr's over the phone trying to get it set up. They kept insisting that they already had the host ID, and I kept telling them that it was from the old system. Finally after a truck roll and over an hour of no change that I was finally able to get them to look at the host ID read it back to the CSR for her to type it into the system and BOOM all the channels came up!
> 
> It all comes down to inadequate training and thier failure to allow escalation to someone that actually knows what they are talking about.


yup, adequate training and troubleshooting is correct. I thoroughly explained every detail of every screen, one being "no tuning adapter". Told all five csr's I talked to over two days. Only one thought "hmmm, let's take a look at the usb cable between the two units". Bingo. Bad cable. Swapped it out, and voila, instant recognition, followed by all premiums returning. I should have thought of that as well, and even though I checked and swapped the coax cables, I forgot about that damn usb connection. I guess I can't be a Cox cablecard csr just yet.


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## Wexlerbob (Apr 4, 2015)

The "Great Dependable" Cable Card service from Cox had a lot to do with my cancelling TiVo after my first year subscription ended.
Either I never learned how to properly setup a timer on TiVo after 15+years with Dish DVRs or my TiVos were mal functioning or my Cox Cable Card/TA was malfunctioning. Naw, it could not have been Cox.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> yup, adequate training and troubleshooting is correct. I thoroughly explained every detail of every screen, one being "no tuning adapter". Told all five csr's I talked to over two days. Only one thought "hmmm, let's take a look at the usb cable between the two units". Bingo. Bad cable. Swapped it out, and voila, instant recognition, followed by all premiums returning. I should have thought of that as well, and even though I checked and swapped the coax cables, I forgot about that damn usb connection. I guess I can't be a Cox cablecard csr just yet.


That's re-assuring! I'm having a similar issue at the moment. I get SHOHD-E, MAXHD-E, HBOHD-E, and STARZHD-E... and nothing else. All the other premium channels give me a V52.

What's extra weird is I can't get SHO, MAX, HBO, or STARZ in SD. But! I can get 3 SD channels that I don't get in HD, the Movie Channel, HBO2, and SHO2.

I ran through the entire reset/unplug/reseat troubleshooting with Cox. Then I called Tivo, and did similar tests. The CSR told me my SNR (signal to noise ratio) is too high. I called Cox back, and now they're sending a technician.

Similarly, the first time they sent a tech he didn't bring a cablecard or any equipment, and was 4 hours late beyond even the "window". This time I asked them to ensure I get a rep with cablecard/Tivo knowledge. We'll see how that goes!

I have a Cox DVR in the same house that gets all the channels, no problem. So they think it might be a cable issue in the wall/to the street. No idea how that's fixed beyond the obvious or ripping it out.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> That's re-assuring! I'm having a similar issue at the moment. I get SHOHD-E, MAXHD-E, HBOHD-E, and STARZHD-E... and nothing else. All the other premium channels give me a V52.
> 
> What's extra weird is I can't get SHO, MAX, HBO, or STARZ in SD. But! I can get 3 SD channels that I don't get in HD, the Movie Channel, HBO2, and SHO2.
> 
> ...


what phone number did you call for cable card service? there's a special one that connects you to a bunker in Arizona somewhere. 
http://media.cox.com/support/print_.../CCI110069_CableCardInstallGuide_CiscoCT2.pdf
Also, if you're getting ANY HD channels in a certain range, then it's way more likely to be finger-trouble of the Cox cable card CSR. Why? All the switched digital channels are grouped in the same frequency range I believe. There are two, free channels plunked in the middle of my premiums: Sundance and IFC HD. Both came in perfectly well even though all the surrounding channels which relied on the tuning adapter didn't. Can you receive those channels, or are they in the same range as your premiums in your zip code?
The LAST thing I ever want regarding cable card problems is for Cox to roll a truck, 'cause it's usually something which can be solved over the phone. Good luck - report the solution.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> what phone number did you call for cable card service? there's a special one that connects you to a bunker in Arizona somewhere.
> http://media.cox.com/support/print_.../CCI110069_CableCardInstallGuide_CiscoCT2.pdf
> Also, if you're getting ANY HD channels in a certain range, then it's way more likely to be finger-trouble of the Cox cable card CSR. Why? All the switched digital channels are grouped in the same frequency range I believe. There are two, free channels plunked in the middle of my premiums: Sundance and IFC HD. Both came in perfectly well even though all the surrounding channels which relied on the tuning adapter didn't. Can you receive those channels, or are they in the same range as your premiums in your zip code?
> The LAST thing I ever want regarding cable card problems is for Cox to roll a truck, 'cause it's usually something which can be solved over the phone. Good luck - report the solution.


I called the main customer service line and got transferred to the cable card people (I wanted to make sure that I for sure was paying for all these channels so they couldn't just tell me that's the issue and send me to transferring hell).

Yeah, IFC and Sundance come in fine. And regular HD Showtime, HBO, Starz, and Cinemax. But then there's the aforementioned weirdnesses.

I've tried replacing the cables, reseating the cablecard, rebooting them in exactly the right sequence, all the stuff the CSRs at both Tivo and Cox told me, but still no dice. And I just tried replacing the USB as mentioned above.

Still no premiums other than regular HBO/Starz/Showtime/Cinemax. And still HBO2, SHO2, TMC, and HBO Family in SD. Scheduling with Cox definitely wasn't my first choice.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> I called the main customer service line and got transferred to the cable card people (I wanted to make sure that I for sure was paying for all these channels so they couldn't just tell me that's the issue and send me to transferring hell).
> 
> Yeah, IFC and Sundance come in fine. And regular HD Showtime, HBO, Starz, and Cinemax. But then there's the aforementioned weirdnesses.
> 
> ...


lol. yeah, get ready to watch the Cox truck guy sit on the phone and say all the same things you would. It's totally finger trouble with Cox 'specialists', regardless what he tells you later. The only other thing it may be is a damaged cablecard, but that's rare - if you're getting some premiums, you should be getting them all. Try phoning at 10pm, and make the call yourself to the 877 number - who knows who you got transferred to when you called the general number. If you're really lucky, they'll transfer you to the mystical 'tier 2'. Some of the late night guys are good, hence calling later.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> lol. yeah, get ready to watch the Cox truck guy sit on the phone and say all the same things you would. It's totally finger trouble with Cox 'specialists', regardless what he tells you later. The only other thing it may be is a damaged cablecard, but that's rare - if you're getting some premiums, you should be getting them all. Try phoning at 10pm, and make the call yourself to the 877 number - who knows who you got transferred to when you called the general number. If you're really lucky, they'll transfer you to the mystical 'tier 2'. Some of the late night guys are good, hence calling later.


It pretty much happened just as you said, but at least they replaced my old splitter. They ended up saying it was a bad cablecard after calling a third guy in, so they're going to replace it tomorrow. Hopefully that's that!


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> It pretty much happened just as you said, but at least they replaced my old splitter. They ended up saying it was a bad cablecard after calling a third guy in, so they're going to replace it tomorrow. Hopefully that's that!


10 to 1 a different guy on the other end of the phone 'fixes' that bad cablecard


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> 10 to 1 a different guy on the other end of the phone 'fixes' that bad cablecard


I think I'd need to speak to 10 more guys, because I've already gone through six, plus the 3 technicians, who then called folks themselves.

I won't scoff at a new cablecard, but if they can't fix it with that, they're apparently stumped.

One technician said Cox is considering dropping Tivo (cablecard?) support entirely, even though I pointed out that Cox sells the Bolt on its own website.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> I think I'd need to speak to 10 more guys, because I've already gone through six, plus the 3 technicians, who then called folks themselves.
> 
> I won't scoff at a new cablecard, but if they can't fix it with that, they're apparently stumped.
> 
> One technician said Cox is considering dropping Tivo (cablecard?) support entirely, even though I pointed out that Cox sells the Bolt on its own website.


Yeah, typical. Cox uses so many third-party contract guys, I'm not surprised. Keep at it - ask for Tier 2 at that 1-877 number. Do you have a bundle? If so, sometimes the CSR needs to type in as many as 10-20 codes to make the cards work, depending on the complexity of the bundle. Ask them about that and see what the answer is. Other times, if the tuning adapter they gave you was previously in use and isn't properly wiped-reactivated, that's a problem. If the retail store is near you, see if you can get a NEW, unused tuning adapter. They'll give you one if they have one.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> Yeah, typical. Cox uses so many third-party contract guys, I'm not surprised. Keep at it - ask for Tier 2 at that 1-877 number. Do you have a bundle? If so, sometimes the CSR needs to type in as many as 10-20 codes to make the cards work, depending on the complexity of the bundle. Ask them about that and see what the answer is. Other times, if the tuning adapter they gave you was previously in use and isn't properly wiped-reactivated, that's a problem. If the retail store is near you, see if you can get a NEW, unused tuning adapter. They'll give you one if they have one.


I didn't know that about tuning adapters. Something else to try if the new cablecard doesn't work. I'll try the Tier 2 thing after that.

What's weird is I didn't even really want 100 movie channels, but it's part of the new bundle I signed up for, and if I'm paying for it... And I figure having a few extra channels can't hurt for catching new movies or reruns.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> I didn't know that about tuning adapters. Something else to try if the new cablecard doesn't work. I'll try the Tier 2 thing after that.
> 
> What's weird is I didn't even really want 100 movie channels, but it's part of the new bundle I signed up for, and if I'm paying for it... And I figure having a few extra channels can't hurt for catching new movies or reruns.


Tell me, when the people on the end of the phone were sending info, 'hits', to the card, did the tuning adapter blink? If not, they likely aren't getting thru to it properly.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

tvmaster2 said:


> Tell me, when the people on the end of the phone were sending info, 'hits', to the card, did the tuning adapter blink? If not, they likely aren't getting thru to it properly.


Several times, actually. The last lady I had was really nice and spent over an hour on the phone with me. She'd have me keep on the lookout and tell her if it was blinking. Is that a good sign at least?

Before that I kind of felt like a hot potato they kept passing around though.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> Several times, actually. The last lady I had was really nice and spent over an hour on the phone with me. She'd have me keep on the lookout and tell her if it was blinking. Is that a good sign at least?
> 
> Before that I kind of felt like a hot potato they kept passing around though.


yup. she at least knew how to do the hardest part it seems. I had a couple of guys who couldn't get that far.


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

The saga continues.

Another 4 hours today, another tech, and 3 more phone calls.

The good news is apparently the tuning adapter was bad. The new one is working. The bad news is that the "new" cablecard they gave me appears to be bad (I wish they had left the old one). So now the tuning adapter can actually detect all the proper channels, so I'm now getting the V58 error that says I'm not authorized, instead of the V52 error that says it can't find the channels at all.

The tech eventually left after 3 hours, and on a whim I decided to check the cables, and he had them backwards. So the reason the tuning adapter never stopped blinking was because he had reversed the in/out cables. Urghhhhhhhh.

Another thing to check for future reference for other folks, the USB cable from the tuning adapter needs to be plugged into the TOP usb port on the Tivo.

Tomorrow another tech is coming, with another cablecard. It's kind of frustrating because now I don't get any Premium channels, whereas before I at least got the basic HBO/Showtime/Starz/Cinemax.

Edit: I reached the mythical tier 2 and the lady was very nice and suggested I ask for multiple cablecards tomorrow and we're gonna try and activate them. Progress!


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> The saga continues.
> 
> Another 4 hours today, another tech, and 3 more phone calls.
> 
> ...


Wow. Deja Vu for most of us. It's almost as if Cox is TRYING to make this difficult. Now why would they do that? Seriously, Tier 2 and YOU will achieve as much as their idiot truck rolls.
Good luck, but keep the stories coming. Good to see it's half-solved, maybe, kinda....


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

I have had similar issues and have the Cablecard unit on speed dial. A very nice tech promised me the truck roll would include many Cablecards and many tuning adapters. The 3rd party tech brought none of either. Honestly,though I am happy with Cox


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## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

SUCCESS.

I grabbed a handful of cablecards, and one of them finally worked. I'm getting all my channels.

For others that might end up in this situation, with techs that don't really know what's going on, here are my suggestions.

1) Check the coaxial cables, splitter (if you have one), and the USB cable between the tuning adapter and Tivo. Make sure they're not loose, and replace them if need be, just to be sure. In case it's not obvious, the coaxial cable from the wall needs to go into the IN jack on the tuning adapter. From there you can either daisychain a coaxial cable via the OUT jack on the tuning adapter to the Tivo, or use a splitter to run a coaxial cable directly from the wall to the Tivo (instead of daisy chaining it). One of the techs got the cables backwards, which is why it took 4 hours to get the tuning adapter working.

1a) The USB cable from the tuning adapter needs to be plugged into the Tivo via the USB port on the TOP. No idea why. That's just how it is.

2) If you're getting V52 errors, that means your tuning adapter isn't working properly. Whether it's defective or not enabled correctly, no idea. But V52 seems to be the error you get when the Tivo can't even find the channel.

3) That's in contrast to the V58 errors, which seem to indicate it's a cablecard issue, because the Tivo knows the channel is there, it just thinks you're not authorized to view it.

4) If you're like me and getting a mix of the above two... it's likely the tuning adapter. Apparently the cablecard itself can authorize the "root" channels, the regular Showtime, HBO, Starz, and Cinemax, but it needs the tuning adapter to access the extra sub-channels. That shows the cablecard IS authorizing properly, but it can't authorize what your Tivo can't find via the tuning adapter.

5) Which is why when the techs replaced my tuning adapter, and took my (apparently functional) original cablecard, I ended up with no premium channels even though the Tivo could finally see them (V52). I'd say it's bad luck they swapped in a bad cablecard for my good one, but it seems like cablecards are frequently dysfunctional. When I first got my Tivo I had to go through three different ones before one worked.

6) It's worth doing what tvmaster2 said and hanging up and calling the Cox cablecard line until you get someone that sounds like they know what they're doing. Those are the folks that will actually refer you to "tier 2", because they can actually tell when a problem is occurring, instead of just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

7) If you've narrowed it down to the cablecard, ask the tech to bring at least 3-4. Or, if you go into a Cox location yourself, ask THEM to give you 3-4 cablecards if they have that many available. This will save you a lot of time and effort instead of shuffling back and forth 1-by-1 to try new cards.

8) Some Cox employees may not want to give you multiple cablecards. What I did was ask them to put them on my account. In other words, I was essentially renting each new cablecard for an additional $2 each. Hell, lie if you have to and tell them you've got 4 Tivos. But it beats driving back and forth, and I can return them tomorrow.

9) If you can't seem to get a cablecard or tuning adapter that works... that's just how it is. You have to keep trying, and keep swapping the defective ones out until you get one that works.

Thanks tvmaster2 for all the advice! Glad to actually have functional service now.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jcliff said:


> SUCCESS.
> 
> I grabbed a handful of cablecards, and one of them finally worked. I'm getting all my channels.
> 
> ...


woohoo!


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