# Comcast: Acquiring Channel Information stuck at 72%



## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

I just got my new TiVo bolt Friday. I spent a couple hours Friday night on the phone with the Comcast CableCard activation / support and after 2 hours we gave up on the the Cable Card. 

The TiVo Bolt would only get stuck at 72% of Acquiring Channel Information and never move. 

When Conditional Access Menu Shows Con:NO EBCP:Yes Val:? 0x30.

This is telling Comcast that the TiVo box is not accepting the pairing of the Cable Card and that the CableCard is likely a dud. 

They told me to go to the nearest service center on Saturday and ask the for at least 3 Cable Cards for them to try.

I was only able to get 2 more as thats all they had. The next 2 attempts all resulted in the same thing. I proceeded to return these CableCards at at the next closest Service Center and Clean them out of Cable cards again to try.

No luck, same exact issue.

I proceded to clean out 3 different service centers in my area of all their cable cards on Saturday and after 8 hours on the phone with Comcast and 2 hours on a 3 way conference call with TiVo support we got nowhere. 

The same issue with all the CableCard. Comcast left it with there is no more they can do. They have tried everything on their end and it's the fault of the TiVo Box.


TiVo says it's almost always not the TiVo box but the CableCards. They tend to be old, recycled and the ones you get at the service center are almost always used and not new. They have heard of people needing to go through 46 CableCards before getting one that worked.

TiVo Convinced Comcast to send a Service Technician out tomorrow between 4 and 6 so I'll have to leave work early to get home for the appointment. 

TiVo hopes that the Service Technician would have a new, unused card we can try or at the very least a pile of cards to try and made Comcast add a note on file to bring as many CableCards as they can.


Has anyone ever gone through this maddening game? And tips or suggestions on how to resolve this and get my new TiVo Bolt worker?

Thanks


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

Every time ive had to pair em up, ive had trouble. The comcast cablecard hotline... I call them, they try to pair it. The first thing that happens is a long download. Every single time the cablecard "expert" seems surprised at this and try to end the call repeatedly even though i can see on the screens the download count increasing, then you have to wait for it to load, then reboot... and then you can pair it up. Well, and then it usually wont pair. So, I usually take three cards to increase my odds. Sometimes it takes four or five different calls to pair. A couple times its taken more than three cards.

My parents or my sis get my old tivos as i upgrade, so ive been through this a bunch of times, at two different sites in the same town. Its bad enough that its a major factor in my decision to upgrade.... and then i do it in parallel, keeping the old tivo up and running till we can get the "new" unit functioning.


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## Hilbe (Sep 5, 2005)

I had same issue. Make sure your cable outlet is live. If that's not it, might be a truck roll. I had a truck come out for mine to work.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

The cable Outlet is live.

I switched cables I tried unplugging the cable fro the back of the X1 DVR and plugging it directly in to the TiVo. I also tried by passing the splitter all together (cable modem is here as well) and plug directly into the wall. Nothing.

The X1 DVR and Cable Box have no problem with the signal.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

LoREvanescence said:


> I just got my new TiVo bolt Friday. I spent a couple hours Friday night on the phone with the Comcast CableCard activation / support and after 2 hours we gave up on the the Cable Card.
> 
> The TiVo Bolt would only get stuck at 72% of Acquiring Channel Information and never move.
> 
> ...


If the cards are used then Comcast will need to do a cold initialization on the card. This will flush out the old data from a previous unit and then input your data into the card. If they are just sending refresh signals to the card then it just refreshes the old data that is stored on the card.
Some other things that are critical is the card also needs to be authorized to be on that head end before it is given to you and it also needs to be added to your account. 
These are the three basic reasons a card will fail to pair with the host.

It is very rare that a card will fail and you will know as you will get a black rectangular box on your screen with a CableCard error code on it. If this did not happen then the card is good.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

Is the cold initialization the same thing where Comcast takes the host id, data, serial number and extra, pair it. Then have me power off the TiVo, remove the cable card for 10 seconds, put it back in then power up the TiVo. 

Once the TiVo bolt was back up they hit it with refresh signals. They even tried some higher powered type refresh signal.


Also, yes, each card has been scanned by the cable service center and are listed as devices when I log onto my Comcast Account Page. 

The first card I got was slightly different. The card was in a deactivated/inactive state and they had to activate it before they could attempt to pair it. The rest of the card all started with the pairing step.

What does a card in a deactivated/inactive state suggest?

Also, Comcast is seeing on their end that everything is right, the car is paired and authorized and that it's communicating with them. It's just the TiVo Bolt isn't recognizing the pair.


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## JpHudy (Sep 8, 2002)

For what it's worth, I'm having the same problem with my new BOLT and a Motorola M card I picked up from an Xfinity store in the suburbs of Atlanta. I actually got as far as "Con:YES EBCP:Yes Val:Y," and we did a "hot" pull and reseat of the cablecard to get past the 72% screen. Still, all I can get is a black screen when testing the channels. 

I've been on the Xfinity forums, and there's this guy "Comcast Phill" that seems to be helping people there. I've sent him a couple PMs, and we'll see if he get's back to me with a solution. I left the BOLT on with the card installed today while I'm at work. There are some stories that Comcast Phill can fix things during the day and have people come home to working BOLTS!! Fingers are crossed!


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Comcast CableCARD Support Line: (877) 405-2298

Comcast TiVo Support Department: (855) 484-1453

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.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/cablecard-know-your-rights

https://www.fcc.gov/media/cable-television-where-file-complaints-regarding-cable-service

https://www.fcc.gov/general/cablecards

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=33794


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

LoREvanescence said:


> Is the cold initialization the same thing where Comcast takes the host id, data, serial number and extra, pair it. Then have me power off the TiVo, remove the cable card for 10 seconds, put it back in then power up the TiVo.
> 
> Once the TiVo bolt was back up they hit it with refresh signals. They even tried some higher powered type refresh signal.
> 
> ...


No never remove the card once it is installed.
Comcast can not see the card from their side as the host on the TiVo is one way. That means it can not communicate back to the head end. 
It is up to you to determine if the card is paired properly by looking at the conditional access menu in the CableCard section. The 4th line should show Con:Yes EBCP: Yes Val V. Then at the bottom of that page you should see Auth: S. 
This will indicate that the card is paired with the host.

When you give them the 3 sets of numbers it is up to the CSR to do the cold initialization. If the CSR just takes the numbers and then does a refresh then those numbers will not get sent as a refresh signal just refreshes the old data in the card or if the card is never been used it will refresh nothing at all and the card status will not change.
It is also very important that the numbers you give them is entered correctly because if even one number is wrong or missing the pairing will not work.

One important thing I do when starting a new TiVo is I select I will get the card later and then let the TiVo go through guided setup and get all its updates and then I put the card in. It is also important to see if the card is getting an update itself so you have to let that process finish and then call Comcast to then pair the card.
If the TiVo or the CableCard is updating the pairing process will fail. Also do not remove the card or restart the TiVo until the Conditional Access screen has the correct data. Depending on the system you are in it may take up to an hour for the signals to get to your unit.

Another thing that should be noted is Comcast is a large cable company that is made up of 100s of little cable systems that are merged under one corporate umbrella. So something that will work easily for one customer may not work for another customer in another part of the company.
Also all systems that use Motorola cards will use the same procedures to pair the cards. There is no difference in the procedure that my cable operator (Service Electric) uses or what Comcast or Verizon Fios does. It is all the same.


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## Purepain (Jan 13, 2014)

I had similar issues and I was swapping a "working" cable card from a Premier to a Bolt. Had multiple truck rolls, trips local office to pick up cards. Multiple calls into the cable card paring hotline. I finally reached out to Comcast Phil via the Comcast forums and he was able to escalate to proper level engineer to address problem. Now I have working Bolt and Premier. It took over 4 weeks but it was finally resolved.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

Wow,

Was scared at first that this tech visit was going to be a ****show. 

The tech showed up, didn't even know it was a cablecard call and asks me what's issue I'm having. I let him know. 

Then the tech is like oh ****. He explained he knows very little about cable cards and has none on his truck and a check of inventory shows all the branches are out of them too (Yeah, I cleaned out the 3 closest ones over the weekend).


He's like I'm going to call my buddy who knows something about cable cards. He calls him, who proceeded to give another number to an other buddy that knows more about cable cards. The tech call this guy and is yet again given a phone number to another guy who is a expert on cablecards in Comcast Advanced Support Department. 

We call him, and he's able to make the CableCard that was still in the unit work in less then 2 minutes, the last one that the CableCard Hot line tried parring for hours with 3 different call one including a 2 hour call that included TiVo conferenced in walking them through how to portly pair a cable card and they all but gave up and sent tech out.



Short story, the issue was something to do with programming on Comcast Servers that is above the CableCard Hotline people.

We got the thing working. If all these people we called didn't know a guy we would not have gotten the TiVo working.


Edit: Not sure if I am in the clear. A half hour after the tech left I am getting random hiccups where service cuts out for 15 seconds with the "You are not authorized to view this channel" It's happened a couple times. Is this something I should be concerned about?


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## dbattaglia001 (Feb 9, 2003)

It took 4 months for Comcast to finally pair my Bolt. They lie and blame you, the cablecards, and especially TiVo. It 99.9% of time is something wrong in there headend or billing system. Unfortunately for me it took 4 months and countless hours in phone before someone was willing to put me into contact with someone who can help. I seriously can't stand when people sympathize with cable companies over the AllVid cablecard replacement proposal...too many years of willful violation of FCC to frustrate people out of using cablecards with retail devices will hopefully be ending. 

On your specific issue on hiccups, try checking signal strength on channels where you got the message. In TiVo diagnostics somewhere near the cablecard menus. If below 80% maybe it's a signal issue.


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## JpHudy (Sep 8, 2002)

Just an update on my situation in case it can help anyone else. The initial failure I had to pair my Bolt with the cablecard was caused by poor signal strength. I replaced the splitter and that fixed the problem. I'm now trying to get Xfinity VOD to work.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

Just got my cable bill and go figure, Comcast Charged me $50 for the truck roll to get my CableCard paired that wasn't even necessary because all the tech did was call around until he got a expert on cable cards who fixed an issue with Comcast programming on their server to make it work. Comcast CableCard hotline was incompetent and wouldn't help me any further forcing a tech visit as the only option.

Thank I have any shot of getting Comcast to remove this $50 charge because it was their issue or am I going to have to just suck it up and pay it.

They also apparently charged me for each of the cable cards I picked up to try from the service center and pro rated the fees for the duration that I had them.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

I've seen the 72% problem twice, both with FIOS. And a third case 89%. In all cases the solution happened when I (and the two other friends who had the same issue) said to the CSR,"When a card fails pairing you really have to completely unpair the card and start over."

He said that made no sense (and I'm sure "completely unpair" is not the proper technical term here) and there was nothing else he or his manager could do, but within a couple of minutes in all three cases the card worked.


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## dbattaglia001 (Feb 9, 2003)

LoREvanescence said:


> Thank I have any shot of getting Comcast to remove this $50 charge because it was their issue or am I going to have to just suck it up and pay it.
> 
> They also apparently charged me for each of the cable cards I picked up to try from the service center and pro rated the fees for the duration that I had them.


You should definitely get it reimbursed. It was their sheer incompetence that caused the issue, and you should not be penalized because they offer different levels of support for an onsite technician vs a consumer. Bottom line is they are completely at fault for not allowing you to get phone support from someone who could actually fix the problem. For all their flaws and miserable failures, Comcast has always done a good job in reversing charges for service failures...you usually just have to explain the situation and ask. They won't offer it up. Good luck.


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