# comcast cable card firmware upgrade



## hornmustang (Sep 13, 2013)

Has anyone had any success getting Comcast to upgrade your cable card firmware? When I asked at my local Comcast store the lady hardly knew what a cable card is much less anything about the firmware. I am currently running firmware version PKEY1.5.2_F.p.1401. I would love to get upgraded to a firmware version that actually allows all 6 tuners to work. It is very frustrating being stuck between TiVo and Comcast.


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

hornmustang said:


> Has anyone had any success getting Comcast to upgrade your cable card firmware?


I'd ask over on the Xfinity forum: http://forums.comcast.com/t5/XfinityTV-and-Equipment/bd-p/CTV_Equip


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## HDRyder9 (Aug 2, 2007)

I sent an email, made a couple calls and got the 1.5.3 firmware in about 3 days.


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## grey ghost (Feb 2, 2010)

I think Ryder is the exception, not the rule. He happens to live in one of the few areas who has had the upgrade. 

There are lots of us who are battling to get the upgrade. At first, they were supposed to roll out the upgrade by Oct. Now it's the 1st qtr of 2014. No one seems to really know when it will happen including Comcast Corporate. It's been extremely frustrating


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## andyf (Feb 23, 2000)

grey ghost said:


> I think Ryder is the exception, not the rule. He happens to live in one of the few areas who has had the upgrade.
> 
> There are lots of us who are battling to get the upgrade. At first, they were supposed to roll out the upgrade by Oct. Now it's the 1st qtr of 2014. No one seems to really know when it will happen including Comcast Corporate. It's been extremely frustrating


and that's only Florida and Memphis. What about the rest of us?


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## grey ghost (Feb 2, 2010)

andyf said:


> and that's only Florida and Memphis. What about the rest of us?


Exactly


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## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

You might want to ask DigitalDawn, over in the Palm Beach County thread, about what he did to get Comcast to push the latest firmware update, county-wide, well before the planned Q1 rollout. I believe it took a bit of persistence and complaining on his part, but it paid off for all of us last week- we are all on 1.5.3 1101 now.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9878644


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

What is the benefit of the new firmware?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

geekmedic said:


> What is the benefit of the new firmware?


You need the newer firmware if you want all 6 tuners to work.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

rainwater said:


> You need the newer firmware if you want all 6 tuners to work.


I have a Moto cable card that all six tuners work so I guess you are talking about another type of cable card.


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## grey ghost (Feb 2, 2010)

lessd said:


> I have a Moto cable card that all six tuners work so I guess you are talking about another type of cable card.


Yep. The problems are with Cisco cards and our system dictates that's the only card that we can use.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

rainwater said:


> You need the newer firmware if you want all 6 tuners to work.


Heck, after the TiVo 20.3 update you need the new firmware if you want all 2 tuners to work in an original Premier.

Check out this thread over in the comcast forums:

http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Xfinit...-Atlanta-Cisco-Cable-Boxes/m-p/1922885#M90580

One thing I noticed was that I finally submitted an FCC complaint and about 2 days after they rolled out the firmware in Palm Beach county I had someone from Comcast call me to check on the problem, so apparently FCC complaints get their attention .


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

danterner said:


> You might want to ask DigitalDawn, over in the Palm Beach County thread, about what he did to get Comcast to push the latest firmware update, county-wide, well before the planned Q1 rollout. I believe it took a bit of persistence and complaining on his part, but it paid off for all of us last week- we are all on 1.5.3 1101 now.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9878644


Our problem in Palm Beach County was vastly different than most cable card issues.

Suddenly, after November 5th, anyone with firmware lower than 1.5.2. 2401 experienced continuous unpairing of their cable cards. 2401 was also occasionally problematic. So, after all the service calls, nagging and begging from customers all over the County, Comcast figured that it would be a good idea to roll out 1.5.3 1101 earlier than planned for us.

If you can get friendly with a field supervisor and explain why you need the latest firmware, it really helps. In our case, my field supervisor was a great guy, and we were working together to try to figure out what was going wrong.

BTW, I'm a she.


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## Edvin (Jun 10, 2011)

danterner said:


> You might want to ask DigitalDawn, over in the Palm Beach County thread, about what he did to get Comcast to push the latest firmware update, county-wide, well before the planned Q1 rollout. I believe it took a bit of persistence and complaining on his part, but it paid off for all of us last week- we are all on 1.5.3 1101 now.


I am in PBC as well and I got the corporate team involved by tweeting to comcastcares. I got fairly quick response and they got a "technical team" involved instead of just offering truck rolls that wouldn't solve the problem.


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## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

DigitalDawn said:


> Our problem in Palm Beach County was vastly different than most cable card issues.
> 
> Suddenly, after November 5th, anyone with firmware lower than 1.5.2. 2401 experienced continuous unpairing of their cable cards. 2401 was also occasionally problematic. So, after all the service calls, nagging and begging from customers all over the County, Comcast figured that it would be a good idea to roll out 1.5.3 1101 earlier than planned for us.
> 
> ...


Oops - sorry for masculating you  and thanks again for your role in getting things resolved for us in PBC. My wife was just about ready to throw the Tivo out the window.


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

My husband wasn't too pleased either. I think the last straw was when we lost ESPN right in the middle of an FSU game.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

With the old comcast firmware, I developed a trick that got me back the picture 99% of the time: Go to the TiVo settings screen, go to the cable card screen from there, then pick test channels.

Almost all the time, I was able to test the channel that didn't work, see it come in crystal clear, then go back to normal viewing mode, and the TiVo could see the channel again.


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## mchief (Sep 10, 2005)

I have also used the test channels and had some success getting a dead channel to work. Not always, but 80%.


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## bbbbb (Nov 12, 2013)

I took my old comcast cablecard from Tivo HD and placed it in Roamio, it worked fine but couldn't get all 6 tuners.

I had a Motorola cablecard part num 514517-002-00 with firmware version 05.23 and fw* 06.25 E 06/06/12. The "2012" year made me think this card was too old and Google says "002" part number has issues with Roamio.

Long strong short, instead of asking Comcast for new firmware, I just went and exchanged my cablecard at local office, they gave me Motorola part num 514517-009-00 with firmware 03.31 / 03.35. It went it without a hitch and fixed my issues.


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## grey ghost (Feb 2, 2010)

bbbbb said:


> I took my old comcast cablecard from Tivo HD and placed it in Roamio, it worked fine but couldn't get all 6 tuners.
> 
> I had a Motorola cablecard part num 514517-002-00 with firmware version 05.23 and fw* 06.25 E 06/06/12. The "2012" year made me think this card was too old and Google says "002" part number has issues with Roamio.
> 
> Long strong short, instead of asking Comcast for new firmware, I just went and exchanged my cablecard at local office, they gave me Motorola part num 514517-009-00 with firmware 03.31 / 03.35. It went it without a hitch and fixed my issues.


Unfortunately that doesn't work for Cisco cards. You get newer cards with the same old firmware.


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## joanzen (May 1, 2002)

I'm one of the Palm Beach County FL folks who was able to get an upgrade to the new firmware. See thread at http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9878644. Prior to 11/15, my Premiere, HD, and S3 had various firmware versions. I came back from vacation today (12/1) to find my Premiere, HD, and CC1 on my S3 all at PKEY1.5.3_F.p.1101. Strangely, CC2 in my S3 was not updated, so I'll have to give them a call tomorrow about that. But it does appear that the many complaining voices in PBC did result in something positive.


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