# Spectrum could not get my tuning adapters to work



## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

after having worked fine for many years, a week ago I lost all Switched digital video channels on BOTH of my tivos. they could not fix over phone so they sent out a tech. Turns out he was a contractor that had no experience with cable cards or tuning adapters. He checked my signal and said it was fine and left in 10 minutes with problem unresolved. Spectrum then suggested I swap out my cable cards and tuning adapters for new ones. I went to Spectrum office and got two new of each. Problem still not fixed after I installed them and had them pair to the tivos. Sent a better tech yesterday who first fixed a weak signal (completely missed by the first tech) , but still did not get me any switched digital channels even after spending 3 1/2 hours in my house and with numerous phone calls to his superiors, and installing yet another new tuning adapter. The tuning adapters were showing "offline" when being read by the Spectrum tech supervisor.
My Spectrum cable box in my bedroom gets all the switched digital channels perfectly.
My thoughts are the tuning adapters are fine since there is no way 5 tuning adapters all went bad, and I am having the problem on both of my tivos. All other channels are fine so the cablecards are not the issue. It has to be a back end issue. They said they will call me but I am very discouraged.

any Spectrum experts out there?


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## Borack (Dec 14, 2004)

tivoknucklehead said:


> after ahving worked fine for many years, a week ago I lost all Switched digital video channels on BOTH of my tivos. they could not fix over phone so they sent out a tech. Turns out he was a contractor that had no experience with cable cards or tuning adapters. He checked my signal and said it was fine and left in 10 minutes with problem unresolved. Spectrum then suggested I swap out my cable cards and tuning adapters for new ones. I went to Spectrum office and got two new of each. Problem still not fixed after I installed them and had them pair to the tivos. Sent a better tech yesterday who first fixed a weak signal (completely missed by the first tech) , but still did not get me any switched digital channels even after spending 3 1/2 hours in my house and with numerous phone calls to his superiors, and installing yet another new tuning adapter. The tuning adapters were showing "offline" when being read by the Spectrum tech supervisor.
> My Spectrum cable box in my bedroom gets all the switched digital channels perfectly.
> My thoughts are the tuning adapters are fine since there is no way 5 tuning adapters all went bad, and I am having the problem on both of my tivos. All other channels are fine so the cablecards are not the issue. It has to be a back end issue. They said they will call me but I am very discouraged.
> 
> any Spectrum experts out there?


 I just went thru this ...look up the thread....The key here is ...Did a promotion for you just end..?? or change of some type of service..(adds or subtracts..)..If so you account got moved (within Spectrum) and someone has to make sure your numbers match (MAC address) on thier end....Use the chat feature, much faster....


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

Borack said:


> I just went thru this ...look up the thread....The key here is ...Did a promotion for you just end..?? or change of some type of service..(adds or subtracts..)..If so you account got moved (within Spectrum) and someone has to make sure your numbers match (MAC address) on thier end....Use the chat feature, much faster....


I switched over to their silver plan, but that was months ago. I know the tech here yesterday told them the mac addresses for each TA, but maybe they still need to do something. I'll try to contact support


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

tivoknucklehead said:


> I switched over to their silver plan, but that was months ago. I know the tech here yesterday told them the mac addresses for each TA, but maybe they still need to do something. I'll try to contact support


The current administration has removed the "know your rights" page from their site for some unknown reason, but you can still file a complaint with the FCC to help motivate Spectrum to find one of the few people in their organization who knows how to properly support cable cards.
FCC Complaints


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Is yours a former TWC system? If so try their national CableCARD/TA help desk at: 866-532-2598. Even if not former TWC system it would be interesting to see what they say.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

The last few times my TA's suddenly stopped working, the culprits were:
- TA had been removed from my account entirely
- TA was disabled on the other end

So first, make sure the TA is indeed still listed on your account, and that it is "enabled".

If there have been any changes to your Moca network, also make sure that you have a POE filter on the input to your TA.

Or you could look at the bright side and use this as an excuse to cut the cord. I get everything on DirecTV NOW streaming that I used to get on cable for 1/3 of the cost. I still use my Tivos for OTA DVR only to supplement streaming. It's a little more tedious to use, but well worth saving thousands of dollars. Plus I got the satisfaction of telling Spectrum I was cancelling because of their ineptitude.

Good luck


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

dlfl said:


> Is yours a former TWC system? If so try their national CableCARD/TA help desk at: 866-532-2598. Even if not former TWC system it would be interesting to see what they say.


I am former Bright house. Do you think it is worth a call? I'll call tonight, it can't possibly hurt to try


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

mdavej said:


> The last few times my TA's suddenly stopped working, the culprits were:
> - TA had been removed from my account entirely
> - TA was disabled on the other end
> 
> ...


I just spent $1000 on a new Bolt a week ago, I'm not cutting the cord


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

tivoknucklehead said:


> I just spent $1000 on a new Bolt a week ago, I'm not cutting the cord


I cut the cord and still use my Tivos as much as I ever did. I also have a lot of money in Tivo hardware that I don't want going to waste.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

dlfl said:


> Is yours a former TWC system? If so try their national CableCARD/TA help desk at: 866-532-2598. Even if not former TWC system it would be interesting to see what they say.


called the number, it is a good number for Spectrum Cable card and Tuning Adapter problems. after phone troubleshooting, 
their solution? sending a third tech to my house Tuesday night


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## mrizzo80 (Apr 17, 2012)

tivoknucklehead said:


> called the number, it is a good number for Spectrum Cable card and Tuning Adapter problems. after phone troubleshooting,
> their solution? sending a third tech to my house Tuesday night


I've almost always had success when calling that number. I'd call back and see if you can get a different phone rep.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

mdavej said:


> I cut the cord and still use my Tivos as much as I ever did. I also have a lot of money in Tivo hardware that I don't want going to waste.


This is way off the OP's topic, but people have different viewing habits. I watch very little broadcast tv except for some PBS. I do watch and record a ton of cable channels including premiums. My TiVo's would be pretty much useless without cable. But that's me.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

mrizzo80 said:


> I've almost always had success when calling that number. I'd call back and see if you can get a different phone rep.


I have a third truck roll appointment tonight. I'll see how that goes before I call back
super frustrated so far


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

third truck roll complete waste of time. they sent inexperienced tech with no clue about tuning adapters or cable cards. Called his office and told him to tell me "they are still working on it"


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

Going back up to post #4, don’t be afraid to complain about this (online) to the FCC. I had a tuning adapter problem with Cox that got to the point they gave up and told me that it just wouldn’t work at my place. A few days after I filed an online FCC complaint, it all got magically fixed without having to send someone else out yet again.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

aristoBrat said:


> Going back up to post #4, don't be afraid to complain about this (online) to the FCC. I had a tuning adapter problem with Cox that got to the point they gave up and told me that it just wouldn't work at my place. A few days after I filed an online FCC complaint, it all got magically fixed without having to send someone else out yet again.


I'm not there yet, but won't hesitate if it comes to that


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

tivoknucklehead said:


> I'm not there yet, but won't hesitate if it comes to that


But you are, in fact, hesitating, once, twice, three times and are unlikely to get your situation resolved with any number of truck rolls. The tech who comes to your home has absolutely zero ability to fix or resolve such problems unless they happen to be someone who as a result of prior experience found a competent person in their system who knows how to get these things working and made a point of keeping their extension handy. The only reason the phone folks send a truck roll is to "punt" the problem to someone else and get you off their back for x days. 
By filing a complaint, you bring the issue to a higher level where they must find a resolution and the quicker the better. I know folks hesitate and hesitate for some reason, unfortunately, this has the effect of allowing the cable companies to continue to provide little effort to do what they are mandated to and support cable cards.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

fcfc2 said:


> But you are, in fact, hesitating, once, twice, three times and are unlikely to get your situation resolved with any number of truck rolls. The tech who comes to your home has absolutely zero ability to fix or resolve such problems unless they happen to be someone who as a result of prior experience found a competent person in their system who knows how to get these things working and made a point of keeping their extension handy. The only reason the phone folks send a truck roll is to "punt" the problem to someone else and get you off their back for x days.
> By filing a complaint, you bring the issue to a higher level where they must find a resolution and the quicker the better. I know folks hesitate and hesitate for some reason, unfortunately, this has the effect of allowing the cable companies to continue to provide little effort to do what they are mandated to and support cable cards.


what I meant is I'm heading out of town until Sunday. if not fixed when I get home I will file a complaint


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

tivoknucklehead said:


> what I meant is I'm heading out of town until Sunday. if not fixed when I get home I will file a complaint


I hope you are requesting credits for loss of service. You shouldn't have to pay anything for the Cable TV part of your bill until they get this fixed.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

dlfl said:


> I hope you are requesting credits for loss of service. You shouldn't have to pay anything for the Cable TV part of your bill until they get this fixed.


for sure I will


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## danxmanly (Jan 8, 2005)

Quick note to chime in here as I did have similar problems not getting all tuners, and not all channels. My TA never would go solid yellow.. always flashed and no amount of resetting by me.. or TWC / Spectrum would fix it. Until.... I removed the USB connection from TA to Tivo box. So.. is your TA light solid? If not, unplug the usb.. call Spectrum and have them send a reset signal to the box... wait for solid light and plug in USB. Since that I have had no issues with TV.... only slow apps connectivity speed which i'm trying to figure out now.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

talked to level 2 cable card tech support and they re-paired my cable cards but could not fix. Only channels above HBO 1402 (except Cinemax 1422 and 1423) are dead so I will cancel HBO, Cinemax and Showtime and get them elsewhere. again, message on screen is "channel temporarily unavailable". the tuning adapters have solid lights and appear to not be the problem


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## mburns1981 (Mar 23, 2015)

NONE of that will work. SDV was turned on in my area of KY on Jun 6th. spectrum sent out letters two weeks prior saying you would loose channels. the Motorola Tuning Adapters they are handing out have 3 issues

1. they are provisioned for another market.
2. even if the TA is correct and balanced in ICOMMS it won't work.
3. THE PROBLELM
In my area there is a missing code in the headend that is not sending out the TAR file to the TAs, my area is currently emailing the one and only guy with the login certs to add the codes and change the market. I've had 15 tuning adapters over the past 3 weeks only 1 has worked. they submitted a ticket to DL for a mass fix.

ALSO I TEXTED 3 IN HOUSE TECHS THEY HAVE YET TO BE TRAINED ON THE TUNING ADAPTERS.

THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO RICHMOND, KY

Take your Tuning Adapter to the main office and plug it in there. that's how I finally got someone NOT customer facing to start addressing the issue.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

mburns1981 said:


> NONE of that will work. SDV was turned on in my area of KY on Jun 6th. spectrum sent out letters two weeks prior saying you would loose channels. the Motorola Tuning Adapters they are handing out have 3 issues
> 
> 1. they are provisioned for another market.
> 2. even if the TA is correct and balanced in ICOMMS it won't work.
> ...


I figured it has to be some nonsense like that. doesn't matter to me any more, I have already cancelled HBO, Cinemax and showtime


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

tivoknucklehead said:


> I figured it has to be some nonsense like that. doesn't matter to me any more, I have already cancelled HBO, Cinemax and showtime


And it doesn't matter to Spectrum (or they would have done better). They will lose the tiny profit they would make off your premium subscriptions but there are so few customers in your situation ........

Those of us successfully using TA's are beneficiaries of luck -- not cable co diligence.


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## mburns1981 (Mar 23, 2015)

tivoknucklehead said:


> I figured it has to be some nonsense like that. doesn't matter to me any more, I have already cancelled HBO, Cinemax and showtime


slightly bigger issue here as a lot of SD channels are on SDV because of the launch soon for gigabit internet in our area.


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## sharp1 (Jul 20, 2002)

I had a VERY similar experience with Spectrum customer service. I had called to ask to switch to a Spectrum plan because the Brighthouse plan I was still on was $20 more than the full price of a Spectrum plan. They also said I HAD to get their cable boxes at $10 /month each. They eventually did this account transfer for me after I argued that, no, I do not need cable boxes because cable cards and tuning adapters are required to be available and they provide equivalent functionality.

It took a long time for them to figure out how to take care of the account, primarily because they didn't know what to do with the cable cards.

Then we noticed that the HD channels no longer worked. I called to speak to a rep, who tried to bounce the cards. When that did not help, she said she had to schedule a truck roll. I replied that was fine, but since it was both Tivos, it was probably related to the account since it was just updated. Eventually she transferred me to a supervisor.

The supervisor almost immediately found that they had lost my MAC address and host ID when they transferred the account details. Once we got that corrected everything worked again.

I guess my advice would be to ask to speak to a supervisor or second level support who is more familiar with the cable cards. I know from experience that a truck roll for cable cards is ordinarily a waste of everyone's time.


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

I had given up on Cox. Could not get ta's to work. My tenth call to cablecard hotline got me a guy who said "I know exactly whats wrong". Sure enough, the myriad of numbers were assigned to wrong boxes. All is well.


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## TivoJD (Feb 8, 2005)

sharp1 said:


> I had a VERY similar experience with Spectrum customer service. I had called to ask to switch to a Spectrum plan because the Brighthouse plan I was still on was $20 more than the full price of a Spectrum plan. They also said I HAD to get their cable boxes at $10 /month each. They eventually did this account transfer for me after I argued that, no, I do not need cable boxes because cable cards and tuning adapters are required to be available and they provide equivalent functionality.
> 
> It took a long time for them to figure out how to take care of the account, primarily because they didn't know what to do with the cable cards.
> 
> ...


This is the exact reason I remain on my old Bright House plan ... I am dying to have the Olympic channel, but would have to change to a Spectrum plan.


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

sharp1 said:


> I had a VERY similar experience with Spectrum customer service. I had called to ask to switch to a Spectrum plan because the Brighthouse plan I was still on was $20 more than the full price of a Spectrum plan. They also said I HAD to get their cable boxes at $10 /month each. They eventually did this account transfer for me after I argued that, no, I do not need cable boxes because cable cards and tuning adapters are required to be available and they provide equivalent functionality.
> 
> It took a long time for them to figure out how to take care of the account, primarily because they didn't know what to do with the cable cards.
> 
> ...


I also had to switch from Bright House to Spectrum silver and my guess is this caused all of this
unfortunately for me after 3 truck rolls and 5 hours of my time and speaking to level 2 cablecard support people they could still not fix it. pretty pathetic. since it was both of my tivos and I swapped out cablecards and TA's (twice) on both I'm sure the equipment was fine but they do not have the technical skills to handle this any more. anyway, I still get most of the channels I want and have signed up for HBO and showtime elsewhere. not sure I would have bought a new bolt 3 weeks ago though if I knew this fiasco was going to happen


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

tivoknucklehead said:


> not sure I would have bought a new bolt 3 weeks ago


Still within the return/cancellation window.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

File an FCC complaint. I did, and while Comcast refused to comply with the law (self-installation), they did send a much higher level tech out who had a special number to call, which of course got everything working in 5 minutes. Comcast doesn't do SDV, but still. I have since cut the cord, since pay tv is a near total waste of money, and if I want to watch sports that bad, I'll subscribe to DTVN for a few months during basketball season, and promptly cancel afterwards.


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## CopRock (Jul 13, 2014)

mattyro7878 said:


> I had given up on Cox. Could not get ta's to work. My tenth call to cablecard hotline got me a guy who said "I know exactly whats wrong". Sure enough, the myriad of numbers were assigned to wrong boxes. All is well.


Any chance you remember how it was resolved which 'numbers' assigned to the wrong box... account/MAc ID/Host numbers?

I'm having similar issues with missing channels or ones coming in SD instead of HD [its actually worse with the T/A] and since TWC became Spectrum there have been migration issues with accounts.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

I am having exact same issue. TA no longer tunes SDV channels and shows as offline. Tried two TA’s. Tech at my house for 4 hours. He said they made frequency changes at the headend and it knocked all TA’s offline. No clue where to go from here. I bet TWC is not going to remap their plant to appease the small percentage of TiVo users in my area vs people who rent cable boxes.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Skye said:


> I am having exact same issue. TA no longer tunes SDV channels and shows as offline. Tried two TA's. Tech at my house for 4 hours. He said they made frequency changes at the headend and it knocked all TA's offline. No clue where to go from here. I bet TWC is not going to remap their plant to appease the small percentage of TiVo users in my area vs people who rent cable boxes.


Search for "file an FCC complaint," and then do so.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Skye said:


> I am having exact same issue. TA no longer tunes SDV channels and shows as offline. Tried two TA's. Tech at my house for 4 hours. He said they made frequency changes at the headend and it knocked all TA's offline. No clue where to go from here. I bet TWC is not going to remap their plant to appease the small percentage of TiVo users in my area vs people who rent cable boxes.


File an FCC complaint.

FCC Complaints


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Last time I had an issue like that, they had disabled my TA from their end in my account settings. And another time they had removed it from my account completely.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Complaint has been filed.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

I'm in Orlando too, they have obviously did a couple of updates to cards and or TA's in last couple of months, thankfully haven't shut off my TA's or any other problems like op.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

Something weird was going on here yesterday. I went from a recording to live tv and the screens for all 4tuners were just black. Then I went to Tivo Central and saw in the video window that the video came back from the tuner so I went back to live and it was there still. Had to do that with all 4 tuners separately.

But then when I got all four tuners showing content again I noticed that they were not building buffer. After changing the channel on all four tuners (fortunately, nothing was recording as it was early evening, well before prime time), and changing them back, they began building buffer again.

Now, some time earlier in the day I noticed that my tuning adapter's light was blinking, so just a cable blip I suppose because the same thing was happening on my other Tivo in the bedroom. After it straightened itself out all was fine until this weird thing happened with all the tuners like a couple hours later.

Does this mean anything that anybody knows? In all the years of having Tivos, I've never had this happen. Both of mine are original issue Bolts from 1yr and 2yrs ago (before the new interface).


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

I had an odd issue with my TA the other night. The light was on like it was supposed to be but all my SDV channels displayed the V53 error. I unplugged everything from the TA and plugged it back in. It didn't come back in a minute or two like it is supposed to. I thought i was gonna have to call the CC number. While the amber light was blinking the red light did occasionally. About 30 minutes later it connected again and all was well. I'm wondering if it might've been getting an update.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Well I had a third tech out today. He went thru all the same stuff the others did. Checked levels at every point along the path and everything was great, still my TA was offline. Then he got on the phone with a supervisor who had us call the Cable Card support line at Spectrum. The guy at Cable Card support had us go into the diagnostics on the TA and despite what the all the techs meters were saying, the signal at the TA was wonky. Tuner was -13 and the RDC was 57. Mind you that when he hooked his meter up to the same port on the splitter he saw good levels. So we swapped out the splitter just for grins and the TA popped right on line with the Tuner now at 1db and the RDC at 44. Something about that splitter was only an issue for the TA, but not for his meter. All fixed now. So the tech last week who said it was because they made changes at the headend must have been making that up to divert away from his lacking troubleshooting skills. Now I need to rescind my FCC complaint.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Skye said:


> Well I had a third tech out today. He went thru all the same stuff the others did. Checked levels at every point along the path and everything was great, still my TA was offline. Then he got on the phone with a supervisor who had us call the Cable Card support line at Spectrum. The guy at Cable Card support had us go into the diagnostics on the TA and despite what the all the techs meters were saying, the signal at the TA was wonky. Tuner was -13 and the RDC was 57. Mind you that when he hooked his meter up to the same port on the splitter he saw good levels. So we swapped out the splitter just for grins and the TA popped right on line with the Tuner now at 1db and the RDC at 44. Something about that splitter was only an issue for the TA, but not for his meter. All fixed now. So the tech last week who said it was because they made changes at the headend must have been making that up to divert away from his lacking troubleshooting skills. Now I need to rescind my FCC complaint.


The frequency used by the RDC signal is VERY low, e.g., 16.5 MHz on my system. I don't know how the tech's meters break down signal strength by frequency -- I suspect just in certain bands. Not hard to believe it just didn't show a reading that reflected the (obviously) extremely high loss in the splitter at that FDC frequency. Of course they SHOULD have both equipment and expertise sufficient to detect problems at ALL frequencies needed for proper operation of customer equipment. I would assume their STB's and DVR's use these same frequencies for SDV control signals, so saying it's just something appiicable to TA's doesn't fly.

There are so many possible causes of problems in these systems it's surprising things work as well as they usually do. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the tech's poor skills. Actually I think his wrong opinion was a reasonable guess given the situation. Bad settings at the headend account for a lot of TA-related problems.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

I spoke too soon, after a few hours all of my SDV channels failed again. Signal levels are still fine and the TA is online. I get error D256 on all the failed channels. They tune for a few seconds and then I get the error and a black screen.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Skye said:


> I spoke too soon, after a few hours all of my SDV channels failed again. Signal levels are still fine and the TA is online. I get error D256 on all the failed channels. They tune for a few seconds and then I get the error and a black screen.


You didn't mention the TA's FDC signal level. It should be between -15 and 15 dbmV with something close to 0 being typical and preferable. I'm suspecting your tech's guess about a headend problem was actually correct. I assume you have power-cycled the TA and the TA light has settled to steady on. Does your TiVo Diagnostics page indicate channel list received?


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

FDC is -5. The TA has been power cycled probably 24 times and I'm on my second TA this week. Time Warner says every signal is absolutely perfect there's no noise there's no errors there's nothing they can do to make the signal even better than it is now. Time Warner has sent the codes to my cable card and my TA numerous times. TiVo has looked at my system numerous times and everybody says everything is fine yet I can't tune any SDV channels.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

Skye said:


> FDC is -5. The TA has been power cycled probably 24 times and I'm on my second TA this week. Time Warner says every signal is absolutely perfect there's no noise there's no errors there's nothing they can do to make the signal even better than it is now. Time Warner has sent the codes to my cable card and my TA numerous times. TiVo has looked at my system numerous times and everybody says everything is fine yet I can't tune any SDV channels.


My hunch is something in the cabling or port. That's why it seemed to come back when you changed the splitter. Have you tried a different USB cable and/or used the other port on the TiVo?


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Replaced every cable. USB must be in top port according to Tivo support people. Tivo says cable card is paired, TWC says TA is on line and signals are great. No one can explain why I am getting error D256 on half my channels.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

What does TiVo support say error D256 means? Also, still wondering if TiVo Diagnostics indicates the Channel List has been received.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

They said D256 is a cable card message, but they say my cable card is properly paired and working. Channel list was received. They had me rerun guided setup to another state, then run it again back to my home system to make sure I had the latest guide.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Skye said:


> They said D256 is a cable card message, but they say my cable card is properly paired and working. Channel list was received. They had me rerun guided setup to another state, then run it again back to my home system to make sure I had the latest guide.


Here is a TiVo support page discussing D256 (all it took was googling "d256 error"):
https://support.tivo.com/articles/Troubleshooting/CableCARD-Troubleshooting
It's not unusual on my system to get a channel-temporarily-unavailable message (but no mention of an error code) when switching back to an SDV channel that previously was tuned and buffering, but has not been watched for a while. The SDV system can reclaim that frequency for other usage if you haven't been watching it for a while. When this happens, just hitting select a couple of times and waiting a few seconds will tune the channel. Apparently your situation is different from this -- but this message suggests the problem is with Spectrum's SDV system.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

I wonder if your Spectrum is providing TA's with an out-of-date software version? Look in TA Diagnostics .... Versions and MACs for the item labeled "FLASH". In mine the value is: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.1901 .
Mine may not be the absolute latest. If yours has a number less than the 1901, perhaps you need a software update, which Spectrum must push. A few years back my Spectrum region, SW Ohio, managed to brick every TA on their system for a day when they botched a TA software update push.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

dlfl said:


> In mine the value is: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.1901 .
> Mine may not be the absolute latest.


on my Charter Spectrum system they've been using STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.2001 for years now. It fixed some problem (I can't remember what) but did introduce a bug where the TA has to have its USB cable disconnected whenever I reboot it or else it doesn't work. (A real pain.)


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

My complaint with the FCC was served on Spectrum this morning and Spectrum called me today to say they received the complaint and are looking into the situation.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Spectrum came today, gave me three of their boxes and I gave them my Tivo to take to their lab and try to figure out why it no longer works on their system. I think the gentleman who came here said there are 12 other issues like mine he is aware of in this area, and the problem seems to be related to certain QAMS


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## John G Campbell (Aug 4, 2018)

I had problems and the remedy was two-fold for me.

1) Tweaked signal
2) Used the usb port they said not to. As soon as I plugged it in to the second port, everything worked and has ever since.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Spectrum picked up my TiVo unit yesterday and has had it on their test bench today and they also cannot make it work. They now suspect this is an issue at their head end.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

dlfl said:


> ....... Actually I think his wrong opinion was a reasonable guess given the situation. Bad settings at the headend account for a lot of TA-related problems.





Skye said:


> Spectrum picked up my TiVo unit yesterday and has had it on their test bench today and they also cannot make it work. They now suspect this is an issue at their head end.


Somehow I'm not surprised! .

Perhaps your FCC complaint gets credit for their serious attention to this, but I suspect it was actually the fact they finally realized that NO TA's on their system were working. TA's are a kluge developed by parties having insufficient incentive for producing a good result.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Well Spectrum said they figured it out and had it working. Something about a wrong digit in their code. They brought my box back, hooked it up and it had even less working channels than before. Supervisor stayed for three hours and tried everything he could think of. We took everything else off the system, tried other TVs in case we were dealing with a hot chassis, changed the tap I am on in their distribution box, changed out the wall plate, changed every splitter (again). Changed USB cable. Swapped out the power strip, HDMI cable and port on tv. Nothing worked. Signal is plenty strong both up and down. We mutually agreed there was nothing more to try or replace in my home. He is going to come back next week and run a new temp drop just to see what happens, but signal strength is not an issue, but it’s the only thing left to try. It’s really looking like a hub issue. He said it worked at their office, but the office is not on the hub I am on.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

I have been doing a bunch of testing. I think I have this figured out. Even with a straight run, no splitters it fails. So I started to look deeper at the encoding in the diagnostics. All the local broadcast channels are now MPEG4, they all tune just fine without the TA. The TA I believe is telling the Tivo to use MPEG2. All MPEG2 SDV channels work with TA, but not without. All MPEG2 non SDV channels work either way. The only channels that constantly fail are the MPEG4 channels when the TA is connected.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Skye said:


> I have been doing a bunch of testing. I think I have this figured out. Even with a straight run, no splitters it fails. So I started to look deeper at the encoding in the diagnostics. All the local broadcast channels are now MPEG4, they all tune just fine without the TA. The TA I believe is telling the Tivo to use MPEG2. All MPEG2 SDV channels work with TA, but not without. All MPEG2 non SDV channels work either way. The only channels that constantly fail are the MPEG4 channels when the TA is connected.


Well that's interesting! Which channels are failing that are MPEG4 (and interesting that your local broadcast channels are MPEG4 - with Comcast those are the ones that have stayed MPEG2 so far except some around Chicago I believe based on what someone posted here).

Scott


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

All local broadcast channels fail. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, PBS


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Today’s update: it’s working! Spectrum came today and replaced 4 way splitter with a unity gain 2 way amp. This brought the levels to/from the TA up a few dB and it’s been stable since this afternoon. Still does not explain mpeg2 /mpeg4 issue. That’s for another day. Funny thing is according to the Cisco tech sheet for the TA, my levels were well within specification before the amp was added, but Spectrum says their system likes to see levels on RDC that are on the lower end of the scale. 

Fingers crossed it stays up, I have seen it work for a day before and then fail. 

Kudos to all at Spectrum, their supervisors, head end techs and others who worked on this for days and days. They spent at least 12 hours in my home alone over the past week.


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

Glad you finally got it fixed.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

The RDC level (in dBmV) is the strength of the signal your TA is sending back into the cable system. The TA adjusts this level when it connects. The specs for the TA must assume a certain minimum sensitivity of the system receiving the signal and it sounds like your system is deficient in that regard, so the amp is required.

Your RDC previously was 57 dBmV which is very high, which is consistent with what they said -- your TA was adjusting its level high to compensate for the low sensitivity and apparently this was still not high enough.

There might be a problem with excessive attenuation at the low frequency end of the cable tap to your location. The RDC signals are at the extreme low end of the frequency band, at least on my system, e.g., 16.5 MHz.

What is your RDC level now?


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

dlfl said:


> The RDC level (in dBmV) is the strength of the signal your TA is sending back into the cable system. The TA adjusts this level when it connects. The specs for the TA must assume a certain minimum sensitivity of the system receiving the signal and it sounds like your system is deficient in that regard, so the amp is required.
> 
> Your RDC previously was 57 dBmV which is very high, which is consistent with what they said -- your TA was adjusting its level high to compensate for the low sensitivity and apparently this was still not high enough.
> 
> ...


Even when they replaced a bad splitter and the RDC dropped to 45 it would not connect. Only after adding the amp and dropping the RDC to 41 did it finally connect and stay stable.


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## JonMcL (Aug 7, 2004)

I am having almost the exact same issue with my Spectrum TV service in NYC (Brooklyn) and my Roamio TiVo.

Everything worked great up until sometime around beginning of December 2017. I don't know for sure, but I suspect my troubles started when Spectrum left a robocall message that all services would be unavailable for 8 hours overnight. Shortly after that equipment upgrade, I started having problems.

Everything is fine for a day, or sometimes as long as a week. Suddenly, and without warning, some channels cannot be received. Typically the problem shows up with HBO, Showtime, etc. Sometimes, the problem results in a single-blink on the TA and all recording are stopped; it appears that all tuners are re-tuned and TiVo drops recordings, even on good times. From my tests, it appears that this happens when the TiVo is trying to tune in a channel repeatedly and failing. It seems to me that after a certain number of retries, the TA is reset (the single-blink) and it tries tuning everything over and over again.

My solution is always:
Power down TiVo.
Remove power to TA, wait 10 seconds or so, start up TA.
Wait for TA light to become solid.
Power up TiVo.

When I do these things, especially waiting for the TA light to become solid, about 90% of the time is solves the issue for a few days. It used to solve the issue for more than a week, which is partially why I have let this issue remain. I just restart everything once a week -- usually Sunday afternoons since Sunday nights I typically have all 6 tuners recording something and it seemed more likely that the single-blink issue would happen and all recording would stop. I sometimes noticed the issue happening right near the end of watching Game of Thrones because it would often run over 10PM and at 10PM, recording schedule seemed to change channels on other tuners. The TA would fail, TiVo would keep trying and eventually the single-blink would kick in and I would lose all channels for a few seconds

Spectrum has replaced Tuning Adapter and CableCard multiple times. Everything always works for a little while after initial activation, but then some channels start failing after a few days. I have only had one tech come, mainly because I know they rarely understand how CableCards and TAs work.

Your comments at the reverse data channel (RDC) make perfect sense to me. From my investigations, it seems like the TA is unable to lock to fetch the currently frequency for a channel. A channel that worked the day before, now no longer works because the hub. is unable to update it with the new frequency. Probably because the request for the channel is never reaching the upstream hub.

What I never thought to consider is that the rebooting of the TA causes the TA to increase/decrease RDC signal depending on the current conditions. However, if the line conditions change, adjustments are not being made? So the overly picky upstream hub is no longer receiving or responding to requests from my TA. That's my current thinking.

I am going to keep an eye on the RDC values when things are working and when they are not.

Thank you for this information!


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## JonMcL (Aug 7, 2004)

So I was experiencing the problem and RDC was 31 dBmV. I restarted everything and can now tune all HBO and Showtime channels. RDC is still 31, so it appears to be same when working and not working. 

Sorry to hijack this thread. I should make one for myself 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

JonMcL said:


> So I was experiencing the problem and RDC was 31 dBmV. I restarted everything and can now tune all HBO and Showtime channels. RDC is still 31, so it appears to be same when working and not working.
> 
> Sorry to hijack this thread. I should make one for myself
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Have you tried just rebooting the TA rather than both the TA and the tivo? If that works you can buy a timer for the TA. I have mine on a timer to stop and start weekly. You might have to sent it at a shorter frequency. Btw, is you TA a Cisco?


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## JonMcL (Aug 7, 2004)

UCLABB said:


> Have you tried just rebooting the TA rather than both the TA and the tivo? If that works you can buy a timer for the TA. I have mine on a timer to stop and start weekly. You might have to sent it at a shorter frequency. Btw, is you TA a Cisco?


Yes, I have rebooted Cisco TA alone, but it seems to fix things more reliably when I reboot the TiVo too.


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## Skye (May 18, 2018)

JonMcL said:


> Yes, I have rebooted Cisco TA alone, but it seems to fix things more reliably when I reboot the TiVo too.


The problem came back for me. Not as bad but at least once a day I get the unable to tune channel error. Spectrum seems to have given up, I let them know the problem was back and never heard from them again. I wonder if this is actually planned degradation of service to force people back into renting their boxes. I would go to Directv before I went to the awful Spectrum boxes.


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## LYKUNO (Jan 7, 2014)

Great thread with lots of good info here. I'm still on the legacy TWC service here in NE Ohio and have been contemplating switching over to Spectrum after my plan's promos run out next March. Cost will be nearly the same though the internet speed will go to 100/10 from its current 30/5.

That said, I've also been experiencing the symptoms described in this thread with my 2 Roamios on cable cards and TA's. For a year or more I've been getting V52 errors when attempting to tune in Showtime channels as well as FBN. I've checked signal and SNR levels using the diagnostic menu and everything seems fine. Rebooting the TiVo and TA has been my usual recovery tactic. I had a Motorola 4 port amp in the basement left over from the days before TiVo and have replaced that with a single two output 2Ghz splitter. Since I was occasionally seeing RNC errors, I ran a brand new RG6 quad shield cable with compression fittings from the outside demarc with TWC to the splitter input, and also new RG6 between the splitter and the TA's, and from the TA's to the TiVos. That cleaned up the signal and got rid of some questionable hex-crimped coax connectors.

Today though, after encountering a few more V52 errors and failing to tune SDV channels after reboots, I contacted TWC/Spectrum support. The tech walked me through looking at the TA's Status Summary Screen where I saw a Tuner value of 1dBmV, FDC of 2dBmV and the RDC of 33dBmV. Since I still couldn't tune to one of the Showtime channels after a reboot of the TA (temporarily disconnecting the USB cable), he suggested that the signal levels looked good and he said he was going to send a new (refurb?) TA to me. So I'll see where things go when I get the new TA here and connected. 

Meanwhile, my other TiVo occasionally fails to connect to some SDV channels as well (though not always the same ones as other TiVo has problems with. Anyway, I'm glad I found this thread and appreciate the effort and thought others have chimed in with. TA's are the devil incarnate!


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## JonMcL (Aug 7, 2004)

Skye, that is some bad news. 

I feel like the hardest part of this issue is that there is no clear way to reproduce the issue. 

One other interesting tidbit: I used to have my TiVo go into standby whenever I turned my TV off or switched to another device. I have a Logitech remote and programmed it to do that. I also had TiVo set to energy saver mode so that it would go into standby automatically after a few hours (6?). 

I decided to stop putting it into standby and because of another issue, possibly related to a history of TA issues, my TiVo is not recording many suggestions and my onepass schedule is a little light at the moment. 

What I have been noticing now is that when I switch back to TiVo from another device, the 6 tuners all have signal on the channels they had previously been left on. I make a point of tuning at least 4 of the 6 tuners to problematic channels after I reboot everything. 

If I try and change to new HBO or Showtime channels after a number of hours of not using the TiVo, there is high probability that the new channel does not come in (V52 or other error). The channel that I left the tuner on a few hours before continues to work on that tuner when I switch back. Going up one or down one channel causes the error. Going back to the original channel brings it back in fine.

So when the problem requiring reboots start, a typically problematic channel is fine only if it is still switched on for a particular tuner. 

Previously when I had the TiVo set to go to standby, waking it back up would almost always result in all problematic channels resulting in errors. My assumption is that the waking TiVo sends a new request to the TA for the same channel and the issue reveals itself. When not sleeping, the TiVo is able to hold the channel indefinitely, but channel changes result in the issue revealing itself. 

Of course, there was sometimes days or weeks where there would be no problem at all even after the TiVo wakes up after a long period of being in standby. 

So, for example, if I reboot everything and verify channel 512 works (HBO west), then I go away for a few hours, then return to watching TV, channel 512 is still on that same tuner. If I change that tuner to 513, there is a possibility I get the V52 error. Switching back to 512 results in a successful lock. 

With TiVo in standby, there was a possibility that 512 would not work when it woke and 513 would not work either. 

This leads me to think that when the TiVo is in standby for many hours, the hub stops transmitting 512 on the frequency it used to be on and then the new request fails when it wakes up again. With the TiVo not in standby, and assuming the tuner is not changed to another channel because of a scheduled recording, 512 always seems to be fine even if 513 fails. 

When the issue reveals itself, changes to the tuner as a result of many shows scheduled to record would result in error channels. Multiple error channels, or multiple retries to tune in error channels, ends up resulting with the single blink and a reset on all 6 tuners (and stopped recordings). I have actually witnessed this happen when I am watching HBO on one tuner and the top of the hour results in multiple changes to other tuners. All 6 tuners blank out for 1 to 2 seconds and all recordings stop. This single blink repeats approx every 70 seconds until I reboot everything. Usually all channels can be tuned in successfully after the reboot. Strangely, the scheduled recordings do not start themselves automatically after the reboot. 

So to a certain extent, I think I am not noticing the issue as much (without looking for it) because I am not recording much lately and because I am not putting the TiVo into standby anymore. Lots of scheduled recordings or suggestions may cause the issue to reveal itself more frequently. 

It used to be something I only saw once every week or so, even with standby and with lots of recordings. More recently it seems to be daily, but I have to check for the issue by changing tuners and trying problematic channels. 

My suspicion is that upgrades to upstream equipment is just not working well with the old Cisco TA. I suspect software conflicts rather than signal or hardware issues. I obviously don’t have the technical knowledge, or the means, to actually figure this out for them. I wish we didn’t have to.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

JonMcL said:


> Yes, I have rebooted Cisco TA alone, but it seems to fix things more reliably when I reboot the TiVo too.


In my experience with a Cisco STA1520 the TA refuses to work if it's connected to the TiVo while booting. When I reboot the TA I have to disconnect the USB cable until it reaches the fast blinking stage. Otherwise it won't talk to the TiVo after it boots. (Or I can reboot the TiVo at the same time as the TA. That works too, I suppose because the TiVo's USB controller isn't active yet while it's in the early stage of booting.)


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## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

Skye said:


> The problem came back for me. Not as bad but at least once a day I get the unable to tune channel error. Spectrum seems to have given up, I let them know the problem was back and never heard from them again. I wonder if this is actually planned degradation of service to force people back into renting their boxes. I would go to Directv before I went to the awful Spectrum boxes.


A few of us here in CT had issues when then converted a bunch of channels to be SDV. We lost over 20 channels for a few weeks. The TA wouldn't recognize them as SDV channels. Someone got the name at the local head end and was working with them and 2 of the 3 of us got all their channels back after several weeks but I continue to have a channel that hasn't come back since MAY.

Unfortunately for me, I dont have a name at the local head end person so I continue to try and go through the call in support which just sends me around in circles.

As of now I just live with the one missing channel(AHC which we actually like).

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk


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## LYKUNO (Jan 7, 2014)

LYKUNO said:


> ... snipped ...
> Today though, after encountering a few more V52 errors and failing to tune SDV channels after reboots, I contacted TWC/Spectrum support. The tech walked me through looking at the TA's Status Summary Screen where I saw a Tuner value of 1dBmV, FDC of 2dBmV and the RDC of 33dBmV. Since I still couldn't tune to one of the Showtime channels after a reboot of the TA (temporarily disconnecting the USB cable), he suggested that the signal levels looked good and he said he was going to send a new (refurb?) TA to me. So I'll see where things go when I get the new TA here and connected.
> 
> Meanwhile, my other TiVo occasionally fails to connect to some SDV channels as well (though not always the same ones as other TiVo has problems with. Anyway, I'm glad I found this thread and appreciate the effort and thought others have chimed in with. TA's are the devil incarnate!


* 9-2-18 Update ...*

So Fedex showed up yesterday to deliver a replacement Tuning Adaptor for my 4-Tuner Roamio. I had high hopes when I opened the box and saw a shrink-wrapped package containing the replacement, that is until I removed the wrap to find a "recycled" TA with a manufactured date of Feb 2009. It had some scratches on the plastic, and the metal portion on the back where the connections are made was a shade of goldish-brown reminiscent of the kind you might find in the home of a chain smoker. I tried to clean it up a little but making it look like my existing unit (manufactured May 2013) was just not going to happen. Oh well

So I removed the old TA, plugged in the new one and then spend some time on the phone with the cable card/tuning adapter support center. After the new TA booted up and connected, I still could not succesfully tune SHO channel 1642. The tech offered to send a tech tomorrow (Monday - Labor Day) morning. Okay, we'll see what if anything the on-site tech finds. Meanwhile, I rechecked all the connections one more time and then accessed the Tuning Adapter diagnostics screen. Here are the numbers for my original TA: Tuner Value = 1dBmV, FDC Value = 2dBmV, RDC Value = 33 dBmV. Here are the numbers for the replacement/refurbished TA: Tuner Value = 4dBmV, FDC Value = 5dBmV, RDC Value = 31 dBmV.

I just checked my 6-Tuner Roamio, and the values the TA on that one shows: Tuner Value = 1dBmV, FDC Value = 2dBmV, RDC Value = 33 dBmV. I also looked at the TA diagnostics for 6 channels, including receive signal percentage and SNR. Here are those values:
Channel Signal % SNR
SHO 1642 varies 87-91 35dB
SHO 1643 100 40dB
SHO 1644 100 40dB
SHO 1645 100 40dB
TWC 1370 100 41dB

Here are the levels for my 4-Tuner Roamio:
SHO 1642 - (Null?) 26dB
SHO 1643 90 36dB
SHO 1644 92 37dB
SHO 1645 92 37dB

After installing the replacement TA and booting up, and attempting to connect with SHO 1642, there was a brief moment (10 seconds or so) where the channel connected but was very pixelated and then dropped off to a searching for signal and or a V52 message. I could only reproduce that a couple times, and can no longer get 1642 at all on my 4-Tuner Roamio.

Since the issue is only really happening on the 4-tuner Roamio, I made an effort to change the coax from the splitter to the TA (about 12' in length) with a new one supplied with the refurbed TA, along with the coax output of the TA to the Roamio (about 6' in length). No difference in signal quality. Also switched the splitter output positions (output 1 with output 2 and vice-versa. No change. Finally, I removed and reseated the cable card in the 4-tuner Roamio and that made no difference.

Bottom line seems to be that the my older 4-tuner Roamio is not seeing a 100% signal on any of the channels I tune to. In addition, SHO 1642 is not coming in at all on the 4-tuner Roamio, though I can successfully tune it in on the 6-tuner Roamio (albeit with a lower signal % than all other channels tuned on it.

I suspect there is a TWC issue on SHO 1642 that prevents my from being able to tune it on my 4-tuner Roamio. I should note that even my 6-tuner Roamio has had occasional V52/V53 errors on SHO 1642 in the past year. Repeated attempts to lock in the channel by going up/down a channel or two seems to help. But I am hoping the TWC tech can actually measure and test the channel's signal outside and at the TA outputs.

I do wonder if I also have an issue with my 4-tuner Roamio and it's apparent inability to tune in channels at 100% signal strength. It's a lifetime unit so I'm concerned that it may be costly to replace. I can live with sub-100% signals, but not complete failure to complete to premium TWC channels.

Will update after the tech visit tomorrow, 9-3-18.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

@LYKUNO,

Actually, except for 1642, the signal and SNR numbers for your 4-tuner are ideal, while those for your 6-tuner are stronger than ideal, perhaps too hot which could possibly lead to long term damage to the tuners.

Your problem appears to be simply a too-weak signal on 1642. What are the frequencies for the 4 or 6 channels? Frequencies typically range from 70 to 600 MHz and sometimes there is too much variation between low and high ends of the band. That balance varies along neighborhood cable lines because high frequencies attenuate with distance at a higher rate than low frequencies. If the neighborhood node isn't set up properly, subscribers at the far end will have signals too weak at the high frequencies. Of course a poor cable connection or defective splitter can give similar effects. I was having weak signal issues on a few channels at one time and it was finally fixed by redoing the cable outlet connection at the wall (the "drop").


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

There should be no coax from the TA to the TiVo. Your incoming cable should go to a splitter with one leg going to the TiVo and the other to the TA. This will result in a much stronger signal to the TiVo. The TA doesn’t need a very strong signal as it sends/receives very little data.


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## JonMcL (Aug 7, 2004)

mdavej said:


> There should be no coax from the TA to the TiVo. Your incoming cable should go to a splitter with one leg going to the TiVo and the other to the TA. This will result in a much stronger signal to the TiVo. The TA doesn't need a very strong signal as it sends/receives very little data.


I have actually tried this. I purchased my own 4 way splitter to replace a two way splitter that then has another two way splitter on one side to handle cable modem and ridiculously large (and hot) Arris modem I keep around for phone service. So each device got a feed directly from the new 4-way splitter.

Same results - everything is fine for a day, or sometimes a week, and then suddenly some channels can no longer be locked into by the TA.

I'm also fairly certain that if a tech showed up and saw my setup, he/she would immediately undo it and put the TA and TiVo back into a serial chain instead of parallel. It might technically work, but it's not how they (Spectrum) want it to be hooked up.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Maybe. But there are Spectrum documents that show parallel. And that’s how I ran my Spectrum/Charter setup for about 7 years. I measured the dB loss through my TA once and it was about 4x higher than splitting. But since it makes no difference in your setup, I don’t know what else to try except maybe an amp.


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## LYKUNO (Jan 7, 2014)

dlfl said:


> @LYKUNO,
> 
> Actually, except for 1642, the signal and SNR numbers for your 4-tuner are ideal, while those for your 6-tuner are stronger than ideal, perhaps too hot which could possibly lead to long term damage to the tuners.
> 
> Your problem appears to be simply a too-weak signal on 1642. What are the frequencies for the 4 or 6 channels? Frequencies typically range from 70 to 600 MHz and sometimes there is too much variation between low and high ends of the band. That balance varies along neighborhood cable lines because high frequencies attenuate with distance at a higher rate than low frequencies. If the neighborhood node isn't set up properly, subscribers at the far end will have signals too weak at the high frequencies. Of course a poor cable connection or defective splitter can give similar effects. I was having weak signal issues on a few channels at one time and it was finally fixed by redoing the cable outlet connection at the wall (the "drop").


Thanks for the reply, and here's what happened today: The Spectrum tech showed up at the appointed time, and checked the signal at the 2-way splitter (a Monster Cable 2Ghz that I have been using for years). His meter (a very sophisticated device indeed) indicated that there were receive errors coming from the coax going to the outside of the house.

Before going to the outside to check the signal there, he replaced my 2-way splitter with a Spectrum one. There is another 1-in, 2-out splitter on the rear of my home, with one output leg going to the splitter inside the home (the one the tech just changed out), and the 2nd output leg going to my internet service cable modem. He was still seeing errors coming from the pole, and got the ladder off the truck to access the tap at the aerial cable.

At the tap, he saw a clean signal from the network, which implicated the 50-60' drop cable to my home as the source of the errors. Once he installed the new drop cable, the signal into the house was error free. We rechecked both TiVos and were able to tune SHO 1642 with no problem. Here's what I am now seeing when I run the diagnostics test on channel SHO 1642 on the 4-tuner TiVo:
SHO 1642: Freq 93000Khz, Signal Strength 95%, SNR 38db. 
Here are the results for this channel on the 6-tuner TiVo:
SHO 1642: Freq 93000Khz, Signal Strength 90%, SNR 35db.

After the tech wrapped up his work and left for his next job, my wife noticed that that she was seeing some pixelation on the Hallmark channel she tuned in on a TiVo mini working off the 6-tuner TiVo. I could also see the pixelation on the the TV associated with the 6-tuner TiVo, but there was no pixelation on the TV associated with the 4-tuner unit. I also saw counting RC uncorrected errors at the 6-tuner unit. I rechecked all the coax connections and discovered that the 6-tuner's Tuning Adaptor "Coax In" connection was only finger tight. Snugged it down with a wrench and the pixelation disappeared and no more RC uncorrected errors were occurring.

I replaced the 2009-vintage TA that I had been sent with the original 2013 TA, and had the Cable Card/Tuning Adaptor helpline activate the TA. I'll return the 2009 vintage replacement to a Fedex drop-off location tomorrow.

Hoping for stability with my TiVo configuration, but will be keeping a close eye on it for now. Everything is working and I'm confident it will stay that way.

BTW, I can see how the wiring config @mdavej mentioned above would be viable, but I'll stick with the way I have things wired now. Besides, the wife is going to be on my case if I don't get the lawn mowed before dark (in less than 2 hours from now).

Thanks again to all for the comments and suggestions. Great forum!


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

mdavej said:


> Maybe. But there are Spectrum documents that show parallel. And that's how I ran my Spectrum/Charter setup for about 7 years. I measured the dB loss through my TA once and it was about 4x higher than splitting. But since it makes no difference in your setup, I don't know what else to try except maybe an amp.


That doesn't sound right to me. My recollection was that Cisco TA's actually provide slight gain. 
Per this TiVo support page:
https://support.tivo.com/articles/FAQ/How-Switched-Digital-Video-Impacts-Me-FAQ


> While the Tuning Adapter is powered on, it boosts the signal strength slightly, so that there is no drop in signal strength due to the Tuning Adapter's operation.


There are two reasons to question the validity of this:
1. It's on a TiVo support page. 
2. They don't specify which TA (Motorola or Cisco).
I tried to find independent info on this but even the Cisco support documents don't mention it.

I've always run my signal thru my TA but I know a lot of people here prefer the other way. Just remember a 2-way splitter introduces at least 3 dB (half the power) loss.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Yeah, I should have specified the huge loss is through Moto. I understand Cisco is probably a wash. 

Glad the new run fixed the issue.


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## mark5047 (Nov 13, 2007)

100% convinced Spectrum is making this painful so we get their boxes instead of TiVo/Tuning Adapters. All of my boxes need to be reset periodically


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

mark5047 said:


> 100% convinced Spectrum is making this painful so we get their boxes instead of TiVo/Tuning Adapters. All of my boxes need to be reset periodically


More likely not a deliberate effort but just lack of due diligence since they have no significant incentive to make something they don't like work for a tiny percentage of their customers. Complaints to the FCC apparently have helped in specific cases, but obviously don't comprise enough of a threat to yield the required general diligence.

Of course, whether deliberate or due to negligence, the effect is the same for customers. If all of their customers were having this much trouble there would be enough political clout to get congressional attention, but not with only 1% or less of their subscriber base affected.


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## Mukwonago (Dec 1, 2019)

I am new to Spectrum and TIVO but I have had some intermittant D256 issues and Tuning Adapter issues. In my house, I have a Spectrum DVR which I'm migrating off of and the Tivo with the TA. I've been on the phone for hours with Spectrum to figure out intermittant issues and this morning I discovered that the presence of my Spectrum DVR appears to be the issue. I'll give a synopsis:

Symptoms: Channels in the low 290's, like 292, 293, 294 don't work. I'm sure more if not all TA accessed channels aren't but I don't have a clear list of what are and aren't. But these are for me. On these channels, I get D256. They have worked on and off in the past.

At one point, just to make sure I'm not crazy, I went to the other TV with the Spectrum DVR and tuned to 294 to make sure it worked. It came up fine. While tuned to that channel, the Tivo started to work on 294 but NOT on 293 or 292. Magically, 294 started to work. I couldn't reproduce this with 293 or 292 but tuning on the Spectrum DVR.

My next step, I disconnected the coax cable from the Spectrum DVR and within a couple minutes, all the channels that I'm aware of using the TA work fine. 291, 292, 293, 294 ....


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Finding out which channels are switched (i.e., require the TA) can be difficult since almost no one cares, either among customers or at Spectrum. However you can determine if any channel you can tune (when using the TA) is switched or "broadcast" in TA diagnostics. At least I know you can with the Cisco STA1520 TA. I gave the procedure for doing this in this post:
Problems with Cisco STA1520, possibly, 6 flashing lights


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## CopRock (Jul 13, 2014)

I've been in the same boat as you and have spent whole days with techs [Spectrum NYC only has half a dozen ones that are knowledgeable with cablecards and adapters ] trying to fix issues with missing channels or channels that come in SD instead of HD. Had spent whole days trying to fix the issue and never really got fixed 
When TWC sloughed their cable division to Charter/Spectrum many things didn't mesh very well and cablecards/tuning adapters was one especially with TIVO roamios 
But once I saw the image quality of the tivo to the Cisco DVR [with streaming being best], it got relegated to the bedroom and a smaller 32" so having HBO511 come in SD instead of HD wasn't that much of an issue since we usually just watch news type shows in the bedroom

Wish you luck but its gonna be a bumpy ride



Mukwonago said:


> I am new to Spectrum and TIVO but I have had some intermittant D256 issues and Tuning Adapter issues. In my house, I have a Spectrum DVR which I'm migrating off of and the Tivo with the TA. I've been on the phone for hours with Spectrum to figure out intermittant issues and this morning I discovered that the presence of my Spectrum DVR appears to be the issue. I'll give a synopsis:
> 
> Symptoms: Channels in the low 290's, like 292, 293, 294 don't work. I'm sure more if not all TA accessed channels aren't but I don't have a clear list of what are and aren't. But these are for me. On these channels, I get D256. They have worked on and off in the past.
> 
> ...


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## Mukwonago (Dec 1, 2019)

CopRock said:


> I've been in the same boat as you and have spent whole days with techs [Spectrum NYC only has half a dozen ones that are knowledgeable with cablecards and adapters ] trying to fix issues with missing channels or channels that come in SD instead of HD. Had spent whole days trying to fix the issue and never really got fixed
> When TWC sloughed their cable division to Charter/Spectrum many things didn't mesh very well and cablecards/tuning adapters was one especially with TIVO roamios
> But once I saw the image quality of the tivo to the Cisco DVR [with streaming being best], it got relegated to the bedroom and a smaller 32" so having HBO511 come in SD instead of HD wasn't that much of an issue since we usually just watch news type shows in the bedroom
> 
> Wish you luck but its gonna be a bumpy ride


Thank you, I may need it. I had Spectrum with TWO Spectrum DVR's. I bought the Tivo Bolt and added that as the 3rd device. I previously had one of the Spectrum DVR's coax disconnected which is where the Bolt/TA were connected. But the bedroom Spectrum DVR appears to have caused the issue. I can recreate it by connecting it and without it, all my problems appear to be gone. So far. I have VOX's for my other TV's and no issues with HD. But crossing my fingers.


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## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

The only true way I found to get Spectrum to actually get someone competent to fix issues like this was to file a BBB complaint. 

I went through MONTHS of missing channels after they added a bunch of them to SDV list. I had 3 different techs and countless calls to their tech support and nothing changed. 

I finally filed a complaint and within a week, I had a competent person from the headend contact me, confirm that they needed to retune their frequencies for the TA’s and within two days, I had my channels back. 

I just had to do it again with 3 calls in and an online chat about random emails not being forwarded. Nobody would put in a ticket because there was not visible error message and nobody could figure out what was going on. Been going on for a month. Filed a complaint on Monday, got a call yesterday and a competent person finally figured out that their spam filter was suddenly rejecting the forwarding of legit sites like Amazon and Bank of America(and even their OWN customer email notification email). So they are fixing it. 

I HATE (and it’s pathetic on Spectrum’s part) that I have to go the BBB route but it does work. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Myself and two friends had MANY problems with Time Warner/Spectrum to get our TA’s to work reliably.

My father had trouble too and things got worse about a year and a half ago when he replaced a Premiere with a Bolt and had to make some changes to his setup.

Someone at Spectrum changed some settings and things have gone haywire ever since and multiple truck rolls and calls have not been able to sort it out.

My father loses some key channels for days at a time and then they magically return.

He FINALLY has decided to switch to Fios since he’s lucky to have that option (I ask switched to the same awhile ago and it’s MUCH better).

It’s sad that Spectrum could have kept him as a customer for years but because they couldn’t fix a simple issue - nor show any empathy at all - he’s gone. Finally.

They deserve to lose every piece of business they have.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

cwoody222 said:


> Myself and two friends had MANY problems with Time Warner/Spectrum to get our TA's to work reliably.
> 
> My father had trouble too and things got worse about a year and a half ago when he replaced a Premiere with a Bolt and had to make some changes to his setup.
> 
> ...


What's really sad is Spectrum raking in money for years that they didn't deserve. They're laughing all the way to the bank. And it will continue even after you cut the cord unless you live in an area where Spectrum has competition for high speed internet. It's not that Spectrum has evil intent. They are just a business, not a charity.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

dlfl said:


> It's not that Spectrum has evil intent. They are just a business, not a charity.


Actually they do. Like all cable companies, they actively try to sabotage cable card device support through lies, incompetence and neglect. How many techs and store managers have told us cable cards no longer work or they can't get any cable cards? How long (on average) does it take to get a cable card or tuning adapter working? How many systems get broken at the head end and only fixed months later, if ever (i.e., NYC area very recently)? Yes, purposely lying and sabotaging cable cards is evil intent.

I can't stand it when people justify a company's unethical and illegal activity by saying, "it's a business, not a charity". In exchange for allowing them to become an even bigger monopoly, the government actually did make them agree to be a charity to an extent (expand discounted service to low income customers). So I disagree that a monopoly like Spectrum has the right to do whatever they want for the sake of profit.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Not justifying, just explaining what actually happens. You shouldn’t assume that everyone you deal with has high ethical standards. Feel free to expect it — and be prepared to be disappointed, unless you have some way to enforce it. Spectrum doesn’t do “whatever they want”, just what they can get away with. If they did what they really want, they would never have even furnished CableCARD’s or Tuning Adapters to begin with.

Spectrum isn’t a monopoly is all service areas. In fact the largest service areas tend to be the ones where there is competition. However even competition isn’t enough incentive to properly support CableCARD and TA’s. The effort (read cost) to do so isn’t justified by the tiny number of customers who use them. Expecting Cable Cos to diligently support these items is about as practical as expecting all drivers to diligently never exceed speed limits or all drug users to stop because “it’s illegal”. Again I’m talking about what’s practical, not what’s right. We pay a big price when we design solutions only on the basis of what’s right, and ignore what’s practical. That’s what was done when the CableCARD/TA solutions were devised.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

dlfl said:


> Not justifying, just explaining what actually happens.


I guess I don't understand, "it's a business, not a charity" then. To me, that means it's ok for them to lie and cheat in the pursuit of profit. I think it's not ok, and that we have lots of rules and laws to prohibit and punish that kind of behavior. I'm well aware of how they actually operate and have no expectation whatsoever that they will ever change. But I will not accept the "it's a business, not a charity" excuse.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

mdavej said:


> I guess I don't understand, "it's a business, not a charity" then. To me, that means it's ok for them to lie and cheat in the pursuit of profit. I think it's not ok, and that we have lots of rules and laws to prohibit and punish that kind of behavior. I'm well aware of how they actually operate and have no expectation whatsoever that they will ever change. But I will not accept the "it's a business, not a charity" excuse.


Don't expect you or anyone to "accept" that as an excuse - it isn't an excuse. But when you make rules and laws that some people don't find it in their self interest to obey, and you (through your government) are unwilling or unable to enforce them ........ all you're left with as consolation is feeling morally superior. Please don't cast me as a defender of Spectrum. We let them get away with what they do. I don't think the majority of the American public are willing to support the government resources that would be required to enforce compliance.


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## Mukwonago (Dec 1, 2019)

I haven't encountered any poor business practices from Spectrum. I've over the years seen them roll out products that didn't work well, but eventually they sorted it out. I remember when they were just a cable TV company. Then they rolled out residential VOIP and that was a complete nightmare for 2 years and now it's the defacto standard home phone service for those that still have a 'land-line'. I miss the reliability of POTS lines. But my point is they worked out the bugs. As for cable-card issues, so far so good. I had a glitch with compatibility and that sucked but now I understand it better. The reality is that had I known that I needed the TA, my bad for not doing research, I would have skipped this altogether and gone back to DirecTV. Spectrum for me is cheaper. I don't really care for Spectrum, but I actually like Tivo less. Their inability and lack of foresight to have included a TA capability in their core product is a mistake. To put me, us, anyone threw the headache of having to have a front end device 'ahead' of their device is a joke. Had these problems manifested themselves within the 30 day return period, I wouldn't be posting here. The Tivo has an eSata port on the back that is fairly useless. The ability to move content from one box to another is a joke. The remote has two buttons, the thumbs up and thumbs down that effectively do nothing now, except needed for restarts. I miss, and liked the ability to thumbs up stuff and down, of course.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

There was no reasonable way TiVo could incorporate the TA into their hardware.

It would have to work with every single cable company head-end in the country and adopt to every change those companies may make.

It was not lack of forethought at all.


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## Mukwonago (Dec 1, 2019)

cwoody222 said:


> There was no reasonable way TiVo could incorporate the TA into their hardware.
> It would have to work with every single cable company head-end in the country and adopt to every change those companies may make.
> It was not lack of forethought at all.


I admit I don't understand all of the aspects, but the Cisco TA that Spectrum gave me wasn't made for Spectrum and it services other cable providers in addition to Spectrum. If you read the literature for the Cisco STA1520, they sure sell it as the one stop shop for all UDCP devices. I wonder, if they incorporated the technology of the STA1520, what percentage of the market would TiVo be able to support? I will concede not all, but most? A quick search of Charter/Spectrum/TWC shows they push the STA1520. Comcast pushes the same model as well. That would cover more than half of the subscribers that are on non dish providers. And I know the answer to the question; it's all about the money. The TiVo is already horribly overpriced, they can't sell them for anymore than they are 'trying' to sell them for now. IMHO.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

It has different software.

You can’t take your Spectrum TA and use it with Comcast, for example.

Heck, you may not even be able to use your Spectrum TA in another Spectrum market.

The STA1520 is not just some off the shelf device they give you. It’s configured to work with your particular local cable company, and only that one.


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## Mukwonago (Dec 1, 2019)

It can be flashed remotely, it literally was on the shelf where they grabbed it and handed it to me. I am not trying to argue the point, but they can remotely flash it as they have twice in the last week while I worked through my issues. It's a literal ****-show to deal with them, and my point is it would be nice if TiVo would work through the technological hurdles so that they incorporate that technology natively.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

It needs to be configured to work with your particular cable company. It's not a one-size-fits all.

Tivo did actually develop a software method but it only worked with cable companies that deploy TiVo units.

TiVo Crafts 'Embedded' Switched Digital Video Tech | Multichannel

"the same approach could be used on TiVo boxes sold at retail, but noted that, because it requires some headend work, it would require negotiations and some form of an agreement with the cable operator."

It requires help from the cable side.

It is not as simple and building in some software and having your cable company "flash" it remotely to get it to work.


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## TYNY (Jun 23, 2020)

For anyone who stumbles across this thread as I did while searching for a resolution to Tivo and SDV issues with Spectrum please do what is suggested on the first page of this thread and file an FCC complaint. It works!

I have a 4-tuner Bolt with tuning adapter on Spectrum, which has worked fine for years. About a month ago I started having issues similar to other posters here - SDV channels would not tune, I'd just get a black screen and either "channel not provided by tuning adapter" or "channel not available. Contact your cable company". Rebooting the TA would sometimes resolve it, but only for an hour or two.

I went through standard Spectrum tech support, and over the course of 3 weeks i had 2 service truck rolls, 5 TA swaps and 2 CableCard swaps. None of it fixed the problem and when I tried to elevate the issue with Spectrum I got nowhere. Tech support said "all we can do is schedule another service call."

With no other option I decided to file an FCC complaint. 3 days later I got a message from the assistant to a C-suite level exec at Charter telling me they received the complaint and that "it was elevated to the highest levels of leadership at Charter." Two days later I got a call from the technical lead at my local Spectrum office, and a day later he was on-site to troubleshoot the problem. He spent over 4 hours at my house on a conference call with at least 6 other people at the Spectrum NOC. In the end a simple reboot of a piece of equipment at their node solved the problem.

I will say that almost everyone I dealt with at Spectrum was great. From the beginning they genuinely wanted to solve the problem but they face two major challenges - first most of them don't know much (if anything) about CableCard/TA technology, which is not surprising as probably less than 1% of their customers use them. Secondly they are not empowered to elevate issues to the proper channels. I can understand not wanting to put every call through to Level 2 or higher, but the agents need to be empowered to elevate an issue when they recognize it's outside the standard array of problems. They could've saved hundreds or perhaps thousand of dollars in tech support time if they had just connected me with the people who know their system.

I guess the bright spot in all of this is that I met the tech supervisor in my area who is an absolutely great guy and knows their systems inside and out. So if I ever have an issue in the future he'll be my first call!


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## CopRock (Jul 13, 2014)

TYNY said:


> For anyone who stumbles across this thread as I did while searching for a resolution to Tivo and SDV issues with Spectrum please do what is suggested on the first page of this thread and file an FCC complaint. It works!
> 
> I have a 4-tuner Bolt with tuning adapter on Spectrum, which has worked fine for years. About a month ago I started having issues similar to other posters here - SDV channels would not tune, I'd just get a black screen and either "channel not provided by tuning adapter" or "channel not available. Contact your cable company". Rebooting the TA would sometimes resolve it, but only for an hour or two.
> 
> ...


Wish I had gotten this far with my complaint... Which city are you in? I'm in Spectrum NYC and had a similar experience before I made a complaint and no traction afterwards

Did you happen to know exactly which node was reset and who the tech talked to [phone numbers and such]? 
The last time I posted about this in January it was still giving me issues but then around the beginning of March everything was as normal as possible with CC/TA setup when like it was before TWC became Spectrum and thats when everything fell apart and Spectrum hasn't been too sharp with CC/TA and even took away a direct number for CC support making customers go through a phone tree and waiting times twice to get thru to CC support

Knowing what steps the tech took might help others in a similar bind especially since most techs no little outside of Cisco cable boxes 
Thanks


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## lprimak (Jun 30, 2019)

*SUCCESS* After 6+ years of battle, my Tivo / tuning adapter setup finally works!
TA: STA-1520 (Cisco)

Background: I am a long-time Spectrum (TWC) customer. I moved to Lincoln NE just over 6 years ago. I have multiple TiVos,
currently the ones hooked up to Cable are Premier XL and Bolt.
I never had much success with the tuning adapter. Over the past 6+ years, I have filed multiple FCC complaints,
literally had over 100 techs at my house.
They have rewired my whole house again and again in multiple combinations, but my TA performance was getting worse and worse.
At this time, I was at a point where I was rebooting TA every day and it wouldn't help (I had it hooked up on an internet-based power timer)

As a last-ditch effort before giving up on my Tivo / TA setup, I emailed the CEO of CableLabs so see if he could summon up any wizardry to help me.
His contacts at Spectrum found such a wizard, and he fixed it!

What it turned out to be is a misconfigured QPSK box at the cable plant. Currently I don't know much more details than that.
After they configured the QPSK box properly, TA started magically working!

Spectrum usually blames the issue on Tivo, here's how to avoid this:
I had them install their "older" cable box that uses QPSK instead of DOCSIS to communicate back to the plant.
That cable box failed in *exactly* the same manner as the TA, so Spectrum was no longer able to say that this is a "tivo problem"

Here is what I (and techs) tried and didn't work:
- Getting new TAs (went through about 30 of them)
- Amplifiers (both one-way and two-way)
- Attenuators (both one-way and two-way)
- All sorts of combinations of amplifiers and attenuators
- Plugging Tivo directly to the cable outlet vs. going through the TA
- Playing where the cable modem was plugged in

What the "wizard" told me matters (and doesn't)
FDC (forward data channel) dbmV can be around 5-10db below what QAM (content feed) is,
for example: the QAM dbmV is 1 and FDC dbmV is -8 (that's normal)
FDC S/N (signal-noise ratio) is important. It should be on the low-to-mid 30s - mine is 32-36 (normal)

The issue was the RDC (return data signal) that was not configured strong enough.
The cable plant continuously tells the TA through the FDC how "loud" the RDC should be.
When not working, my RDC dbmV was fluctuating between 20s and 30s.
After the QPSK fix, my RDC was steadily in the high 40s, same as cable modem RDC.
The key is that the RDC level should be similar to what your cable modem's RDC is.
My cable modem RDC is 48, and (after the fix) the TA RDC was around 48 as well.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Yet another example of what a fiasco the TA has been, especially the CISCO ones that TWC/Spectrum mostly uses. I happily said goodby to my TA, and Spectrum Cable TV almost two years ago. I wanted to take it out in a field and crush and burn it but they would have charged me a hefty unreturned equipment fee. Actually about 7 months ago when I went to turn in my cable modem they tried to claim I had never turned in my CableCARD. Luckily, having anticipated such sleazy ineptitude (which is normal for Spectrum), I had the receipt for the CC with me. They didn’t even apologize.

A tip for those planning to return Spectrum equipment: They have a deal with UPS where you can turn it in at a UPS store and they will ship it to Specturm free, and provide you with a receipt including serial numbers. Can save you much aggravating time in a Spectrum store.


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