# Acquiring Channel stuck at 89%



## mc_hotmail (Aug 15, 2014)

I have spent weeks on this Premiere with a 500GB drive, countless times of cable card pairing, guided setup and twice "Clear and Delete Everything". It is definitely not a tuning adapter problem, because I have two plus another working Premiere unit (320GB). Here are the symptoms:

0) Cable card is properly paired, no question there.

1) Without the cable card, I can view unencrypted standard and HD channels (over-the-air equivalents).
2) Insert the cable card, click LiveTV or Zoom, I the blue background screen with the "Acquiring Channel Information" message and a 89% progress bar forever (no change overnight).

This is different from "Acquiring Channel" stuck at 50% or 75% issue.

I mounted partition 9 of the hard drive, combed through the /log/tvlog file and found the following 4 lines. The working TiVo's log has no mention of "NpkBooting" and has "LiveTunerResult ALLOWED" instead of "DENIED". This is a galactic long shot, which only an anonymous TiVo programmer can diagnose. Am I lucky?

Thanks

--mc

Aug 14 22:03:00 827407/14 TvVideoPolicy[1339]: {367199} LiveTunerRequest() - Request: sesId 64 reason WatchLive assoSesId 0 tsn 7460001<my tsn>, nExtTuners: 0, nCCStreamsDecryptable: 6
Aug 14 22:03:00 827635/14 TvVideoPolicy[1339]: {367199} Tuner: 0 status: 0 enabled: Y curTsn: 7460001<my tsn> lastTsn: - isChSame: N interactionTime: 0m 0s ExclLck: sesId 54 reason NpkBooting assoSesId 0, ActProxies AP0: sesId 54 reason NpkBooting assoSesId 0,
Aug 14 22:03:00 827839/14 TvVideoPolicy[1339]: {367200} Tuner: 1 status: 0 enabled: Y curTsn: - lastTsn: - isChSame: N interactionTime: 1m 54s ExclLck: sesId 54 reason NpkBooting assoSesId 0, ActProxies AP0: sesId 54 reason NpkBooting assoSesId 0,
Aug 14 22:03:00 828025/14 TvVideoGuts[1339]: {367200} LiveTunerResult DENIED Proxy:64 0x1d0019


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

Have you tried overwriting the drive with a "fresh" drive image?


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## mc_hotmail (Aug 15, 2014)

Assuming "fresh" means an image not related to this particular TiVo unit, I have not. For that, I have couple of questions:

1) Where do I find such thing?
2) Will it preserve my Tivo Service Number (TSN)?

I would think TSN is burned into the ROM but want to confirm.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Have you tried running Guided setup again with the cable card installed and paired?

Normally, you run Guided Setup with the cable card later option and again after pairing the card.


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## mc_hotmail (Aug 15, 2014)

Yes, I tried Guided Setup countless time, with or without cable card inserted, before or after pairing.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

mc_hotmail said:


> Assuming "fresh" means an image not related to this particular TiVo unit, I have not. For that, I have couple of questions:
> 
> 1) Where do I find such thing?
> 2) Will it preserve my Tivo Service Number (TSN)?
> ...


1) check Tivo Community Underground

2) TSN is on your motherboard. 
a new image will require repairing the cablecard.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

To debug the problem, keep TA off of the system.
(non SDV channels should work)

make sure your Tivo coax does not go through the TA and is split before the TA. ( the TA kills the signal ).

Check OOB SNR in DVR diag. 
( settings -> account & sys info -> DVR Diag .... scroll down).

you may have too weak or too strong a signal....

check info against your other working system.
(should also check the cabecard menu for status )


If you think the image on the disk is the problem (not likely)
you can dup the working image on your other system and expand
with jmfs software on your current disk or another disk.


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## mc_hotmail (Aug 15, 2014)

shamilian,

a) Without the cable card, I can see SDV and OTA HD channels (see my thread opener).
b) I have two sets of (TiVo+TA+CC), thus easy to eliminate TA problem by swapping TA.
c) OOB SNR is 2db, on both sets of (TiVo+TA+CC).
d) I have a signal amplifier installed by Time Warner before the sole cable coming into the house/splitter.

I restored a foreign backup onto the hard drive, finished a guided setup then a Clean and Delete Everything. None of it helped, still stuck at 89% when the cable card is inserted (properly paired).

My conclusion after 3+ weeks: something wrong with its cable card interface hardware. Unless I can have a TiVo programmer look at the tvlog file, this unit is dead.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

I checked a couple of TiVos OOB levels, one is 37db and one is 75db.

The OOB is at 75Mhz which is lower than most of the other frequencies on most systems. Check that the amp works that low...

you can just try as an experiment getting rid of the SDV/splitter that should boost the level by 3db this may raise the level enough....


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## Westinflorida (Jul 9, 2016)

This is a very old thread, but I was hoping to see if you ever found the issue with this Premiere and the 89% problem. I have spent countless hours on the phone with Cox and had 2 truckrolls with clueless servicemen. I even upgraded the hard drive just to see... Still no luck with this. Have read many entries about similar issues with newer models. Everything goes as planned through Guided setup until the Cablecard and TA come into the picture. Have tried several cards and multiple TAs.
Thank you in advance for any input and please let me know if I should've started a new thread.


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## tivoyahoo (Sep 4, 2003)

there are some other threads that are more recent on the getting stuck issue. did you make any progress? does the premiere work fine in ota mode? does cox blame it on your tivo hardware?

did cox look at the vct id in diagnostics to make sure the cable card is on the right head end and pulling the channel map for the headend it's connected to? you can search vct_id or vctid or vct id on this issue. just throwing it out there as something to eliminate if it's getting stuck on acquiring channel information.


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