# Signal Issues on Bolt, No Signal issues on old equipment



## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

Installed a new Bolt this week and had issues with channels not working/pixelation. Cable company came out swapped out the card/tuning adapter and we were able to get all the channels working however still were getting the pixelation. Spoke to Tivo support and the signal strength was showing 0 after reading some forums found that this is common with tuning adapters so I went to the Cablecard diag screen and I found the SNR to be 27-29 and the Signal Strength to be around 70% which I know is low. Worked with the cable company and their equipment was showing SNR at 36-37 and they stated they had a reading of +3 on their equipment which they started was perfect, when we started it was +9 which the tech said was a bit high but within spec. He was pretty good with me the techs been out before in the past and earlier this year they replaced the lines coming into the house from the road however they still had a booster on the line, he said sometimes the boosters can cause more problems than they are worth and since the lines were replaced it probably was no longer needed so he removed that and that's when we dropped to +3 which he said was right where he likes the signal to be. I've spoken with Tivo and they just say it's a cable issues because the signal strength is too low. What can I do at this point to further test? The cable company is telling me everything is good and when I look at my Modem it's showing 37-38 SNR and my existing Cable Boxes are showing 36-37 SNR where as the Tivo shows 27-29 SNR on the same exact line. 

One other thing that I found strange that I forgot to mention the cable tech and I were messing around and we replaced the 2-way splitter we used for the tuning adapter/tivo with a 4-way with 7db loss instead of the 3.5db loss and when we do that I get the best SNR on the Tivo and I also get a little better signal when I do this. The tech found that a bit strange, I have the 2 way hooked back up right now

Right now the main cable line comes into the box on the outside of the house and goes into a 4 way splitter which then connects to my 3 DVRs and cable modem, besides the new 2 way splitter for the tunning adapter/tivo there are no other splitters in the house. The wiring is also all new RG6 I replaced it all last year when I moved it and ran it all out to the cable box outside so I cannot see that being the issue. Currently I'm using splitters supplied from the cable company. I'm open to any suggestions.


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

After another cable card and still the same issues I contacted Tivo again they told me try again cable card, I told them the SNR is low and asked if that could be due to the cable card they again told me that it's a signal issue and to contact the cable company. When I explained that the SNR is good on my modem and my existing Motorola DVR and told them the signals they again complained that the SNR was too high on that equipment and that it should be no more than 35. I explained on the Bolt it reads 29 which then they stated was too low and went back to it being a signal issue and recommended another cable card. However they could not tell me if a cable card could affect SNR and I've read so many forums that I'm a bit cross eyed at this point. They insisted the box was not the issue and refused to do an RMA. So at this point I decided to give up and requested to return the equipment under the 30-day money back policy they sent me over to the returns department and after explain my issues they promptly issued me an RMA for the bolt and suggested I give a new box a shot. I'm a bit skeptical if this is the issue and/or if I just need to keep getting cable cards unfortunately the closet store for my cable company is a 40 minute drive so swapping the cards isn't a fun process especially considering it seems to be a 15-20 minute wait each time I get there.

I did get a follow up call from the cable company last night suggesting a possible "special update" that could be preformed by Tivo on the device. The tech told me he ran into it with a bolt a couple months back and Tivo had to send an update to the specific box due to a problem they were having and it was directly related to the cable provider "Charter" the tech could not remember the exact issue he just had asked me if I had one of the new ones that has the "curve" on the box. Any one hear of this and may this be something to look into further? And/or do I Just need to keep playing with cable cards pretty much everything comes in at this point just getting pixelation and cannot get higher than 70% on the Signal Strength.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

How do you have the cable connected to the TiVo? Do you have it going to the TA, and then from the TA's output to the TiVo? Or do you have a splitter before the TA with one side going to the TA and the other going to the TiVo? 

If you're using the TA's passthrough then that could be causing the issue. The passthrough ports on those things are terrible and can cause a serious degradation of the signal. Try doing it with a splitter like described above and see if that helps at all.


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

Dan203 said:


> How do you have the cable connected to the TiVo? Do you have it going to the TA, and then from the TA's output to the TiVo? Or do you have a splitter before the TA with one side going to the TA and the other going to the TiVo?
> 
> If you're using the TA's passthrough then that could be causing the issue. The passthrough ports on those things are terrible and can cause a serious degradation of the signal. Try doing it with a splitter like described above and see if that helps at all.


Funny enough I was getting a slightly better signal doing the passthrough. I'm using a splitter as per guidelines, but the cable tech and I found that if we use a 4-way with 7db loss that we would get a little better signal still can't surpass 29SNR though or 70% signal but it definitely was better.

I also completely bypassed the tuner took the splitter out and plugged in the Tivo direct and cannot get more signal, not sure how that affects the signal with the tuning adapter disconnected but I'd assume that I'd just lose "switched" channels?

Another fyi the first cable card was not getting full signal so installed a second one and after that did a restart of the guided setup.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's possible your signal is too hot. Maybe you need to try splitting it again and see if a reduction in the signal helps.

There are also special devices called attenuators that reduce the signal strength as well.


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

Dan, your on to something and I think that is why I was noticing better signal when using the 4-way vs a 2-way. If I take the line coming off the two that goes to the Tivo and add an additional 2-way going to the Tivo my signal goes from 67%/28SNR on a good station to 75%/30SNR I cannot surpass this with any combinations I tried including multiple different 2-ways, etc. adding another two way just starts to degrade and basically puts be back at where I started. So were still low... So do I call the cable company back do I buy a couple different attenuators? What would you recommend?


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

FYI I currently do not have a MOCA filter yet, however for the purpose of this testing I've not activated MOCA so would a filter also adjust this. Also I noticed tuner 2-4 do not seem to be getting the same affect They are topping out at 70% and 28SNR. I did noticed if I go further down the OOB SNR is 33db not sure what that means?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

You might want to try a real attenuator they work better then splitters. I think there are even ones with an adjustment so you can change the amount of attenuation until you find the perfect level.


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

Dan, Good news got the replacement Bolt in, hooked it up and signals are perfect! The SNR is a little high per Tivo (36SNR) however I'm a network tech by trader and I was always taught that a higher SNR was better and really don't understand how a better SNR could cause a problem. I'm showing 90% signal and 36SNR, also this is after I disconnected the extra splitter with the extra splitter I was seeing 34SNR and 85% signal so it was doing exactly what I'd expect it to do!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's my understanding that the Roamio and Bolt have internal amplifiers, so a strong signal going in can be over amplified and cause a "hot" signal. That's thy TiVo will sometimes suggest a splitter or attenuator. But in your case it seems it was just a bad TiVo. Glad you got it working.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

With cable, a signal of 90 and SNR of 36 is perfect. Don't tell TiVo. But you may find your box doesn't count RS Corrected errors. You can't have everything.


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

Glad to hear it, Tivo support was a nightmare on this issue and honestly even having the 3 other devices showing different signal I was second guessing myself on the replacement especially considering I had to basically get disgruntled and tell them I wanted to return the product. Plus they really didn't give me any trouble on the return the guy even asked me you sure you want to try another box or do you just want to return it for your money, I don't even think he was convinced it was going to work.

I'm going to hook up a mini later tonight with MOCA, I read on the internet that a MOCA filter is not absolutely necessary with cable tv however is still recommended. I also read that you need splitters that can handled 1675mhz however I've been told most normal splitters will work just fine. Any insight on these two items I assume worst case if I have trouble I can always add a filter and swap the splitters?


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## TBoyd (Apr 9, 2000)

Not EXACTLY the same issue but seems to be related. May I piggyback here?

My buddy just got a Bolt (not +) and it worked super for the first 6 weeks. A few days ago 3 channels started pixelating on the Bolt but not on an older Premiere in the bedroom. MOCA configured too. 

Tivo suggested the signal was too low (65% vs 80% needed) so he called out Comcast and they apparently replaced a bunch of wiring and stuff outside at the box (boosting signal strength?). He lost 23 channels totally and 15 more are pixelated. -- Needless to say Tivo and Comcast spun up the finger-pointing engine to high speed leaving my buddy waving his arms in the air and cussing!

Today he got a Comcast guy out who understands Tivo and he suggested that Bolts are hyper-sensitive to signal strength and slapped a 3 dB attenuator on the cable to the Bolt. They got all the channels back but 2 local broadcast channels are now pixelated (too hot?). He tried a 10dB but it was too strong and a 6 dB wasn't right either. 

1. Does this all sound logical?

2. Wondering how we can get from 98% success over the finish line to 100%? Comcast only has 3, 6 and 10 dB filters. I'm wondering if he can buy compatible filters on-line in other strengths and we can daisy-chain two together to get something like 7 or 8 dB. Filters that you can adjust? -- Can you suggest the right specs to buy or even a link?

3. Can a user adjust signal strength by channel on the Bolt? 

4. Any idea why this whole thing started off without my buddy changing anything? Tivo SW push? Comcast changing something without notification?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

T


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## gssieg (Dec 3, 2016)

TBoyd,

It sounds a bit different as it wasn't DOA but otherwise sounds really similar I was finding by attenuating 3db I could get about a 5% boost but anything more and it would begin to drop again. Charter was stating my signal was at a +3 which I hear is just about perfect. Take a look at your modem and see what the SNR is on it. You should be able to open up a webpage to it and see the signal strength. I also noticed when I was having issues that the MOCA bridge kept disconnecting on the new one I'm not having any issues with the MOCA. I can tell you from my experience with TIVO tech support good luck I'm crossing my fingers taht this keeps working!


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

This thread is a few months old, but I thought I would chime in that I had a problem with a brand new Bolt + right out of the box. I went ahead and installed the Bolt + the day before the Charter tech (who is a long time Charter tech trained on TiVo and CableCard installation and had installed my Roamio Pro and old Premier XL4 two years ago when we moved here from another town) was coming out to install a new firmware Arris CableCard (the Bolt + replaced a Premier XL4 and had an old firmware Motorola CableCard) so that it could download the latest firmware and such.

Once the tech arrived, he installed a 3db attenuator, as he did when he installed my Roamio Pro (since I live in a small town, and there are only two CableCard customers these days, including me, he remembered that he had to do that when he installed it) and called to get the CableCard paired and the existing tuner adapter (which has the latest six stream firmware) installed, we noticed that the CableCard was not getting a signal from the head end. He tested for the signal level and it was 36db. This matched up with the Premier's 36db. The tuning adapter upstream and downstream signal reported good. He had the CableCard tech on the phone do an unpair and repair and hit the CableCard, still no signal from the head end. Then he removed the 3db attenuator and replaced it with a 6db attenuator, had the tech on the phone do a unpair and repair and hit the CableCard again, still no signal from the head end. He tried a final time with no attenuators, rinse and repeat, and still no joy.

So I called TiVo tech support while the Charter tech was here and we went through the whole wasted process of repeating the guided install and still nothing. Of course, the TiVo support person tried to point the finger at the Charter for a "low signal." The Charter tech got on the phone and told the TiVo support rep that the signal was fine, that an existing TiVo Premier XL 4 was originally installed on the same cabling and there was not an issue. They went round and around for a few minutes, continually telling the TiVo rep that the tuner or CableCard module on the Bolt + had to be defective. In frustration, he put me back on the phone with the TiVo rep. I told the TiVo rep that this Bolt + was new straight from the box and obviously either the CableCard module or tuner module in the Bolt + was defective. About that time, we heard a loud squealing sound from the Bolt + and it shut down. I unplugged it for 30 seconds, and plugged it back in. It ran for about 30 seconds and it shut down again. I noticed that the Bolt + was extremely hot. The TiVo tech said that this was not a good sign. Duh. So he processed a RMA for me to ship the Bolt + back prepaid and get a replacement.

After I got the replacement Bolt +, installed the 3db attenuator just in case, and I went through setting it up without the CableCard and tuning adapter then I installed the CableCard and tuning adapter and called Charter tech support and we were able to get the replacement Bolt + paired to the CableCard and make sure the correct account billing codes for my program packages in their system matched the new CableCard serial number and the process took less than five minutes. Repeated the guided setup, and everything was fine. Signal strength is 35db and no problems with any channels. I can only imagine how I could have been able to get a replacement Bolt + if the original one had not gone belly up. I hope the Bolt + will be as reliable as my Roamio Pro.


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## scottchez (Dec 2, 2003)

I had a Cable Tech out and we found for the Bolt+ which has an Amp for the Six tuners, you can try for a Signal Level of 99% on the Tivo Diag Screen, some 100% is OK but don't go over. 
Added a Three Ways splitter that goes into a Two Way splitter to get there.
Test are showing the SNR of Higher is better on the Bolt due to the Amp, so 39 40 and 41 also also now good. 
Some say the SNR on the BOLT + the higher the better, others say the SNR is not really SNR on the Diag screen it is really the MER reading so Higher is good.
CONCLUSION focus on the Signal Level, not too low and not too high is Key, For me I got it at 99 some 100, I never get any correctable errors.

TIP OF THE WEEK
watch out for those older Plasma TVs, they give off interference, keep Tivos away from them, like an other shelf or something if possible.


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