# Cable card not pairing, what would you do?



## almighty (Jun 17, 2001)

So I just re-activated my Tivo Premiere XL (2 tuner version) after growing tired of the HTPC experiment and using HD Primes. When I moved the cable card over to the Tivo, Charter entered the information I gave them (supposedly correcty) and the card will not pair to the card slot in the Tivo. On the conditional access screen I have:

Auth:S (good, means subscribed right?)
but
Val:? 0x0A (needs to be Val:V ...)

Charter is insistent on a truck roll. based on all the years experience I have had with cable card devices, it is my opinion that:

1) they have entered my info wrong somewhere (or the card has gone bad)
2) truck roll will do absolutely no good, short of installing a new card, which they could just FEDEX me cheaper than a truck roll.

What does everyone else think about this? Am I off base? I just dont have the 2-4 hours to sit around waiting for the truck roll, work is busy, life is busy. 

Appreciate feedback, thanks!


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

I think you should call back and try a different tech. I had the same problem with my Motorola CableCard in a Premiere recently where I had "Val: ?" and the card would not decrypt copy-protected content (non-zero CCI content). Over phone I asked Cox to properly pair my card and gave them all of the information:
CableCard ID
Host ID
Data ID
Cox tech entered the information and sent a hit but each time I got the hit the Data ID number would change, so I kept insisting he was sending the wrong kind of signal - I think a reset. Eventually he did something different (but wouldn't tell me what) where the Data ID no longer changed and then I got "Val: V" under Conditional Access and then everything tuned correctly from that point on.

So when you are on the call make sure you are looking at the "CableCARD Pairing" screen and provide the latest Data ID # and then watch that screen when they send a hit to see if Data ID # keeps changing. Until the # in their system matches the one you see the card will not be properly validated.

I wish I could give more specific information but I do believe there are different kinds of hits cable company can send while pairing a card and you have to get someone that really knows what they are doing to get it right. A truck roll is not really needed for that.


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## almighty (Jun 17, 2001)

Interesting.. So your DATA ID changed? I didnt know that was possible, and I've been going on the assumption that it hadnt changed in the process, but I guess I better check that to see if it is different than the number I supplied.

I agree a truck roll is a waste of time/money as this is all data entry unless the card has gone bad. And as the closest location from my house is 50 minutes away, shipping me a new card is much cheaper if the card has indeed failed.


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## almighty (Jun 17, 2001)

Well shoot that theory to bits, the DATA ID didnt change.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

almighty said:


> Well shoot that theory to bits, the DATA ID didnt change.


 I would still call back and check all 3 numbers with them and watch the "CableCARD Pairing" screen when they try to re-validate the card just to make sure DATA ID doesn't change. The other approach is have them send a RESET or whatever the signal is that should reset the card and update DATA ID just to make sure their hits are actually getting through.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

almighty said:


> Appreciate feedback, thanks!


If your system uses a tuning adapter.
Disconnect "it" from TiVo; both RG6 and USB cables.
Connect TiVo directly to incoming cable.

Then call for a pair hit.

If not; never mind...


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## almighty (Jun 17, 2001)

Found the issue. Both the UMatter2Charter team (their online CSR's) and the local headend tech couldnt seem to type in the DATA ID correctly. Luckily, I have a friend that works for Charter in Marketing, and he had me call directly into one of the tech guys at one of the super-headends that has cleared up issues for him in the past, and he had it fixed within 2 minutes. Really a shame that something so simple caused this much issue, and that they wanted (insisted) to do a truck roll for no reason.


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## Big_Craig (Oct 5, 2012)

I am having a similar issue with my new Tivo Premiere. The conditional access page is showing Val:? and I've had them pair the card several times. My older Series 3 had no issues and shows the Val:V. Thanks for the info on Data IDs


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## vawlb (Apr 6, 2014)

Made various calls to Cox support, finally connected with Carl and the problem was solved.

We had two Tivos with cablecards and tuning adapters that worked fine. The third Tivo/cablecard/TA pair worked except no HBO. Tried changing cables, swapping out splitters, etc. Finally found forum posts that talked about VAL must contain "V". Mine had a "?". The other two setups had "V".

Some tech entered a wrong number in the cablecard info and that kept this cablecard/tuning adapter pair from pairing and verifying.

One more tech call and a diligent support person (Carl) picked up the problem, corrected it, re-pairedthe cards and all is fine.

Thanks to Carl! Good job.

I know this is an old post but the problem still occurs.


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## miadlor (Sep 4, 2003)

Always keep calling back until you get a knowledgeable rep. The posers will always be over polite to disguise they're clueless.
I did tech support for 7 years at a cable company (don't boo me).
There is usually only a very small handful of reps (I was one) that actually knows what's going on with cable cards never mind everything else.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I moved my cable card from my pc to a TiVo roamio. I could not get the card working so they sent out a truck to fix it. took the guy 90min to it get working while he was bashing TiVo the full time.

he sure didn't like TiVo.



almighty said:


> So I just re-activated my Tivo Premiere XL (2 tuner version) after growing tired of the HTPC experiment and using HD Primes. When I moved the cable card over to the Tivo, Charter entered the information I gave them (supposedly correcty) and the card will not pair to the card slot in the Tivo. On the conditional access screen I have:
> 
> Auth:S (good, means subscribed right?)
> but
> ...


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

tootal2 said:


> ...he sure didn't like TiVo.


Several reasons for that -- they're instructed to push their own DVR solutions (which usually suck eggs compared to TiVo); they don't know what they're doing when it comes to CableCARDS (usually the case); they're given a set protocol to follow for "troubleshooting" regardless of whether it will help with the CableCARD problem.

I had two Mediacom techs come out to troubleshoot a CableCARD problem even though I insisted it was not the problem. They spent several hours replacing cable from the pole all the way into the house, plus connectors, etc. It was ridiculous. I finally got a hold of Mediacom Chad (who monitors their social media), and he fixed the issue in minutes because he knew what had to be done. It's always a crap shoot when it comes to CCs....


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## ChitownCraig (Mar 5, 2015)

With comcast it took me about ten phone calls to finally find the right person that knew what they were doing. It ended up being a wrong letter in the id. I thought charter would have better customer service.


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