# Is it the Bolt or the Fios signal?



## MisterW (Oct 7, 2016)

For several weeks, Fios channel 690 has not worked on our Tivo Bolt. Sometimes it's severely pixelated, but often it's just a black screen with a V52 error message saying there's no signal. This occurs on whichever tuner is tuned to 690-- the other channels are fine and read 90-92% signal strength. But whichever tuner is on 690 reads either 67% when it's badly pixelated, or no signal at all when it's a black screen. The same problem occurs on 752, which I am told is on the same frequency. This all would not be an issue if 690 was Home Shopping or some other throwaway, but it's Comedy Central, one of the few channels we like to watch regularly. I have another TV downstairs with a Verizon HD set top box, where 690 comes in OK, though sometimes marginal.

From multiple sessions with Verizon, on the phone, on line, and in person, I have tried the following troubleshooting steps:
-Changed the splitter between the ONT and the household coax
-Changed the coax between the ONT and the splitter
-Switched the Bolt and the Verizon box, whereupon 690 was still fine on the Verizon box but pixelated on the Bolt downstairs.

So it seems the Bolt is having trouble with 690, wherever in the house it's connected. The Verizon tech, who charged me $150 to determine that, believes the problems is in the Bolt. Does that seem plausible? It's only a few months old, so should be under warranty if I can convince Tivo. The other possibility, it seems, is that the 690 signal is barely strong enough for the Verizon box but too weak for the Bolt, but that seems odd because all the other channels come in strongly.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It's also possible it could be the ONT. WHen I had a bad ONT before it only caused issues with certain frequencies. SO most channels were fine but then some had a low signal.

Or a bad cable can cause an issue with a certain frequency. Just a bad connector or a crimp in the cable can cause issues with certain channels. I had that problem once because I let the Verizon tech terminate a cable. Which was a mistake. Once I put a compression connector on the cable myself, the problem was gone.


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## brandenwan (Nov 6, 2015)

That's Nick HD and Comedy Central HD. I've had no problems with mine.
Ask your neighbors since everyone has the same exact signal until it hits your ONT.
Echoing what Aaronwt stated, it could be the ONT itself, or possibly you have signal egress. Try replacing the cable going from the ONT to your Tivo. If there is a splitter, try replacing that next if replacing the cable doesn't do it. If you do all of that AND your neighbors with FiOS have no issues with those two channels, then you will know with almost certainty it is your ONT.


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## MisterW (Oct 7, 2016)

brandenwan said:


> That's Nick HD and Comedy Central HD. I've had no problems with mine.
> Ask your neighbors since everyone has the same exact signal until it hits your ONT.
> Echoing what Aaronwt stated, it could be the ONT itself, or possibly you have signal egress. Try replacing the cable going from the ONT to your Tivo. If there is a splitter, try replacing that next if replacing the cable doesn't do it. If you do all of that AND your neighbors with FiOS have no issues with those two channels, then you will know with almost certainty it is your ONT.


What do you make of the fact that when I switch the locations of my Bolt and my Verizon stb, the problem moves with the Bolt?


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## ctall (Oct 6, 2010)

I have the same exact problem! Just switched from a premiere to a bolt on Fios and now all channels are fine except for 690, which reads at a 67% signal and pixelates badly. (I am not home to check whether the problem affects 752 as well, but suspect it will). Everything was fine before the switch. Did you ever find a solution?


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## MisterW (Oct 7, 2016)

ctall said:


> I have the same exact problem! Just switched from a premiere to a bolt on Fios and now all channels are fine except for 690, which reads at a 67% signal and pixelates badly. (I am not home to check whether the problem affects 752 as well, but suspect it will). Everything was fine before the switch. Did you ever find a solution?


It's sort of a half solution: I just watch Comedy Central on 190, in standard resolution. It's galling, but it was becoming a wild goose chase getting 690 to work.


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## alexb (Jan 4, 2003)

I have a HD homerun and find whatever channel has an issue on TiVo also has issues at exact same moment, I know that's a silly way to troubleshoot but FYI

On a separate note comcast think the cable in walls from street to distribution point has a discontinuity causing random and very intermittent issues :-(


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## ctall (Oct 6, 2010)

Ok so I finally fixed this issue and wanted to share my solution. I was missing 690, 752, 554, and 717 on Fios with my Tivo Bolt. I understand these are high frequency channrls. I had had no previous issues with my Premiere prior to upgrading to the Bolt. Every other channel besides those 4 was pretty much fine apart from the occasional pixelation. 

Unable to fix it, I called for a Fios tech. The guy ended up replacing the ONT and then, much to my dismay, I lost every channel! Yes, searching for signal on every channel. This is with a r6 direct from the ont with a single splitter branching to the modem/router and the tivo. After several hours on the phone with a rep, the tech had exhausted all he could do
And left. I resolved to go back to my premiere, which I verified still worked. I wished I had not been so greedy as to try to get things in perfect working order when it mostly worked already. 

I didn't give up though. Later that night, I played around with the cables and found that by simply adding an extra splitter in place of a connector I was able to get all my channels to work. It was simple as that. I'm not an expert at this area, and I don't know exactly why what I did worked, but i did manage to fix what the techs could not. Hope this can help


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Sounds like the signal was too hot which is typical from the ONT. I needed an 8-way splitter from my ONT to reduce the super hot signal.

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk


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## Fant (Sep 1, 2016)

Any easy way to measure the signal? Without the TiVo equipment?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Fant said:


> Any easy way to measure the signal? Without the TiVo equipment?


Does your TV have diagnostics? The signal may be lower, but the SNR should match.

Even an encrypted channel has a signal.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Not all ONTs send out an equally hot signal. We had a channel outage problem similar to the OP's (but in our case it was ZERO signal on several channels, all on one QAM frequency) so they replaced our ONT (we were one of the first FiOS subs in NJ). Previously, I needed a 12db attenuator in front of an 8-way splitter to get the signal down to the high 90's...with the new ONT, I was able to remove the attenuator completely without pinning any of the tuners on either Roamio.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

MisterW said:


> For several weeks, Fios channel 690 has not worked on our Tivo Bolt. Sometimes it's severely pixelated, but often it's just a black screen with a V52 error message saying there's no signal. This occurs on whichever tuner is tuned to 690-- the other channels are fine and read 90-92% signal strength. But whichever tuner is on 690 reads either 67% when it's badly pixelated, or no signal at all when it's a black screen. The same problem occurs on 752, which I am told is on the same frequency. This all would not be an issue if 690 was Home Shopping or some other throwaway, but it's Comedy Central, one of the few channels we like to watch regularly. I have another TV downstairs with a Verizon HD set top box, where 690 comes in OK, though sometimes marginal.
> 
> So it seems the Bolt is having trouble with 690, wherever in the house it's connected. The Verizon tech, who charged me $150 to determine that, believes the problems is in the Bolt. Does that seem plausible? It's only a few months old, so should be under warranty if I can convince Tivo. The other possibility, it seems, is that the 690 signal is barely strong enough for the Verizon box but too weak for the Bolt, but that seems odd because all the other channels come in strongly.


I have the same issue ( same channel same signal levels) ....
I have an old BPON ONT. Has worked fine for years...
recently got 3 bolts....

Comedy central fios 690 (855Mhz) has a signal level of :
67% on bolt ( 3 bolts; does not change)
83% on roamio
85% on premier

all other channels seem to be about 92%...

I removed a 7db splitter in front of one of the bolts and the signal level did not change,
same 67%?

do bolts have a problem with high frequency tuning ?
is there some sort of problem bolt has at this frequency ?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

shamilian said:


> do bolts have a problem with high frequency tuning ?
> is there some sort of problem bolt has at this frequency ?


I can't answer that. I do have an idea. I was watching my signal levels circle the drain. I found that the bad levels were in a band. I (we) surmised that our feed had an "item" that was failing. The reduction was all on the lower VHF frequencies. My Roamio's signal, which is usually a solid 90% was dropping about 2% per day. This went on for over a week until someone called and they replaced the bad part. As for the possible bands ->North American television frequencies - Wikipedia so I would suggest mapping the frequencies of the problem channels. To the best of my knowledge a basic Roamio and Bolt will use their AGC to keep the signal at 90%. If it's below, it may be very much below. If its over 90%, it can't be reduced enough to keep the tuners happy.

I also have a Premiere (and TV) on the same cable feed. Only difference between the three devices is the last three feet of RG-6. Both the TV and Premiere have a signal level in the 80 to 85% area. It can be tedious to check the frequency for many channels. It might help to use the Channel Settings|Signal Strength since it is quicker than System Information and you can watch AGC try to adjust the level. I hope this helps.

Quick answer: maybe channels with frequencies near Comedy Central are low also, but you never watch them. I never watch the Justice channel, but it's the same frequency as my CBS channel.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> I also have a Premiere (and TV) on the same cable feed. Only difference between the three devices is the last three feet of RG-6. Both the TV and Premiere have a signal level in the 80 to 85% area. It can be tedious to check the frequency for many channels. It might help to use the Channel Settings|Signal Strength since it is quicker than System Information and you can watch AGC try to adjust the level. I hope this helps.
> 
> Quick answer: maybe channels with frequencies near Comedy Central are low also, but you never watch them. I never watch the Justice channel, but it's the same frequency as my CBS channel.


The AGC certainly make things more confusing.... I could not get the signal on the the channel ( 855Mhz ) to go above 67%, after adding 16db attenuation I got the signal to go to 65% but no difference in RS uncorrected performance. (Tried adding a Moca filter which had no effect.)

I found that VH1 was at 861 MHz and it has 85% signal and no drops at all....
( so the problem is not a high frequency issue but a notch only affecting 855Mhz )

BTW this has been plaguing Tivos on FIOS for years now a google search revealed many of similar complaints on dslreports and tivo forums. Always the same channel.

I think there is some sort of bug in the tuner code at approx. 855MHz. 
(RS corrected on bolt seems to be either not reported or not implemented)

Tivos tuners are far less robust than Motorola and the bolt took a step back from Roamio or Premier tuners.

For now I am not calling FIOS service, I don't want to get $150 bill to have them tell me the problem is the Tivo Bolt. ( I will have my Roamio record comedy central )


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

shamilian said:


> (RS corrected on bolt seems to be either not reported or not implemented)
> Tivos tuners are far less robust than Motorola and the bolt took a step back from Roamio or Premier tuners.


Bolt and basic Roamio always display zero for RS Corrected. We can't tell if they are counted. 
I don't have a Bolt, so I can't compare it to a Roamio.

I have cable internet. My modem has 16 channels. Channel 1 at 735Mhz always gets corrected errors. Only that one frequency. It may be from cell phones. I used to have a Vizio TV near my router & modem. It would cause my modem to reboot. I gave the TV to charity. Electronics can be fun.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

Diana Collins said:


> Not all ONTs send out an equally hot signal. We had a channel outage problem similar to the OP's (but in our case it was ZERO signal on several channels, all on one QAM frequency) so they replaced our ONT (we were one of the first FiOS subs in NJ). Previously, I needed a 12db attenuator in front of an 8-way splitter to get the signal down to the high 90's...with the new ONT, I was able to remove the attenuator completely without pinning any of the tuners on either Roamio.


Tivo added an Automatic Gain Control ( AGC ) so that there is no need for attenuators any more.
But different brands of ONTs do have different signal levels.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

shamilian said:


> I have the same issue ( same channel same signal levels) ....
> I have an old BPON ONT. Has worked fine for years...
> recently got 3 bolts....
> 
> ...


I tried connecting bolt directly to ONT. No difference.

So
3 bolts get signal 67%
2 roamios get signal 83%
4 premiers get 85%

A friend in a town nearby gets 90% signal on that channel, so it is not the level being sent from the Head End or the bolt at that frequency. That leaves noise....that only affects bolts...

I tried calling Tivo and telling them, hopefully they would investigate and see why bolt does so poorly.
the CS rep said its a problem with your service, the "signal to the cablecard is too low" ( I let the cablecard thing slide.)

I pointed out that the same signal goes to roamios and premiers and he replied that the bolt version needs a stronger signal. and suggested a 3 way call with FIOS. I gave up talking to him at this point, I can talk to FIOS without a Tivo CS rep.

I have concluded that the signal level report by Tivo is nothing more than a dressed up SNR.
I can add or remove attenutation and not have that value change.

There must be some sort of noise at that frequency in my ONT/home that the older tivos can tolerate and the bolt can not.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

shamilian said:


> I tried connecting bolt directly to ONT. No difference.
> 
> So
> 3 bolts get signal 67%
> ...


Isn't that also comparing Apples to oranges. You are comparing three different model TiVos. So what one shows as 67% is not necessarily the same as as another model. I know all the channels I get from FiOS and from OTA have been able to be received by every model TiVo I've owned since the series 3. And while they would have different percentages for the signal strength if one had a steady signal the others did as well. If one had a signal issue then the other ones did too.

I don;t care what the signal strength shows on my TiVos. As long as the reception is consistent between boxes. If a channel has no problems, I don't expect the other TiVos to have an issue. And if a channel does have issues on a TiVo, then I expect other TiVos to also have an issue with it.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

shamilian said:


> Tivo added an Automatic Gain Control ( AGC ) so that there is no need for attenuators any more.
> But different brands of ONTs due have different signal levels.


Then someone should tell TiVo that. They routinely respond to any customer with 100% signal levels and/or SNRs above 37 who have reception problems with "Your signal is too strong" and recommend attenuation.

If ANY TiVo, directly attached to the ONT with no splitters or attenuators, doesn't show a signal level of 100% and an SNR in the low 40s you have a cable or ONT problem.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Isn't that also comparing Apples to oranges. You are comparing three different model TiVos. So what one shows as 67% is not necessarily the same as as another model. I know all the channels I get from FiOS and from OTA have been able to be received by every model TiVo I've owned since the series 3. And while they would have different percentages for the signal strength if one had a steady signal the others did as well. If one had a signal issue then the other ones did too.
> 
> I don;t care what the signal strength shows on my TiVos. As long as the reception is consistent between boxes. If a channel has no problems, I don't expect the other TiVos to have an issue. And if a channel does have issues on a TiVo, then I expect other TiVos to also have an issue with it.


And all 3 bolts have pixelation issues on this one frequency
and none of my other 6 Tivos boxes have issues.

On the bolt the bad channel has 67% "signal" (I do not think it is a level, just a different SNR)
and the next QAM channel has 85%.

All the other channels appear consistent +-2% except this channel on all the boxes...

apples = apples


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

shamilian said:


> And all 3 bolts have pixelation issues on this one frequency
> and none of my other 6 Tivos boxes have issues.
> 
> On the bolt the bad channel has 67% "signal" (I do not think it is a level, just a different SNR)
> ...


The only time I've had an issue like that with COmedy Central, channel 690, was when my ONT started having issues. But it affected a bunch of channels. Not just one. Some were still rock solid while others weren't even tunable.

My ONT was replaced and the problem was solved in my instance.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> The only time I've had an issue like that with COmedy Central, channel 690, was when my ONT started having issues. But it affected a bunch of channels. Not just one. Some were still rock solid while others weren't even tunable.
> 
> My ONT was replaced and the problem was solved in my instance.


In case other read I will post the results....

FIOS came out and the techs equipment showed signal levels were fine but there were errors on the frequency...

So he said he would replace the old BPON ONT with a new GPON ONT.

He first went to the box in the street and changed me from a BPON segment to a GPON segment,
leaving the old ONT in place. My video cleared up and the channels level went to 90%... no errors.

So the real problem was the line card for that BPON segment. The tech went ahead with a new ONT since I would 
not have internet without switching the ONT to a GPON ONT. And anyone on that BPON segment would still have 
a bad signal, if they had a bolt it would be a problem because the Bolts tuner can not handle any errors in the 
signal they would have pixelation....

The main reason I contacted Tivo was to let them have the opportunity to improve the tuner to the same level 
as their previous Tivo models, but I could not get past the first level of CS rep....


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