# Pixelation & dropped recordings becoming too frequent



## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

We had the experience from heck getting our Roamio installed and working correctly through Cox Cable here in Omaha. It took 1.5 months but finally Cox got their tuning adaptors upgraded to accommodate the 6 tuners and I thought all was finally well. Unfortunately over the past month we've had more and more problems with pixelation. When it hits, it hits every channel and every tuner. It can go on for just a few minutes to a few hours. If it is bad enough and Tivo is trying to record it will just drop the recording all together. If it gets really bad we'll lose TV signals altogether. It is now happening where I am losing 2-3 recordings per week and I am getting aggravated all over again! 

I've tried searching here in the forums but I'm not finding others posting about similar issues. I'm trying to decide if this would be a Tivo issue or if it would be possibly a cable card and/or tuning adaptor issue with Cox? Where should I begin to try and figure out the problem? What exactly causes pixelation?

Right now I'm looking at the the stupid V52 message floating around my screen after more pixelation and a lost recording and ready to throw the darn thing out the window. Any help is appreciated!

ETA: Rebooting doesn't help!


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Sounds like a service visit from Cox is in order. They'll want to check your signal levels and signal-to-noise ratio. More than likely either your signal level is way too low, or you've got noise on the line.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

LoadStar said:


> Sounds like a service visit from Cox is in order. They'll want to check your signal levels and signal-to-noise ratio. More than likely either your signal level is way too low, or you've got noise on the line.


We had the signal levels and everything checked about 150,000 times in the whole installation process with Cox. I lost count how many times they were out to the house. All levels are fine every time so I don't think that is the problem. Any other possibilities?


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

sheisler28 said:


> We had the signal levels and everything checked about 150,000 times in the whole installation process with Cox. I lost count how many times they were out to the house. All levels are fine every time so I don't think that is the problem. Any other possibilities?


Actually, what could happen around this time of year is something the cable guys term "suck out." The cold causes the cable to contract, which in turn causes it to pull away from the connectors, introducing noise on the line or potentially causing it to lose connection. Still is going to need a service visit to verify and fix that.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

LoadStar said:


> Actually, what could happen around this time of year is something the cable guys term "suck out." The cold causes the cable to contract, which in turn causes it to pull away from the connectors, introducing noise on the line or potentially causing it to lose connection. Still is going to need a service visit to verify and fix that.


Well that would make sense if it just started now that it got cold but it's been happening ever since we got all the activation stuff done in October. It's just progressively getting worse and worse. Since we've had the line checked so many times with the most recent being the end of October I am just thinking it must be something else? Never had any issues with this same line on our old Tivo.

Could it be a bad cable card? Would it be helpful to swap out the card for a different one?


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

When I had intermittent signal problems it was caused by squirrels chewing on the line from the pole to the house. The cable company buried a new line to the house and fixed my problem. The guys from the cable company don&#8217;t like to climb poles to check the wire so best of luck in getting them to check it.


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## pwlcheng (Dec 6, 2007)

Did they check the signal level 150,000 before or after they install the TA? and did they check the level on the coax cable that connects to the Tivo?
Every splitter in the house degrades the signal somehow so the important thing is to check the signal level at the point where the cable connects to your TiVo, not just at the entry point outside your house.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

Well here we are again tonight with no signal. A big night of shows lined up to record too. 

Yesterday was the coldest day of the year so far and we had a fine signal all day so not sure that cold is the issue?

When the Tivo was working yesterday we checked all the signal strengths and SNR's for all 6 tuners. It was 90% and 36 for all which is exactly where Cox and Tivo has determined it should be at.

We've checked the cable line coming into the house and it is fine. All the digital cable is working fine on all the TV's. The only TV not getting a signal is the TV with the Roamio.

Called Tivo support and they were ZERO help. Said there was nothing they could do since there was no signal.

The big issue with the whole installation/activation was a software issue with Cox's tuning adaptor and prior to that an issue with old cable cards being issued by Cox. I am starting to wonder if we are still dealing with residual issues caused these larger issues?

Are there any other Cox customers out there having issues like ours? I swear this Roamio/Cox Cable issue is going to be the death of me! LOL!


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Have you tried taking the Roamio to one of the rooms that you don't have problems in? Keep everything else the same, especially all the coax cables.

Edit: before you do that, can you go into the Tuning Adapter Diagnostics (Settings & Messages > Settings > Remote, CableCARD, & Devices > Tuning Adapter > Tuning Adapter Diagnostics) and see what the FDC, RDC, and Tuner signal strengths are (second page, labeled in dBmV)?


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

LoadStar said:


> Have you tried taking the Roamio to one of the rooms that you don't have problems in? Keep everything else the same, especially all the coax cables.
> 
> Edit: before you do that, can you go into the Tuning Adapter Diagnostics (Settings & Messages > Settings > Remote, CableCARD, & Devices > Tuning Adapter > Tuning Adapter Diagnostics) and see what the FDC, RDC, and Tuner signal strengths are (second page, labeled in dBmV)?


Sorry I didn't see your post since we were hung up on the phone with Cox!

We have tried hooking it up to a different cable jack and have the same issues.

After talking with Cox they've determined that it most likely is a faulty tuning adaptor and/or cable card since all other lines (and internet) to the house are functioning fine and all recent line testing has come out fine. We completely unhooked the tuning adaptor (so don't have the data you asked for) to see if it would work (minus those particular channels of course) that didn't help at all so we're thinking it is most likely a faulty cable card and we're going to try swapping it out for a new one. Dh is going to stop by the Cox store tomorrow and hopefully they'll have the right ones that work with the Roamio! This evening (with TA disconnected) I was able to get the non-digital channels to come in with some minimal pixelation. Digitial channels are completely pixelized and Tivo won't record those at all.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

sheisler28 said:


> This evening (with TA disconnected) I was able to get the non-digital channels to come in with some minimal pixelation. Digitial channels are completely pixelized and Tivo won't record those at all.


You couldn't have been receiving non-digital channels. The Roamio completely lacks analog tuners. It's a digital-only device.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

tim1724 said:


> You couldn't have been receiving non-digital channels. The Roamio completely lacks analog tuners. It's a digital-only device.


Sorry meant HD. The channels that are broadcast on channel 5, 8, 9 for Abc, NBc, and such that are broadcast as non-HD are coming in but the same channels broadcast as HD on 1005, 1009, etc. are not coming in.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

My first Roamio Pro had the following issues:

Minor to Major Macroblocking upon reboot/restart, sometimes requiring pulling the CableCARD to resolve.
Daily missed recordings due to "No Signal" (I set-up 30 SDV SPs to rigorously test, 150 SPs total)
Recordings in Progress would never resume recording after a reboot/restart.
The first unit must have had a faulty tuner and/or signal amp. The replacement unit so far works perfectly and does not have the same issues.

I had replaced the CC and TA three times and swapped locations with my Elite, attempting to troubleshoot the first unit, and it exhibited the same issues in all cases.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

_Knocking on wood_ hoping we've maybe stumbled upon a fix. When my husband unhooked the TA the other night he noticed it was hooked up in an odd way. It was sticking in his mind so before he went to exchange the cable card at Cox yesterday he did some googling and looking at Tivo and found a diagram of how to hook up a TA to a Roamio. It was hooked up totally different than how ours was hooked up (by the Cox techs (3 of them!), not us). Instead of exchanging the CC he decided to try hooking up the TA the way Tivo suggested and low and behold perfect signal. It also brought the SNR down to 34 from 36. Now Tivo keeps telling us 34 is optimum but Cox fights this saying 34 is too low and it should be 36 or 37. It's been hooked up like this for 24 hours now running at 34 with a perfect signal with no pixelating at all. Fingers crossed that maybe we've discovered the issue? 

Husband claims the picture is more clear too. That may be his imagination.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

Okay totally jinxed myself. Problem is back. No recordings or signal at all again tonight. It's an every other day occurrence now. Cable card is being exchanged tomorrow.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

Tried 2 different cable cards and a new tuning adaptor. No go.:down:

Tivo is now sending out a new unit to see if that is the problem. I just can't get over the fact that it is so intermittent. Why does it come and go? If it's broke why doesn't it stay broke? Why does it seem to only break during primetime viewing, well most the time anyway. Seems we always have a signal in the morning and late at night.


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

Sounds similar to two problems I had. Are all channels causing problems or just a few?

On one problem I complained about signal problems and had two visits from the cable company to check my signal. Each time they claimed everything was within limits. Then I started having internet problems and called them again. This time a guy climbs my pole and checks my line drop from the pole to the house and found squirrels had chewed on the line and connections. He replaced the line and some connections from the pole to the house and it fixed both my signal both and internet problem. My internet problem made them look harder.

Another time I was getting signal break-ups but only on a couple of channels. I wrote down the effective channels and when I saw a company truck in the neighborhood I gave him the list. The cable guy found a bad filter in the neighborhood that was within the frequency range of the bad channels. So all of the effective channels were within the frequency of the bad filter. Make a list of the bad channels they may be within a frequency range of some filters out on the poles.

Bad connections/connectors. Bad lines. Bad filters.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

worachj said:


> Sounds similar to two problems I had. Are all channels causing problems or just a few?
> 
> On one problem I complained about signal problems and had two visits from the cable company to check my signal. Each time they claimed everything was within limits. Then I started having internet problems and called them again. This time a guy climbs my pole and checks my line drop from the pole to the house and found squirrels had chewed on the line and connections. He replaced the line and some connections from the pole to the house and it fixed both my signal both and internet problem. My internet problem made them look harder.
> 
> ...


All channels are out. We've had a little luck here and there with the non-HD basic ABC, NBC type channels but only intermittently.

All lines are underground so no squirrel culprits here either. All the lines have been checked running into the house and are fine.


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## dcpmark (Feb 8, 2006)

When I had similar problems it turned out to be simply a bad coax cable from the wall to the Tivo. This was discovered AFTER rebooting, new guided setups, replacing cable cards, switching out Tivos, etc.


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## sheisler28 (Mar 7, 2008)

dcpmark said:


> When I had similar problems it turned out to be simply a bad coax cable from the wall to the Tivo. This was discovered AFTER rebooting, new guided setups, replacing cable cards, switching out Tivos, etc.


Tried a different cable and also tried a different jack to the Tivo too. No luck.:down: Thanks though!


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