# Beyond frustrated, tivo will not get channels



## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

Hello,

Ever since I got the bolt I have had nothing but trouble. In fact, Tivo thought I had a bad tuner and sent me a replacement and I am getting the same issue. I have wow cable and have tried multiple cable cards and now even tivos to no avail. However, things work right in our Tivo premier. We have wow cable and certain SD and HD channels will not appear. In fact, the Tivo will say there is no Signal strength at all as there is no channel. Any help would be greatly appreciated as wow blames tivo and tivo blames wow.

Thank you!


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

cooper243 said:


> Hello,
> Ever since I got the bolt I have had nothing but trouble. In fact, Tivo thought I had a bad tuner and sent me a replacement and I am getting the same issue. I have wow cable and have tried multiple cable cards and now even tivos to no avail. However, things work right in our Tivo premier. We have wow cable and certain SD and HD channels will not appear. In fact, the Tivo will say there is no Signal strength at all as there is no channel. Any help would be greatly appreciated as wow blames tivo and tivo blames wow.
> Thank you!


Sounds bad. You are lucky to have something to compare with though. First, the obvious stuff: same zipcode and provider in System Information. Same guide display. Both boxes have Diagnostics (Premiere calls it TiVo box Diagnostics). So compare the Frequency, Program Number, Signal % and SNR on a bad channel and a good channel. Let's start there.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

Actually, the first troubleshooting step should be swapping the working cable card from the Premier to the new TiVo.

While I refuse to pay any blood sucking goons for cable service anymore, this forum has been rife with reports of a growing percentage of defective cable cards that those thieves just keep trying to foist off on one customer after another. Those companies do not really want to provide cable cards, and they do not care if you get a good one; maybe they are deliberately trying to make the customer's life so horrible that they will just give up and rent a cable co owned box? So when you do actually have one that you KNOW works, it becomes the gold standard to use when you have problems with any device that requires a cable card.

Make the cable company activate the new card in the now-working Premier, and the old card in the new Bolt. If the Premier still works with the new card, then great, leave it there and assume that the cable card is NOT the problem with the Bolt. THEN you can work on other tests.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

The last section of Diagnostics applies to the cable card. Compare the VCT ID, Channel List Received, and OOB Frequency. All should be the same.

To verify pairing, check the CableCARD Menu/Conditional Access: the parameter Val: V 0x02. The number only needs to be non-zero.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I would first move the new box to where the working premiere is. If it works then you have a cabling problem. If it doesn't work, install the card from the premiere and see if that works. You could also test the premiere at the location of the bolt and check out the card from the bolt as well.


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## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

I did switch the cable cards out and the "bad" one worked perfect in my premier. Yes, I do have the same zip code and cable company picked in both boxes. 

The cable company said I do not have to link the cable card to the specific TiVo, just my accounts which both are.

"So compare the Frequency, Program Number, Signal % and SNR on a bad channel and a good channel." The frequency is the same I believe on a bad channel. In fact, the signal % is a dash on the bad channels. 

I could not find the parameter. I know it's a user error. Thank you all!


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

The switch the box locations. Does the problem stay with the location.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

I installed a Bolt last week that wouldn't get one particular channel. The other TiVo was receiving it fine, so the Account Info seemed correct. After a bit of fussing, it was determined that it was one particular tuner wasn't working on the Bolt. All the other tuners were fine. A reboot cleared it up, but it left me nervous about that Bolt.

-KP


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

kpeters59 said:


> I installed a Bolt last week that wouldn't get one particular channel. The other TiVo was receiving it fine, so the Account Info seemed correct. After a bit of fussing, it was determined that it was one particular tuner wasn't working on the Bolt. All the other tuners were fine. A reboot cleared it up, but it left me nervous about that Bolt.
> -KP


I didn't think about a bad tuner. It's easy to test. Pick a bad channel then restart. All tuners will be on that channel. All data in Diagnostics should be the same.

Good catch.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

JoeKustra said:


> I didn't think about a bad tuner. It's easy to test. Pick a bad channel then restart. All tuners will be on that channel. All data in Diagnostics should be the same.
> 
> Good catch.


No need to restart for this test. Just open the Signal Strength screen and select the desired channel, then back out of that screen to Live TV - all tuners will be on the last channel selected. Another big reason to test the tuners this way is that the Signal Strength screen will sometimes show a picture when you cannot actually tune in that channel in Live TV.


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## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

I did switch the box and got the same issue. I am trying the "Test Channels" option and it says no available channels. However, a good number of our channels work. For example, channel 201 comes in crystal clear, I go to test channels and it says no available channels. 

Now this is weird, I go to one of the bad channels and everything is working fine? WTF????? I did try the channel on all tuners and they are all working fine.

Should I still have the cable guy come out tomorrow? 

I appreciate all the help!

Joe


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

cooper243 said:


> I did switch the box and got the same issue. I am trying the "Test Channels" option and it says no available channels. However, a good number of our channels work. For example, channel 201 comes in crystal clear, I go to test channels and it says no available channels.
> Joe


Please do not use the "Test Channels" procedure. In Channel Settings, use Signal Strength - Cable. Before performing the test, enter the channel 201 manually.

This has been asked before. Please check the CableCARD menu for Conditional Access. Is Val: Y 0x0n, with n non-zero. That means your card is paired.

Then please go to the Diagnostics and scroll down. The cable card stuff is at the end. Is VCT non-zero and Channel List received Yes?

Notice that in Diagnostics, all tuners have a channel, frequency and program number.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Here's a brief summary of what I asked. Your cable feed sends signals in a modulation called QAM. OTA signals are 8VSB. The cable card takes these QAM channels and makes the nice even number virtual cable channels for you. They are mapped with the Virtual Channel Table (VCT) which is location specific. My VCT is different than the VCT 10 miles from me. When a card is provisioned, it receives a list of channels you are allowed to received. That's why I don't get HBO. A card that was from a nearby location may "work" but it won't work right. It must be paired to your equipment and provisioned to your location and headend. Note that my cable feed needs a supervisor to change the VCT. Just calling in for pairing doesn't do it. You may not have that problem. WOW is pretty small. But so is my cable company.

Example of my CBS station:
Cable channel 2. Frequency 183MHz. Program number 7. QAM channel 8.7. SD
Cable channel 502. Frequency 123MHz. Program number 1. QAM channel 14.1 HD
The signal level is 90% and the SNR is 36dB.


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## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

Ok, I have an update and yet more problems. The cable guy came out and said the signal was to hot so we needed yet a different splitter. This solved the problem, until last night. Same issue, same channels!

At this point I am ready to not give wow another chance. Any further ideas?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

cooper243 said:


> Ok, I have an update and yet more problems. The cable guy came out and said the signal was to hot so we needed yet a different splitter. This solved the problem, until last night. Same issue, same channels!
> 
> At this point I am ready to not give wow another chance. Any further ideas?


Why did they put another splitter on it? they should have just used an inline attenuator to reduce the signal strength.


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## tlogue (Sep 29, 2010)

I am in the same boat. My Premiere works great. I had upgraded my other Tivo to a Bolt, so I've got 2 running. I've switched cards, runs, cables, floors, rooms and the issue stays with the Bolt. Losing program lock, v53 errors, v58 errors, pixilation - exactly the same issues described above. I was getting ready to toss the Bolt in a closet and swap with an Atlantic Broadband system (they use Tivo!!)

I was one of the early adopters and have had Tivo since the inception. I'm sad....


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## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

Yet another update. Wow came out and said it was my TiVO, yet we moved the TiVO with the same cable card to another location and everything worked great. He then replaced the splitter, the line into the outlet, and still the same issues. Would anybody have any further clues? The inline attenuator did not help at all. We had Spectrum come out and that was another disaster. We are already switching back to wow.


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## hankuro (Nov 7, 2009)

tlogue said:


> I am in the same boat. My Premiere works great. I had upgraded my other Tivo to a Bolt, so I've got 2 running. I've switched cards, runs, cables, floors, rooms and the issue stays with the Bolt. Losing program lock, v53 errors, v58 errors, pixilation - exactly the same issues described above. I was getting ready to toss the Bolt in a closet and swap with an Atlantic Broadband system (they use Tivo!!)
> 
> I was one of the early adopters and have had Tivo since the inception. I'm sad....


Also in same boat. In fact, I could have written this exact message word for word as it applies to me perfectly. Except my perfectly working Premieres are gone and I'm on Optimum spending $200/month for pixelating service.


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## cooper243 (Dec 11, 2006)

So Wow came out several times and TiVO sent another replacement, even though they said it's not their box. Everything is working almost perfectly, except sometimes we will pause the bolt on live TV and we cannot play, rewind or fast forward what is on the screen. And since TiVO finally said yes one day after the warranty, we had to pay $50 or something like that. This is very frustrating and if we didn't have all lifetime/all-in we would have given up on the product.


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