# Verizon FiOS dropping channels



## fhughson (Mar 22, 2007)

This is not really a TiVo problem, although my TiVo (specifically, the View Recording History feature) was the key to diagnosing it!

We live in central NJ and have Verizon FiOS. On Monday (March 1), we started losing channels (things like Food Network HD, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon) for hours at a time. They come back, and then they disappear (i.e., go black) again. Sometimes it's just one channel, sometimes it's several.

Verizon customer service was astonishingly unhelpful when I talked with them yesterday. They tried to convince me I don't get those channels anymore, which is ridiculous (I've gotten them for years, and still do, albeit intermittently at the moment). Also, they told me it was impossible for me to find out what my current channel line-up is, which seems even more ludicrous; what kind of service provider refuse to divulge the service you're supposedly receiving?

Anyhow, my actual question is whether anyone else been experiencing the same problem this week....


----------



## Sapphire (Sep 10, 2002)

Well it can't be SDV, that's for sure. 

I'd say it's a CableCARD issue.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Wow. That borders on irresponsible and is totally absurd. Did you get a name? I would talk to a supervisor.

Do any of your neighbors have Fios? Checking with them first might be the best bet. See if they have noticed any problems.


----------



## mamosley (Apr 9, 2003)

I would probably check the channel line up on verizon.com/fiostv first. did you recently make any bundle changes? the new ultimate hd package does not include all the channels it did last year.


----------



## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

did you just upgrade to new internet speeds? if you did, you lost the old extreme bundle and were bundled to the 2010 extreme package. if you want all the channels, you have to have the Ultimate HD bundle.

it happened to a lot of people. go look at dslreports.com, people are experiencing almost the same thing as you.


----------



## fhughson (Mar 22, 2007)

Thanks for your replies and sympathy!

Not a cable card issue - both cable cards show the same thing during the "blackouts".

The channel line-up on the Verizon website is unchanged, and I did not request any package/bundle changes. Although the reps (there were three) told me that my package no longer exists (but were unable to tell me what would happen next). Kafka would be proud.

Checking with neighbors makes good sense!


----------



## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

I don't think any of those channels are Ultimate HD channels, nor would they be coming and going. It's probably just a messed up signal. You might check the diagnostics page.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

fhughson said:


> Kafka would be proud.


ROTFL:up:

If only he were alive today. . . . Maybe he got his inspiration when he tried to get his typewriter fixed. "Well, don't use the "e" key so much."


----------



## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

Damn right about Kafka and Surprizon. Maybe throw in a bit of Dante... abandon all hope ye who dial for verizon customer service. It's an absolute disaster of fingerpointing between different departments.


----------



## JohnBrowning (Jul 15, 2004)

Sounds like a local issue. Not seeing that here in DFW.


----------



## fhughson (Mar 22, 2007)

Resolution:

The first responder had it right: resetting the cable cards worked.

Verizon's not off the hook, though. None of the first three people I spoke with tried resetting the cable cards. Also unanswered is why they believed my channel lineup had changed - shouldn't they know this?


----------



## Doug G (Mar 3, 2005)

I've had this same thing happen to me on both my THDs. I ended up having to do a guided setup on one and the other all I had to do was reboot it. It would tell me channels were "unavailable" and signal strength would show "0". I bet it was this same thing you saw. Perhaps you could go into more detail about how to "reset" the CCs? I'm a bit leery to do anything like that for fear of messing them up and requiring a truck roll to get it fixed.

I've also had a separate problem where some channels (About 20&#37; of them) just disappear from my favorites list. Seems to coincide with lineup changes, although it doesn't happen every time. Really annoying and I'm sure Vz is at fault for this somehow as well. This also happened on both units and channel deletions were identical, so it had to have some common cause.


----------



## fhughson (Mar 22, 2007)

Verizon reset the cable cards while I was on the phone with them. Dunno how...


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

(Wasn't sure if I should start a new thread w/a better title)
Anyone else on have problems w/their FiOS channels above 100 today (5/5/10)? I'm in Redmond, WA. When I left for work this morning, everything was fine and I was last tuned to CNBC (channel 102). 

When I got home at 10 pm, I find that my Tivo HD is recording local channel 13 fine but having black screens on channel 120 (Discovery) and it seems everything above 100. The behavior is basically as if I had no subscription to those channels.

I'm on 11.0g-01-2-652 software and never had this problem w/this release or the 11.x releases prior. I've been using Tivo HD, only on FiOS w/the same CableCARD since end of 9/09.

I reboot of my TiVo fixed things. Anyone else hit this? Are there any messages in the DVR diagnostics or elsewhere that could give clues the next time I hit this? Of course, I can't find any sort of FiOS status page and was able to call Verizon.


----------



## HiRoller (Jan 10, 2004)

I started having a problem with Comedy Central HD (690) last evening. Signal strength is low, sometimes apparently below threshold to where it says "Channel not available". Channels on either side seem fine.

After rebooting, I have the channel again, but strengths are still low, and it shows artifacts on one of the two tuners. Will likely call Verizon tomorrow, but somewhat reluctant to get them involved because they just don't know how to handle Tivo's and cablecards.


----------



## acvthree (Jan 17, 2004)

Well, that really depends.

The techs I've had here at the house were very knowledgeable about Tivo (faster with the remote than I am and very familiar with the screens). After two years of flawless operation, a few months ago I suddenly lost a few channels. I called Verizon and the phone tech immediately re-initialized the cable cards to fix the problem. He said they had changed some equipment (at the CO?) and every once in a while it would confuse the cable cards. Re-initialized and problem gone.

I guess I've been lucky but I've had good service from Verizon.

Al


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

It's happened again to me. I woke up today to discover that I have no access to any channels above 100. I get the "In order to start cable service for this device, please contact your cable provider..."

Power cycling my Tivo HD, ONT and removing then reinserting the CableCARD was useless. On the phone w/Verizon now. 

These guys really suck now w/the switchover to Frontier Communications. 

A human 1st came on asking me what state I'm in so they could get me to the right person. I said Washington. The 2nd guy after taking my info said he can't handle WA customers and needed to xfer me to the right department. Gave 3rd guy info and he also told me he couldn't handle WA.  What a waste of time! 

Been on the phone 18 minutes so far w/o everyone being useless so far. It took until the 30 minute mark on the phone to get the proper human on. Now, I'm late to a meeting at work.

Ok, they go and check and tell me that I'm part of a known outage, possibly affecting all of WA. It took me 38 mins of wasted time on the phone and they (Frontier) doesn't have a system status page. Verizon for FiOS didn't didn't have one either.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

cwerdna said:


> These guys really suck now w/the switchover to Frontier Communications.


I believe that the target closing date for acquisition by Frontier is now July 1.

Right now the Verizon inmates are still running the asylum. Of course, some of them might be disgruntled because they're being pawned off to a 3rd rate telco.


----------



## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

Ok weird, my S3 box doesn't get those channels but my Premiere box does get the channels. *edit*My M-I-L asked me to check on some channels, ESPN2HD, HBOHD, and another HBOHD channel...I don't get them on my S3 (cable card pairing screen pops up), but on my Premiere box, I do receive those channels.


Interesting.


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Some folks at my work are reporting similar outages as mine. They're not all in the same, but we're all or pretty much all in the same state, WA.

I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon's HD DVRs are affected too. (I don't peek in Verizon forums. No interest and time.) When I rented one temporarily for a week, it was quite funny to see a CableCARD inside one of these. You can see it through the vents and they have a metal cover bolted onto the back w/security screws to keep you from yanking it. IIRC, there were warnings about removing the card too.


----------



## mycroft8 (Jun 8, 2010)

i've just been told by FIOS customer service is that there is currently a region wide outage of cable cards and 7000 series boxes in Oregon, Washington and Indiana; basically all the areas that being forced to go to Frontier. It could be as long as 24-48 hours before the situation is resolved.


----------



## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

mycroft8 said:


> i've just been told by FIOS customer service is that there is currently a region wide outage of cable cards and 7000 series boxes in Oregon, Washington and Indiana; basically all the areas that being forced to go to Frontier. It could be as long as 24-48 hours before the situation is resolved.


That's what my M-I-L said after talking to Verontier...but my TiVo Premiere is getting the affected channels just fine so it can't be a cable card issue.


----------



## mycroft8 (Jun 8, 2010)

I can think of two possibilities...

It might be a S-Card only problem; I have two S-Cards in a Tivo HD and I currently can't get any encrypted channel in Hillsboro, OR. It could be that the 7000 series boxes also use S-Cards.

Other cards might stop working over time when previous authorizations expire...


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

mycroft8 said:


> I can think of two possibilities...
> 
> It might be a S-Card only problem; I have two S-Cards in a Tivo HD and I currently can't get any encrypted channel in Hillsboro, OR. It could be that the 7000 series boxes also use S-Cards.
> 
> Other cards might stop working over time when previous authorizations expire...


It's not an S-Card only problem. My Tivo HD only has a single M-Card.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

mycroft8 said:


> Other cards might stop working over time when previous authorizations expire...


Yeah, this is probably the answer. Perhaps the CableCARDs or the ONTs must receive a periodic authorization or they will stop working.


----------



## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Yeah, this is probably the answer. Perhaps the CableCARDs or the ONTs must receive a periodic authorization or they will stop working.


I have a thread at dslreports as well going about this...it could the the authorization will eventually fail for all cable cards (of which the Motorola boxes have). If this isn't fixed by tomorrow morning, flood the lines and demand credits.


----------



## MPSAN (Jun 20, 2009)

rifleman69 said:


> I have a thread at dslreports as well going about this...it could the the authorization will eventually fail for all cable cards (of which the Motorola boxes have). If this isn't fixed by tomorrow morning, flood the lines and demand credits.


I called early today as my 3 THD's stopped working on ch 600 and HBOHD etc. The guy on the phone reactivated the M-Cards in the 3 THD's and it did not help. He then agreed to de-activate one of them as a test and re-activate it. It took about a minute. It worked fine and he then did the same for the other 2. They are still working fine. I think now that Verizon perhaps got word to the techs to not spend the time doing this. It is a shame as mine are still working!


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

MPSAN said:


> I called early today as my 3 THD's stopped working on ch 600 and HBOHD etc. The guy on the phone reactivated the M-Cards in the 3 THD's and it did not help. He then agreed to de-activate one of them as a test and re-activate it. It took about a minute. It worked fine and he then did the same for the other 2. They are still working fine. I think now that Verizon perhaps got word to the techs to not spend the time doing this. It is a shame as mine are still working!


It's still out for me. A call to the new FiOS support # I was given this morning (1-877-600-1511) for WA was answered immediately. They said they know of an outage affecting WA and a few other states. I asked the guy to try deactivating and reactivating my CC. He tried, went away for 5+ minutes and came back saying the deactivation procedure wasn't working for him.

No ETA to repair.

This is getting crazy. It's been 13+ hours since the problem developed and the problem's still not resolved. Oddly enough, I don't hear people griping at http://forums.verizon.com/. Censorship? Nobody goes there? Nobody in the affected areas go there? Pointless?


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Someone at Verizon FiOS called me this morning while I was asleep, checking to see if I still had the problem. Sure enough, problem is still there. Interestingly, most of my locals seem to work, as do their high def counterparts (e.g. 4 and 504). 103 (MSNBC) works but 100-102, 104 (CNN, CNN Headline, CNBC, Bloomberg) don't.

On the phone w/their support again. It took the guy so many times of trying took me up by address. Now he's away checking something. Tech came back asking for CableCARD ID, host ID and data ID is doing more work, then asked me to reboot my TiVo after confirming some data.

He's asked for the above 3 pieces of info again after deactivating and trying to reactivate my card. 1 hour 1 minute and issue not resolved yet. Ok, after going away for a shower, issue is now resolved.


----------



## mycroft8 (Jun 8, 2010)

Nothing has changed for me. Most encrypted channels don't show up (maybe all encrypted channels). Both cable cards indicate that they are unpaired.

I'm currently in the middle of a call to Verizon. After half an hour they have all the numbers from my pairing screens; but the tech couldn't get whatever workaround they have to work. I'm currently waiting for a higher up network tech to get the case. The estimated wait time for that is over half an hour.


----------



## mycroft8 (Jun 8, 2010)

After the next level tech finally came on, everything is supposedly fixed. Hopefully it will stay that way.


----------



## mgama (May 22, 2002)

I just had a similar issue. All my channels came in on my tivo downstairs, but upstairs there were a few that were black, saying channel not available - check signal. Rebooted tivo, no help. Removed and inserted the cable card, no help. Untwisted and the cable, jiggled it a bit, re-tighted it, and the channels are back. I couldn't believe it. I guess the cables came loose, or something... ???

In Seattle area... for what its worth.


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

mgama said:


> I just had a similar issue. All my channels came in on my tivo downstairs, but upstairs there were a few that were black, saying channel not available - check signal. Rebooted tivo, no help. Removed and inserted the cable card, no help. Untwisted and the cable, jiggled it a bit, re-tighted it, and the channels are back. I couldn't believe it. I guess the cables came loose, or something... ???
> 
> In Seattle area... for what its worth.


I didn't muck w/any of my cabling but did multiple reboots and removed and reinserted the CableCARD, all to no avail. On the first day, I power cycled my ONT at least once as well.

Perhaps, by coincidence Verizon fixed the issue for lots of people or disconnecting and reconnected caused some sort of handshake, acknowledgment or reinitialization?


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

I was greeted again but what seemed like another outage this morning. I think 100 CNN and 102 CNBC was inaccessible + some others above 100.

On 6/11 7 am thru 9 am, my TiVo HD successfully recorded two Enterprise eps off 569 HDNET.

I fixed it by rebooting.

In my recording history I can see that it couldn't record something on 569 HDNET at 6/12 8 am w/reason: "This program was not recorded because either the TiVO HD DVR is not authorized for this channel, the program was not purchased, or the program is not available in your area." Same thing for a show at 6/12 11 am on 106 CNBCWLD. So something went awry after my Enteprise recordings, but most likely overnight.

Both those channels are show CCI byte of 0x02. (No surprise.)

After the reboot HDNET and CNBCWLD come in fine now.


----------



## kenfischer (Jun 16, 2010)

Just had the same problem pop on on my Series 3 Tivo on Fios in Portland, OR. Called verizon. They reset everything. Nothing helped. 

A tech came out today. He tried replacing the cards, deactivating and reactivating, etc. Nothing. Acknowledged that other reports of similar problems were cropping up with TiVos. He was talking to their knowledge base guy in Seattle (who has three TiVos, but hasn't had any issues).

He ended up advising me to call TiVo (though he agreed that it was unlikely to be a problem with my unit), and to call the Verizon business office and get them to stop billing for TV. Just great.

And then the channels popped back on, and on both cable cards (one new, one original, both S-type). Now everything works. They don't know why or if it will last. 

He did admit that with the change to Frontier, something might be happening at their end and they don't realize the ramifications downstream. He said if it happens again, call back and maybe they will have figured something out.

This may not help some of you, but I though it was worth relating the story.

Ken F.


----------



## MPSAN (Jun 20, 2009)

Ken...take a look here! Bad news in Oregon and Washington!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=450307


----------



## kenfischer (Jun 16, 2010)

MPSPAN....Thanks...lots of info that helped.

Update:

The tech replaced one of my cards, but the 2nd is the original. I realized later today that only one card is working...the new one.

I went to this TiVo menu:
CableCard Settings
Configure CableCard
CableCard Menu
Conditional Access

In this screeen, I can see the differences between the two cards. It also shows the 0x00 and 0x02 copyright encoding of the currently tuned channels. Here are the differences:

EnabledByCP: Yes vs No
CAenable: Possible vs Not Possible
Copy Protection Key: Enabled vs Disabled
Host Validation: Valid 04 vs Unknown 00

I called Verizon back with this info. The guy on the other end was very enthusiastic about helping, learning more about this problem, and solving it for everyone. They had received a distribution at the big outage that blamed the problem on the cards, which had to be individually disabled and enabled. He says that fixes 99% of the problems.

However, he also said that the 0x02 copy protection on random channels made a lot more sense than anything they'd been told there. I applaud this guy for his interest. He said he was going to go home tonight and do more research on his own.

He was in contact with a network tech who tried to deactivate and activate my card. I saw the cycle, but it made no change. Then they tried to revalidate the card. No change.

So, tomorrow, they are coming out to replace the second card. He didn't know why that should make a difference, but obviously it did for the first card.

Also, he said that the techs who come to your home know nothing about this copy protection stuff, at least not from any official communications.

Hope this info helps someone out there.

Ken


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

It looks like I had another glitch that I fixed by rebooting. That makes #3 now, AFAIK. See my earlier posts in this thread.

It seems like they've become more frequent as I don't recall experiencing this before 5/5 and this is the 2nd time since the infamous WA, OR (and IN?) outage of 6/7 and 6/8/10.

I was out of the town for the weekend and when I returned, I noticed that many of my channels >100 were just black. There was no error screen nor any of those CableCARD messages ("This message is provided on behalf of your...") The HBO preview channels like 911 and 411 were coming in fine though as were locals.

Judging by my NPL and my recording history (some w/"This program was not recorded because either the TiVO HD DVR is not authorized for this channel, the program was not purchased, or the program is not available in your area" entries), it looks like the prob started after Sunday 6/27 3 am Pacific time.

TiVo was unable to record some stuff on DSCP, CNN and TRAV amongst other channels due to this. Luckily, none of it was important.

Perhaps I should start a new thread w/a better title?


----------



## cosmictrucker (Oct 24, 2003)

I've been thinking about giving Fios a try since it's now available in my neighborhood. Reading through the cable card issues reminds me of the same problems I had with Comcast before I gave them the boot. I currently subscribe to Comcast basic TV service with no Cable Cards. 
I'm now thinking Fios will be more of the same headache I had with Comcast and this cable card problem with my S3 HD TiVo.


----------



## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

I've had no troubles at all with FIOS setup and cablecards. I'm using two TivoHD units, each with a single M-type cable card. One previously used two S-type cards, but I switched to the single one (and reduced my bill by one card). They say it requires a truck roll, and that there's a fee for it, but I've never been charged. Not for any of the three times a tech came out (initial 2 s-cards, added an m-card and then swapped the s-cards for a single m-card). 

But don't get me started on the hassles of trying to talk to support people for ANYTHING.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

wkearney99 said:


> I've had no troubles at all with FIOS setup and cablecards.


I also didn't have any trouble. My "craft person" was someone who had worked at Verizon for years, and he was very familiar with the nuances of activating service.

I'd certainly expect Verizon to be better at this than Comcast, who seem to love recruiting warm bodies off the street. Just make your requirements very clear when placing the order and again when the installer arrives. That way, if he feels he's in over his head, he can immediately call for backup.


----------



## mgama (May 22, 2002)

I've noticed some of my long recordings (mostly ESPN tennis matches) have had large gaps where there are a hour or so gaps in the recording... If I were to guess, it would be a black channel with no data. Again, never saw this prior to 6/8.


----------

