Channel Map losing channels after reboot?

[Pendleton]

This has been driving me crazy off and on for weeks. For some reason after I moved two towns over (same exact cable area), whenever I lose power or reboot I lose all my channels above 603. Why, oh why is http://102.168.200.1/Services/ChannelMap.html hidden away. I only found out about it when I saw it mentioned in a thread. Based on the WMC errors I was getting (Service is unavailable or No TV Signal or PlayReady update required) I would mess with my cables, splitters, try different cable jacks, etc. Sometimes the channels came back, and I'd think, something I did must have fixed it, but then it would fail again days later. It took a power outage scheduled by the electric company for me to make the connection that it might be a power loss/reboot that causes me to lose my channels and then I can't tune, say, USA HD (1205). But I'm still not even sure of that. When I moved, they issued me a new cable card (which is the same model and everything as far as I could tell), which I did activate via the same comcast activation line as I did with my first cable card. And I tried to have them "refresh" it, this morning, with no luck - although they said it appeared to succeed from their end. If I force a tuner to tune to the frequency (USA HD = 297000) using the InfinTV device page, it will update the program list (0,7,8 & 9) for frequency 297000 - but not the channel number since I now know it's not in the channel map. And it shows a nice strong signal strength and SNR, so I don't think that's the problem.

One other thing; when it's in the "bad state" like this, changing channels takes a long time, around 10 seconds. When it's all working good (and I'm getting the higher channel numbers) changes take 5 seconds or less. But again, I'm pretty sure my signal strength & SNR are good - definitely within the -10 to +10 and 35 or higher. I don't get artifacts or dropped frames, etc. (weirdly, I did get those at my previous location, but none of these channel map problems.)

Any ideas on the problem here or some other diagnostic steps? It's a dedicated HTPC with a PCIe InfiniTV and Comcast cable (Digital Starter). I've got all green checkmarks in the diag tool, I'm not sharing tuners, Comcast doesn't use SDV & tuning adapters - this shouldn't be such a problem. (When I had dual Hauppauge 2250's & tuned ClearQAM/Analog, this thing was bullet proof.) Any way to force the ceton or CableCARD to repopulate the Channel Map? I've tried "Set Up TV Signal" twice today as well. No joy. When Comcast re-opens tomorrow I'm going to try swapping out the cableCARD, since it is something that changed from back when it was working well. (The cableCARD diagnostic pages available through the InfiniTV device page are too cryptic for me to figure out if there is a problem there.) My only other idea, which I'm reluctant to do with the new TV season starting is a full reformat & reinstall.
Thanks for any suggestions.

[JohnW248]

Check the following:

Open the Web Gui for the Ceton (192.168.200.1) and go to the cableCARD tab. With everything working note the number of channels shown and number of channel maps.

You don't say whether you have a Moto or SA/Cisco card, but with a Cisco Card you can check your OOB signal and errors by right clicking on DAVIC Info screen and it'll show you the OOB connection, the lock and any error counts.

Once you have a base line the next time you reboot (which naturally resets everything since all power is lost) go and check and make sure you have the right number of channels shown, at least one channel map received and check the DAVIC connection.

Also on the Web Gui CableCARD page you'll see a little button "clean channel map", if you see problems, click that button. It will restart the cableCARD, revalidate it and download a new channel map.

It is possible that there is some noise or interference on your line that is causing problems with the OOB signal which is how the channel maps are downloaded. Once you identify it, then it will be something for your cable provider to find and fix.

[Pendleton]

Firstly, thanks. I've seen your name a bunch a times in the forums and it's clear you know a ton about this area, so thanks for being here.

Secondly, as ridiculous as it sounds, I never saw the Clear Channel Map button (or the link to the channel map) in the ten months I had the ceton - for some reason I thought the end of that page was the links to the Cisco(Scientific-Atlanta) diagnostic pages. I never scrolled down!
What I found when I did scroll down was 269 channels (supposed to be higher), and Channel Maps Received: 0 (shouldn't it be at least 1? Or is this like in programming, the first index is 0?)
OOB Freq. 75.500MHz
Locked
OOB MER: 35db/10
The first DAVIC screen showed Data Rate: 1.544Mbps, RS Corr Err = 0, RS Uncorr Err = 0, status: locked (If there's something else I should be looking at, let me know.)
When I cleared the channel map, I let it sit for an hour and it still hadn't downloaded a new channel map so I rebooted which did the trick, and it all came back exactly the same, except MER is now 27 db/10.
Did it again and had same results (including OOB MER 27 db/10.)
And since yesterday when I accidentally rebooted my PC (don't ask), I have NOT been able to get my full channel lineup, I don't know what magical thing I did in the past to get it to appear(likely it was nothing that I did, just coincidence). So I don't know how many channels or channel maps I'm supposed to have.
Any other thoughts? Is the OOB signal okay?
(I just went and engaged all the tuners with recording something and now OOB MER shows 35 db/10. After 15 minutes of recording RS Corr Err = 2. Uncorr still = 0. Some time later RS Corr was up to 6.)
Thanks.

[JohnW248]

I wouldn't think a re-install of Windows will have any effect on your problem. This is beginning to sound like a possible headend issue. You should get a complete channel map within 20 minutes at the most and usually within 3 to 5 minutes. The only thing that is a bit strange to me is the OOB frequency, at least the Cisco systems I've seen are at 74500 not 75500hz. But it's locked and the OOB MER looks like it's within limits to me.

You might see different results between a complete power down reboot and a warm boot. A cold boot will drop all power off the PCIe bus and effectively clean any lingering memory in the cableCARD.

At this point it wouldn't hurt to change cableCARDS. I would not re-install Windows. If you think you want to reset Media Center, don't re-install it, instead run the Media Center Recovery Task which will reset it to out of the box. That will wipe your guide, all tuners and any series recordings but it will start "fresh" all the Media Center functions. You can still play DRM'd recordings but you have to run TV set-up again, download the guide and re-set any series recordings. You might have to run the DCA again before the cableCARD tuners is recognized.

To re-set Media Center, right click on computer and choose MANAGE and left click. Then in Scheduled Tasks, expand it (Scheduled Tasks/scheduled tasks library/ microsoft/windows/media center) and right under the two mcupdate tasks will be the Media Center Recovery Task. Highlight it and then choose run from the Action Menu (Media Center should be closed before you run this). Then open Media Center and run TV Set-up again. A lot easier and quicker than re-installing Windows and it's leaves your DRM intact.

But I really think that your cable provider or cableCARD might be at fault here since you're not getting the channel maps downloaded properly.

Also you should check your signal levels on your tunes (you can find it in the tuner tabs) as well as your temps. Just to make sure there isn't a heat related issue.

John

[erkotz]

Do you have a Ceton support ticket opened? If so, please PM me the ticket number. If not, please open one with us.

[Pendleton]

I got it working again and had 33 glorious days of largely trouble-free operation. Then I started getting entitlement errors, so I rebooted and lost CP Auth and the channel map again. Comcast tech can't figure it out. He says the signal strength at the wall was too high with my booster (up to +16) so he took it out and got a range of +5.6 to -4.8, but using CetonSignals.hta (big thumbs up to WhatHappend for writing that) it shows a range of +4.4 to -19.5, with some often used middle frequencies below -10. When everything works (for no obvious reason) it seems to stay working for a long time, but a reboot kills it. This didn't happen when I lived two towns over. I am opening a ticket right now.
The Comcast tech's expert thinks either the card is faulty or the jumper from the card to the cable is. Something appears to be causing loss of signal strength in the middle and high frequencies. What that has to do with losing CP Auth or not getting the channel map or receiving no EMMs (something I learned about today) - I don't know. But I guess figuring out why the signal strength looks good at the wall, but not good in the InfiniTV is a good thing to do.

[Diverge]

Did they check the signal strength at the wall for the same channel/frequencies you're seeing as low w/ the infinitv4?

[larryf]

I seem to be having this problem as well. It started a week ago when I lost all HD/prevmium channels. Prior to that I had been running happily (mostly) for over a year.

Comcast has been out twice and they don't see any issues. I'm about to try a 3rd cable card because that's all they can recommend.

Any other suggestions to actually fix this channel map issue, other than trial and error?