Channel Map Issues

[Paw Paw]

I had an interesting situation yesterday that I thought I would pass along. Maybe someone can shed some light on what happened to me.

Yesterday morning I noticed that I could not tune any of my channels on my Ceton PCI card. I checked my TiVos and S/A 8300HD and they were still tuning all of the channels. I checked the signal levels using the Ceton All Channels app from the Windows Experts site and noticed that Comcast was having some issues and I had a 30 db tilt from my low to high frequency channels so I called Comcast and scheduled a service call to have them fix the signal issue. Still that did not seem to justify all of the problems that I had so I started comparing the output from the Ceton All Channels app with the diags that I can pull off the S/A 8300HD. What a shock. The 8300HD was NOT showing the same frequencies as the Ceton Channel Map!! Below 500 Mhz the Ceton was 30 Mhz off on most of the frequencies. I cleared the channel map on the Ceton and after about 45 minutes I finally got a new map and I could then tune all of my channels on the Ceton (still have the 30 db tilt that Comcast needs to address).

What could possibly cause this? Am I looking at an impending memory failure on the Ceton Card? Any input would be appreciated.

[yatyas]

I think it is possible I may be having the same issue. Half my channels on Comcast (also in Houston) will not tune. I noticed the db range last night and went through all of my cabling to make sure nothing was bad. Unfortunately I do not know how to check the channel map. Can you give me any tips as to where I should start checking to see if this is my issue as well? I was set to exchange my cable card today and still may just to be safe.

[erkotz]

30dB tilt is very high and definitely indicates there is a problem.

Aside from that, make sure your InfiniTV is running firmware 1.2.2.6. Comcast has been upgrading their DNCS (headend controllers on Cisco systems) to a software version that puts out a non-compliant channel map, and that version works around the issue until Comcast and Cisco can get a final fix in place.

[Paw Paw]

30dB tilt is very high and definitely indicates there is a problem.

Aside from that, make sure your InfiniTV is running firmware 1.2.2.6. Comcast has been upgrading their DNCS (headend controllers on Cisco systems) to a software version that puts out a non-compliant channel map, and that version works around the issue until Comcast and Cisco can get a final fix in place.

I agree. I monitor the cable system periodically and when they have everything as good as they can get it I see about 10 db of tilt. When something starts to degrade I can go up to 20 db of tilt and still be within spec for your tunner (+8 db to -12 db). Usually others start complaining at that time and they fix it for us. However I am now seeing everything above 600 Mhz at -18db to -20db and while I can receive the channels I get the weak signal message frequently. Hopefully the tech they send out tomorrow will have the equipment to at least check the spectrum and see the tilt. From past experience he will not be able to fix it and will have to hand the ticket off to a line crew with bucket trucks that will adjust the 5 or 6 line amps between my house and the fiber interface.

As to the firmware I am running 1.1.7.2 but your diags show it as up to date. Pease advice what I need to do to upgrade it.

[JohnW248]

Have you selected beta on the update tab? I think 1.2.2.6 only comes up on beta requests.

[Paw Paw]

I think it is possible I may be having the same issue. Half my channels on Comcast (also in Houston) will not tune. I noticed the db range last night and went through all of my cabling to make sure nothing was bad. Unfortunately I do not know how to check the channel map. Can you give me any tips as to where I should start checking to see if this is my issue as well? I was set to exchange my cable card today and still may just to be safe.

Try tuning channel 642 it should be on frequency 111 Mhz and NOT 123 Mhz. If it on 123 Mhz you have the same issue. But since forcing the channel map to reload fixed my issue you might just try that

Open the Ceton Diags
Click on the Devices Tab
Click on the Go to Inifini TV device webpage.
On the web page the opens in your browser click on the CableCard tab
Scroll down to the Clear Channel Map button and push it. It took me 45 minutes to reload the map but normally you should get a refresh in 10 minutes or less.

By the way I am near Chanpion Forest and Spring Cypress. Are you in the same general area?

[yatyas]

I had an interesting situation yesterday that I thought I would pass along. Maybe someone can shed some light on what happened to me.

Yesterday morning I noticed that I could not tune any of my channels on my Ceton PCI card. I checked my TiVos and S/A 8300HD and they were still tuning all of the channels. I checked the signal levels using the Ceton All Channels app from the Windows Experts site and noticed that Comcast was having some issues and I had a 30 db tilt from my low to high frequency channels so I called Comcast and scheduled a service call to have them fix the signal issue. Still that did not seem to justify all of the problems that I had so I started comparing the output from the Ceton All Channels app with the diags that I can pull off the S/A 8300HD. What a shock. The 8300HD was NOT showing the same frequencies as the Ceton Channel Map!! Below 500 Mhz the Ceton was 30 Mhz off on most of the frequencies. I cleared the channel map on the Ceton and after about 45 minutes I finally got a new map and I could then tune all of my channels on the Ceton (still have the 30 db tilt that Comcast needs to address).

What could possibly cause this? Am I looking at an impending memory failure on the Ceton Card? Any input would be appreciated.

Not sure if this helps or not but I found a guy on the Comcast forums that had this issue and apparently got a special firmware from Ceton to fix the issue.... here is a link to the post
http://forums.comcast.com/t5/XfinityTV- ... 055#M71732

I am in the Copperfield area.

[Paw Paw]

Have you selected beta on the update tab? I think 1.2.2.6 only comes up on beta requests.

OK I got on my HTPC and went to your web site, Support, Initini TV, Installation and Downloads and clicked on beta driver update page and got a new diagnostics installed.

I am on firmware 1.1.7.2 and Hardware 4884. Now the update page in the daigs offers up firmware 1.1.8.2 and hardware 6289 for downloading but not 1.2.2.6. Please advise

Edit: OK I found the Include Beta on the update tab and now am offered 1.2.2.6. Does anyone know if I need to update the hardware along with the firmware?

[erkotz]

I would recommend installing both upgrades at the same time, as they were tested together in our testing.

[Paw Paw]

I would recommend installing both upgrades at the same time, as they were tested together in our testing.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will wait till after Comcast comes tomorrow before I make the upgrades and then I will go to the beta firmware and hardware.

[bob_p]

I'm also in Houston - looks like there's a pattern here...

I started having this problem Wednesday - lost the channel map on my Infiniti PCIe tuner - which has been running great - up until now.

Over Wednesday & Thursday - spent around 8 hours on the phone with Comcast trying to pair old and new CableCards - all producing the same results - no channel map.

I ended up purchasing a Silicondust HDHomeRun Prime and Ceton USB tuner - and was able to get both of those to pair correctly - and work.

I had placed a call on Wednesday to the Ceton cablecard support line - which promised to provide a timely response - and 24 hours later, after I got the new hardware working - they called and recommended I update to the beta software - which should fix the problem. But after getting back to a working configuration - didn't want to risk breaking it again and then starting over to get everything working.

My next window to work on this will be late next week - and I'll try the beta. And if that works, then one or both of the new tuners will be returned to the store (though I may keep one of them as a "backup" tuner).

Too bad that Ceton couldn't have called quicker - might have saved me a lot of wasted time on the phone with Comcast - plus purchasing and installing replacement tuners...

[yatyas]

I ended up not returning my cable card. Went home and cleared the channel map. 2 hrs later still no new map. Decided to update to the beta firmware. Left to grab dinner and came back and everything was working. I was only gone 20 mins. Seems like the beta firmware fixed something.

[Paw Paw]

I ended up not returning my cable card. Went home and cleared the channel map. 2 hrs later still no new map. Decided to update to the beta firmware. Left to grab dinner and came back and everything was working. I was only gone 20 mins. Seems like the beta firmware fixed something.

Glad you had success. I will also load the beta sofware later today. Although I am working right now I want to preclude any further issues with this problem. Since I also have some signal strength issues I do not want to change anything untill after Comcasts checks it out this morning.

EDIT
Comcast came by and verified that I had low signal levels at the pole and transfered the ticket to a line crew just as I anticipated. I then updated to firmware 1.2.2.6 and hardware 6829 without a hitch. I always cross my finges and hold my breath for any update of this nature. I remember when my team toasted 3 or 4 Compaqs attempting to do a needed BIOS update. It was so bad the techs started taking a spare unit with them when they did a BIOS update so that they could swap the hard drives and get the client back up and running quickly if the BIOS update failed.

[bob_p]

I've got an adjustable amp inside my house - and went through the process of verifying the signal strength was at an acceptable level - not only for my Ceton tuner - but for the other tuners in my house (Comcast set-top box, HD Homerun clearQAM and an old ATI OCUR tuner). Swapping working cable cards from one box to the Ceton tuner - and getting a brand new CableCard from Comcast - didn't solve the problem - which is why I assumed the Ceton tuner had died - and I purchased a new Ceton USB and HDHomerun Prime tuner.

What's interesting is that the Ceton USB tuner is working - on the latest released software - but the older PCIe tuner doesn't work on the same firmware and software.

Will try the beta release on the PCIe tuner next week - and hopefully that will clear up whatever is failing.

Overall, the Ceton tuner has worked without any problems for me - and I got one of their early commercial units. Not sure what Comcast did to mess things up this week in Houston with the Ceton tuners - but at least Ceton had a fix ready in their beta software (I hope...).

[erkotz]

Overall, the Ceton tuner has worked without any problems for me - and I got one of their early commercial units. Not sure what Comcast did to mess things up this week in Houston with the Ceton tuners - but at least Ceton had a fix ready in their beta software (I hope...).

Comcast (and other operators, but primarily Comcast) have been deploying DNCS version 5.0 from Cisco. This software puts out a channel map that Ceton believe is not compliant with the SCTE specification for channel maps, and as a result, our parser handles it unpredictably. From the conversations I have had, the InfiniTV is not the only device which is unable to use this channel map. The beta update has a parser that has been enhanced to handle this non-compliant channel map as a workaround until Cisco can correct their channel maps.

[Paw Paw]

The Comcast lineman jsut stopped by to tell me had completed checking and adjusting the amplifiers on my path back to the fiber interface. I ran a copy of the Ceton All Channels and printed it off for him. My signals are now from +11 db to +5 db only a 6 db tilt. I am impressed.

Thanks to everyone for their input on this issue

[bhowell]

Same tuning issue with Comcast in Houston. I reverted to my ATI DCT and everything worked fine. Just updated the Infinitv Firmware to 1.2.2.6 over remote desktop. I will run TV setup again tonight (can't over RDP) to see if this resolves the issue.

[erkotz]

Same tuning issue with Comcast in Houston. I reverted to my ATI DCT and everything worked fine. Just updated the Infinitv Firmware to 1.2.2.6 over remote desktop. I will run TV setup again tonight (can't over RDP) to see if this resolves the issue.

There is no need to re-run TV setup, but it may take a few minutes to get a new channel map

[bob_p]

Confirmed that the latest beta software appears to fix the channel map problem - now both my original PCIe and new USB tuners are getting all of the Comcast Houston channels (though it's also possible Comcast did something on their end to also fix the channel map).

[beanska]

I upgraded to the latest firmware (1.2.2.6) and HW(6829) and still and unable to tune channels. The web GUIsays that 1 channel map with 514 channels have been received. TWO Comcast techs have come by and both are are stumped. Any advice on next steps to try? I haven't been able to use WMC for near a month.