M-card not pairing

[gingerjesus]

I'm gonna type this as quick as i can, because the story is long.

about a week ago, the SDV channels started pixelating. i submit ticket to Ceton, and they point out the weak signal. So I call Cox, and 3 days later, they come and replace my whole line. Still problems pixelating, so Ceton gives me a new beta firmware, and still no dice. So next is swapping out the TA. This is where the story gets hairy...

I get a new TA from cox yesterday, and when i say new, the guy grabbed one from the back, shook it, and told me i had to use the existing power supply and usb cable. i don't feel like arguing at the time, so i take it home, plug it in, and it just repeatedly disconnects/connects. you can imagine the windows 7 plug and play noise playing like clockwork every 3 seconds. so i call cox to have them hit me with a refresh (hoping this helps), and the guy says i need to pull out the m-card and re-insert it. i told him that wasn't a good idea, since my m card was paired fine, but i went ahead anyway. (this was my fault). so of course now i have an un-paired TA and m card. he asks for the numbers, and says he'll schedule an appointment tomorrow to have them fix it.

so, cox shows up at 8am, and the tech are completely baffled that it's not a tivo. so they give me a new m card, and a new TA. the new TA was MUCH better, and came up solid after about 5 minutes, and the diagnostics page showed it locked. i open the ceton diagnostics, and the only red mark is the cable card pairing, saying i need a CCV message. 4 hours later (yes, they are talking back and forth), they decide they can't do anything and a supervisor will be out "sometime today". it's now 6pm, and i've tried the Cox cable card number twice to try and get it paired myself. each time they try one signal, and then say they can't do anything.

so what's my next move?

[barnabas1969]

In my experience, many of the cards they hand out have not been correctly removed from the previous user's account. And/or they haven't set it up correctly on your account. Could be one or both of those. Usually, the easiest solution is to just get another card. Ask them to send a tech with at least 3 cards on him. Try each of them (and have the tech pair it to your account) until you find one that works.

[PlainEric]

I had an issue recently where I went to the store to get TA replaced three times since it would not authorize and yet all the signal levels were correct. Finally they insisted to send a tech (free of charge) to "assist with the install". Turns out that the office was giving out the wrong TAs for the location... Even though I asked several times to make sure the TA was correct and they are all color coded with stickers for the right city....

They are also no longer allowed to send the TA activation signal more than 3 times in a 24 hour period since the CC and the TA will go into "brick mode?" and require it to be reset at the warehouse . this is on a Cisco system, so the order of placement also matters otherwise the devices will not activate correctly either.

[kd6icz]

Everything the previous two posts said could be entirely possible. I just recently went through a very similar scenario with TWC and was out of TV for an entire week. Mine started when I called to change out my cable modem. Turns out the call center in the Philippines that activated my modem deleted my cable cards. It took 7 days, 2 sets of techs, 2 sets of tunning adapters, and 6 sets (two per set) of CableCARD's to get my Ceton's back up and running. I will say that the chance of it being your Ceton tuner is almost zero. I can list the possible problems (based on my experience) of things it could be.

First off. The CableCARD must be built into the head end of your serving cable office. This was the issue with 6 out of the 12 cable cards I was issued.

Second - Apparently with TWC all pieces of equipment must be in a very particular order in the billing system for the activation process to work. Otherwise, it just doesn't work.

I noticed you said they replaced the drop to your house. Did that help signal levels? They replaced my drop during my ordeal and also the TAP. My signal went down a couple of db due to the new TAP being a -18db model vs. the one they removed was a -15db model. The techs that replaced it said the wrong unit was installed. Sure enough since they replaced all this stuff my setup has been rock solid! Neither my ETH 6 or PCIe 6 has had one single issue in for an entire month! That was unheard of before all the work was done. My tunning adapters are both locked and haven't lost communication since the work either. Both of them would drop on a regular basis.

So long story short - If you get the right combo of people that know what they are doing they will have it up and running in minutes. It's just getting the right combo of people. Be patient and it will work.

[barnabas1969]

There are direct forums for several of the big cable companies on dslreports.com. I have used this to get very quick resolution of problems with Brighthouse. The guy who answers the questions on the direct forum is very, very helpful and knowledgeable. Hopefully, the other cableco's who have direct forums there are just as good. The "direct" forums are private forums. Nobody but you and the cableco can see the information in your posts. Unfortunately, there isn't a direct forum there for Cox, so this won't help the OP. But it may help others. Here are the links:

Brighthouse Direct: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/bhousedirect
Comcast Direct: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect
Time Warner Direct: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/timewarnerdirect

There are others for smaller cable companies too, but there is a limit of three links in a post here on TGB.tv. If you go to the Forums link at the top of the home page on dslreports.com, you will see the direct forums. Smaller cable companies that are represented there include Covad, Optimum, TekSavvy, and Windstream.

[erkotz]

Have you opened a support ticket with us? If not, please do so. If you have, please send me your ticket number to look into.

[gingerjesus]

hey guys, just an update. finally got this fixed.

a tech came out (along with a supervisor), and they went through 2 more m-cards before it finally paired up successfully. then, the TA would not authenticate after getting the m-card paired. the TA just kept initializing, and then resetting. i try cycling power in different sequence, and using separate USB controllers, etc, etc. i looked up a couple of older posts, and saw some people say re-installing the Ceton drivers sometimes fixes that problem. so i powered off TA and Ceton, and un-installed Ceton app/drivers. rebooted, re-installed drivers, and rebooted again. popped the the TA and Ceton back on, and bang, the TA comes up solid gold.

FYI, i'm running the Beta 14 firmware since then and have had zero problems. no channels are pixelating/macroblocking anymore.

thanks to all the posts and help on here. very informative. thanks!

[gingerjesus]

just a quick reply. erkotz, i had a support ticket with Ceton, and they did everything possible on their end during the troubleshooting. customer service was fantastic.

kd6icz - replacing my line had a huge difference. my signal levels were around -18db, and now the same channels are sitting around -9db. in the end, they went through about 5 m-cards before they found one that paired (or just got the person on the other end), and a new TA.

[erkotz]

just a quick reply. erkotz, i had a support ticket with Ceton, and they did everything possible on their end during the troubleshooting. customer service was fantastic.

Glad to hear that - thanks!