No TV Signal

[cKuR6]

Ok, I will keep capturing. I have been grabbing screens any time things get bad. Then randomly while things are good.
I also wondered about connectors used. No, it's not in conduit, neither was the one dug up by the dog. Initially, I expected outdoor/weather. However, these issues don't coincide with any specific weather pattern. It's happened with all mixes, warm and dry, dry and cold, and both wet.
Unfortunately, as soon as I start explaining my system, the techs seem to escape to some unknown land. On the third visit, they admitted they knew nothing about cable card or "anything else you have going on", so they seem thrown off. Next trip ill just tell them to ignore how it gets to my screen, and test the lines like any other customer.


I know I'm new but it just doesn't make any sense to me, that it can go so terribly bad, the just seemingly correct itself. When my insight eq or signals would die, they died completely. No coming back without changes.

[Crash2009]

Yeah, I was going to..am going to say the same thing. When I first got mine hooked up there were some signal issues that I was unable to fix myself. When I called Comcast they said I had to report immediately when the signal issue was present. I was told the log would contain these bumps in the road, and are fixable, but the problem we had was to actually catch the signal issue in the act, then find the correct department, to view the log, then decide on what repair might be needed. I started out saying I could tell them when WMC failed to record, but that wasn't good enough. Apparently the tech they send to the house is not permitted to order a neighborhood line check unless he reads something screwy at the same instant he is at the house. Eventually we caught the abnormal signal red handed, the line techs showed up the next day and the signal issue was repaired at the pole.

Here is a good use for a MotoSetTopBox, however, it is kind of a waste of a TV. Tune the tuner to the "ProblemChannel", Then on the remote, Press "PowerOff" then immediately press "OK" to open the diagnostic. "In-Band Status" is the one to watch for signal strength. "ApplicationSpecificInformation" will tell you what server you are connected to. I believe that if you open the correct type of repair ticket, with a shortcut to a department that can read the server log, they should be able to see what is going on without a housecall. (Just a hunch, not a fact)

Maybe Rick could tell us how to extract a LiveSignalReport from the ETH.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 577#p45577

Or maybe there is another way???

[cKuR6]

Hmmm, ill look into moto. Even more of a reason I'm sick of twc. Theyve seen the bad signals, blamed the tuner. The signal have been trash with the techs here. They added amps, ran extra lines, it was a mess. The second guy to come asked wth the guy that was here 2.5 hrs earlier in the week did. I had to laugh. I'd be pushing it to say the guy was here 30 minutes. Much less two hrs.

[JohnW248]

Actually you can only use Moto on a Moto headend and Cisco on a Cisco headend. The encryption is different, the OOB is different, etc etc so the Moto is not an option for a Cisco system. TWC has both depending on the area and who they bought and what it came with. Also the Moto TAs are a lot more trouble than the 1520 Ciscos and those have their own issues as well.

Since you have a buried cable, there are lots of things that can happen like temp changes, expansion contraction, corrosion, etc that can take a good single and give you almost an air gap at certain times, but that's why I suggest you keep a log. The advantage of reporting to Buffalo is they can put the ticket in the language that the tech needs to use. I think your cable repair issue might be a major clue, but there might be something else. It's hard to say without seeing it and remember the guys that show up will likely know nothing about Media Center have only seen a Tivo and probably have lhad little or no training in dealing with cableCARDS and TAs. Most of their service calls are read signal strength and replace DVR and leave the customer to reprogram their recording schedule.

[Crash2009]

Unfortunately, as soon as I start explaining my system, the techs seem to escape to some unknown land. On the third visit, they admitted they knew nothing about cable card or "anything else you have going on", so they seem thrown off. Next trip ill just tell them to ignore how it gets to my screen

This is why I suggested that you get a cable box, set top box, TWC Box. Monitor the situation and speak to them in their own language.

Just an interesting note....While watching the Set top Diagnostic in my previous post, I notice that the signal strength is not at a constant, preset, flat rate (like we see in the AllCetonSignals diagnostic). My signal has a little "Pulse" to it my SNR fluctuates 39-40-39-40-39-40 . Yours likely does the same thing, however every once in awhile yours goes from 40 to 0. Not everywhere, but just on a couple channels?

Is this pulse part of the de-modulation that Ceton spoke of?

Here are a couple links to my efforts yahoo-ing "the pulse of the tv signal"

http://www.google.com/patents/US4404514

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Ak ... t-315&fp=1

[Crash2009]

Qam16 might be a bit more accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature ... modulation

Maybe someone can translate this into a simple language I can understand.

[JohnW248]

If you monitor your tuner and keep refreshing the data page you'll see that values vary over time and temperature. In fact once the Ceton has been tuned to six channels they remain tuned and you can just refresh the page to see the variations. This is normal and what you normally see is just a slice at that time and under normal conditions the variations will be slight. But in the summer its going to be different than the winter since the line amps are all temp sensitive and anything that is incoming from the sat is going to be sent with defects through the system.

Most of these things are within spec such as signal level +/- 7 dBmV and you might see a variation over 24-48 hours of -4 to +.1 on one channel and another might go the reverse from a +2 to -1 for example. Each time you refresh the page you'll get the current signal levels and SNR without having to retune anything.

BTW I don't think QAM 16 is used for anything except maybe music channels--at least I don't find it on my TWC system.

The problem here is finding out when the -48 dBmV hits and what channels if not all are impacted. If just one channel and retuning that tuner to a different channel shows the tuner working, then the problem is incoming, either the headend might of lost the signal or something has happened between the headend, the fiber node and the conversion back to copper to go to the subscriber.

Getting a TWC box would allow the inside guy to look at it, currently they can only look at the TA and get data from that, but remember until you can get to a level that is really going to deal with your issues the standard operating procedure is to clear as many tickets as possible which normally means scan the cable and replace the box. I would work on getting Buffalo to send your problem further upstairs, eventually you'll get to someone that really understands the cable system and will figure out what's going on. The first step would be sending out the lead for your repair group followed by a line engineering guy to trace the problem to your node. (They can look at your node and they know where it is and see if it is sending back the right reporting as well).

At one point a couple years back I was having trouble and noticed a splitter on the pole under the cable tap, the guy climbed up, cut it out and replaced my drop to the house. Don't know who tapped in, but there service ended right then and he wasn't the least concerned. That's known as "foreign equipment" by some in the trade.

[Crash2009]

Rick wrote this to monitor temps over time. Likely to see if there was a pattern in when the tuner overheated.

I was thinking, (although I wouldn't know where to start) that we could record the signal pulse for 24 hours (for example) to see if there is a pattern to the failure, using Performance Monitor to record the high's and lows of the pulse.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 577#p45577

I would imagine we could monitor the SNR exactly the same way as Rick did the Temperature.

Do you know what the name of the target is inside the tuner?

[Crash2009]

The problem here is finding out when the -48 dBmV hits and what channels if not all are impacted. If just one channel and retuning that tuner to a different channel shows the tuner working, then the problem is incoming, either the headend might of lost the signal or something has happened between the headend, the fiber node and the conversion back to copper to go to the subscriber.

I was thinking the same thing. Using PerfMon to watch 6 tuners. Set 3 to known "Problem Channels" and set 3 to "Known Good Channels"

The Qam16 gif was the closest to what we have, that I could find, within the allotted time slot.

[JohnW248]

I would imagine we could monitor the SNR exactly the same way as Rick did the Temperature.

Do you know what the name of the target is inside the tuner?

If you look through the code I posted for the status page you'll find the calls for all the parameters for each tuner, temp, pairing, snr, signal, frequency, modulation, etc. So you could replace the temp with either signal level or SNR without much difficulty if that wasn't compiled.

[rickbassham]

Hey guys, I haven't actually touched this in a long time (I don't even have my ceton tuner anymore). I finally cut the cord with cable. That being said, this could definitely be modified to report on SNR and Signal Level, I just never got around to it. That being said, the CetonRRD project should work for you. You may need to modify the path to the rrdtool.exe and then recompile. You can run it on the command line. The only argument is the ip address of your card. Every minute it will check the temp, signal level, and SNR, and graph them in a png file. You will want to let it run for a while to get any meaningful data. If you need to compile it, just get microsoft visual c# express edition, and open the csproj file. You will want to modify the Program.cs file. You can get rrdtool.exe from https://sites.google.com/site/christian ... -windows-v

Hope this helps!

[Crash2009]

Thanks for the pointers Rick. Sounds like we have all the parts now. Putting it together is beyond my peg rate. Hopefully someone will volunteer to pick it up.

[cKuR6]

Wow, you guys have been busy. I can edit files, like the java i added to john's code, and changing how it listed tuner number. I use ps for some light things, VBA, sql, and some batch files at work for my team to update the databases to my newest version, but what you've posted seems beyond me, at least at first glance. I'll try to dig in through the week.

As for moving this up the line at TWC, I'll keep capturing with the current code to see what it will show. Maybe I can set it up to run as a scheduled task a few times an hour, and auto save the file. That seems easiest for me at the present. Also, now having a definitive, "this is definitely not our problem" from ceton, makes me a little more easy with pointing the finger at TWC. Until now, I've seen nothing but stupid responses from ceton about loading hot fixes for usb's and pci issues..... showing they never bother to really look at my files or ticket.... it's an ethernet tuner! nothing to do with what they usually tell me to fix.

As for the small fluctuations in signal, aren't they a wave? Therefore, it would necessarily move those tiny bits during a longer term record of signal.

[Crash2009]

Another place you can collect more ammunition for your battle with TWC is in your Cable Modem. I don't think we ever dug in to this area. Maybe the modem is no good.

I know you don't want to go into this area.....Maybe the Channelmasters are intermittently screwing your signal somehow. You are the only one that can dig a diag out of those ones.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7363

[cKuR6]

Another place you can collect more ammunition for your battle with TWC is in your Cable Modem. I don't think we ever dug in to this area. Maybe the modem is no good.

I know you don't want to go into this area.....Maybe the Channelmasters are intermittently screwing your signal somehow. You are the only one that can dig a diag out of those ones.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7363

Don't take this for anything more than it is, which is direct.

There are multiple posts here mentioning MoCA has a potential problem causer, even after I've repeatedly pointed out that the two systems are running on separate lines, and the tuner/TA are blocked by a POE filter, for good measure. Before I spend time digging into this as a potential issue, which I gladly will, I need to understand how could they be an issue, when they have no interaction with the TV signal.

Again, the MoCA lines and devices, are not a part of the lines carrying the signal to the TA & Eth6.The only potential line in common, is the line from the tap to the modem. Unless MoCA can travel back through Ethernet, through the modem, and back down the line, interaction is impossible. Just for good measure though, there is a PoE on both side of the tap, just because I have them.

MoCA can't go back through the cat5e connecting the injecting cm6004 to the switch, out of the switch through the cat6 to the tuner. So I fail to see how MoCA could still be considered as a cause. Next time things go very south, I will unplug all the cm's, and screen grab. I'd be shocked to see any effect.

[JohnW248]

The MoCA thing goes back a few years (five?) to FiOS problems which attacked only a couple of QAM tanks and thus just certain channel on their system with I think a harmonic beat frequency. Since I've never had FiOS (even though I called them and begged them to apply for the TWC franchise) I don't have first hand experience with it. You'll have to see if there is any possibility of a beat frequency and in most cases it would be on coax. However if that was the case, its something I would think any TWC tech with a spectrum scanner would have picked up on an early visit.

I think in the FiOS case, there was a problem from the fiber to coax conversion and the tuners at the time didn't have a blocking filter that prevented the interaction.

So it is likely just those memories that flag MoCA as a possible problem and if there was any common coax in the RF plant (your house) that serviced both tv and a MoCA to Ethernet adapter.

[Crash2009]

Sorry to keep bringing up the damm Moca thing. The reason I do that is because I have been unable to eliminate it. I have tried to diagram your system several times. It seems that is just too large and complex for me to picture. Possibly others too.

I'm not even sure I have sketched in all the components. Add if nescesary.
Could you open this with paint and draw some lines?

Ethernet Blue
USB Red
Moca System Coax Yellow
TV System Coax Green

[cKuR6]

Certainly can. I thought I sent you something with our old discussions, but of course it has changed a bunch after you helped me get to where we are now. Ill look it over when the kids go to bed.

[Crash2009]

Yeah, you did draw a previous one. I was unable to download a good copy from that picture place you posted it to. Couldn't read it once I downloaded. Now that John is involved in a solution for you, it would be a good idea for him to look it over. I didn't know where to sketch in the poe filters, and I don't know where the splitters go.

Try using the Upload Attachment button.

Down by options

VVVVVV
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[cKuR6]

You got really close there with that drawing. I'm going to have to update tomorrow, unfortunately. Thanks