Upgraded Tivo HD Cable Card issue

[irieblue]

I upgraded my Tivo HD to a WD 1 TB drive using WinMFS and backup/restore, and now the only thing that's a bit strange is that the Cable Card is failing to pick up the premium channels I was previously receiving (it's just black on those screen). The cable card works since it authorizes me for the non basic channels, but it's just the premium channel that's not working. What's even more strange is that I put the original drive back in and the cable card failed there as well . I've asked comcast to re-send the authorization and they tried twice, but it still didn't work. Any ideas what's wrong?

[jt1134]

you need your cards "validated"

call comcast back and use those exact words, and pray that someone who has half a clue answers the phone

(i hate comcast)

this will happen any time you swap drives in the tivo

[irieblue]

Thanks for that info, I just contacted Comcast via the live chat feature (since I can't really tolerate talking to them on the phone). They said it will take 45 minutes after they send it for the box to pick it up . Does that make sense? Does it matter what screen I am on?

[jt1134]

doesn't matter what channel/screen you're on

online chat people usually have even less of a clue than the phone drones

I always had to call my local franchise to get ANY cablecard issues resolved

[irieblue]

I agree that the online chat people are completely useless. I have now given up on using that feature as they have failed 4 times to fix various issues.

I am happy to report that the phone tech was able to fix my problem. One of the issues the online "chat person" had me do was pull the cable cards out (an M-Stream Motorola card) to get the Serial Number. However according to the phone tech. the Data ID on the card changes every time you take the card out, (and to never do that!!!) He had to re-enter the new DATA ID, and once he did that I was able to get my premium content (STARZ) again.

There is definitely alot of mis information on how the cable cards work, but in any event I am back to normal with the help from this forum.

[lrhorer]

you need your cards "validated"

call comcast back and use those exact words, and pray that someone who has half a clue answers the phone

(i hate comcast)

this will happen any time you swap drives in the tivo

Untrue. I've swapped every drive in all three of my S3 class TiVos at least once (one of them three times), and I have never had to have the cards paired after a drive swap, or any other time, for that matter, other than the one time I had a failed TiVo replaced.

[lrhorer]

I am happy to report that the phone tech was able to fix my problem. One of the issues the online "chat person" had me do was pull the cable cards out (an M-Stream Motorola card) to get the Serial Number. However according to the phone tech. the Data ID on the card changes every time you take the card out, (and to never do that!!!)

Uh huh. Really? Did he explain how the printing on the outside of the card was changed along with the internal ID? It's true it is unnecessary to remove the CableCard. 'Just read the card ID off the CableCard info screen.

[irieblue]

just to be clear, the basic cable card functionality worked after the drive upgrade. It was only the premium channels such as starz that was having a problem because the data id changed..

[lgkahn]

I had same problem after harddrive died.. couldnt get them working a guy was going to come out then someone on the support actually did the right thing and it started working again.. it is hit and miss with their techs..

also after 1 software upgrade on only 1 of my 3 boxes premium again stopped working.. this time the first tech was able to resend the synch signal.