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Never disconnect your cable box!

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Volimar

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Fucking Time Warner. Had to rearrange the room a bit and put the TV on a new stand. Had to disconnect the cable box. When I reconnected, it had to reboot. Except it stopped half way. Tried all the standard troubleshooting to get it to work, nothing. Chatted with a rep who tried to get it to work remotely. Didn't work. Now I have to take the box, which was working fine, back to the cable place and exchange it, hoping it works. If not, then I'll have to make an appointment for a service call for one of their techs to come out and see what they can do. And I'm sure I'll have to cough up money for that...

This is the second time I've had to exchange boxes. Pisses me off. The Lego movie is on HBO tonight!
 
Which box do you have? Currently have a Cisco 8640HDC and moved a few times already and never had any issues. Most likely your box went bad.
 
Jarrod38 said:
Which box do you have? Currently have a Cisco 8640HDC and moved a few times already and never had any issues. Most likely your box went bad.
Click to expand...

Scientific Atlanta 4250 HDC is the name on it. Yeah, I figure the boxes are pretty shite. The first time I had to exchange, the guy at the counter acted like it happens a lot.
 
They charge you to replace their broken boxes? That's fucked up if true. Charter doesn't do that here. If they did, I'd raise a big fuss about it.
 
Volimar said:
Scientific Atlanta is the name on it. Yeah, I figure the boxes are pretty shite. The first time I had to exchange, the guy at the counter acted like it happens a lot.
Click to expand...

Scientific Atlanta? I didn't even know they still made them.
 
Your box would have probably broken upon its next scheduled reboot (they do that frequently) it had nothing to do with you unplugging it.
 
Hale-XF11 said:
They charge you to replace their broken boxes? That's fucked up if true. Charter doesn't do that here. If they did, I'd raise a big fuss about it.
Click to expand...

Not for an exchange, but if they have to make a service call to get it to work, I'll (probably) have to pay.

soundscream said:
Your box would have probably broken upon its next scheduled reboot (they do that frequently) it had nothing to do with you unplugging it.
Click to expand...

Built in obslescence. Fucking Illuminati taking my HD channels!
 
You got unlucky. I have had multiple boxes of different brands unplugged before and never had this problem. Hopefully the new one you get isn't defective.
 
Volimar said:
Fucking Time Warner. Had to rearrange the room a bit and put the TV on a new stand. Had to disconnect the cable box. When I reconnected, it had to reboot. Except it stopped half way. Tried all the standard troubleshooting to get it to work, nothing. Chatted with a rep who tried to get it to work remotely. Didn't work. Now I have to take the box, which was working fine, back to the cable place and exchange it, hoping it works. If not, then I'll have to make an appointment for a service call for one of their techs to come out and see what they can do. And I'm sure I'll have to cough up money for that...

This is the second time I've had to exchange boxes. Pisses me off. The Lego movie is on HBO tonight!
Click to expand...

They will overnight a new cable box with a prepaid return label for the old one if you ask.
 
Volimar said:
Scientific Atlanta is the name on it. Yeah, I figure the boxes are pretty shite. The first time I had to exchange, the guy at the counter acted like it happens a lot.
Click to expand...

Scientific Atlanta is Cisco (Cisco purchased them). I take it you have one of the gray Scientific Atlanta boxes?

I work with cable boxes so I know all too well about them. You were more than likely given a refurbished box. Which is extremely common and unless you make a stink about it you'll be getting another refurbished one.

The Scientific Atlanta boxes boot up and go through initialization fast enough however they're kinda old when compared to the Cisco G7/G8 boxes. That said, if all you did was unplug it and this happened then the box likely didn't pass the code load process and should have never left the warehouse. Sorry to hear you got a bad one.
 
Casimir said:
They will overnight a new cable box with a prepaid return label for the old one if you ask.
Click to expand...

My anxiety made me consider that option, but it'd be more of a hassle to pack it up and mail it than to just take it in for an exchange on Monday. I still have cable going into my TV, just not my HD or premium channels atm.
 
Keep in mind that reboot can take long as hell. I have had to do it a few times and I thought it would never come back.
 
Am I the only one worried that the OP
A: Thought unplugging your cable box breaks it and then,
B: Then thought he needed to create a thread to warn us all

I look forward to the never turn your lights off thread when a bulb burns out :p
 
soundscream said:
Am I the only one worried that the OP
A: Thought unplugging your cable box breaks it and then,
B: Then thought he needed to create a thread to warn us all

I look forward to the never turn your lights off thread when a bulb burns out :p
Click to expand...

Nah, I'm just venting at this repeated bullshit.

That bulb thing is good info, you should make a thread.
 
brianjones said:
why does cable box technology seems like it came from the 90s

ffs

have time warner its so fucking laggy
Click to expand...
Another part of the reason why I'm a cord cutter. There is no reason why they can't put some cheap 64 or even 32-bit ARM CPU combined with a decent GPU in decent sized boxes (i.e. not VCR's, maybe the size of a Fire TV and a bit larger for DVR models) that run as smoothly as something would on your iPhone or Android. It doesn't have to be a gaming machine, it just needs to have enough processing power to handle HD streams, record to the DVR and not have the response time of some piece of crap out of 2002.

Really, there should be a platform/standard that all the companies adhere to that isn't stuck in the 90's/early 2000's. Given the monthly price and related fees just to watch television there is no reason for the technology to be so far behind.
 
Volimar said:
My anxiety made me consider that option, but it'd be more of a hassle to pack it up and mail it than to just take it in for an exchange on Monday. I still have cable going into my TV, just not my HD or premium channels atm.
Click to expand...

You just call Fedex/UPS/DHL (whichever they used) to schedule the pickup and then leave the same box outside your front door( or gate). It seems like less of a hassle than spending your time travelling to and from an office.
 
brianjones said:
why does cable box technology seems like it came from the 90s

ffs

have time warner its so fucking laggy
Click to expand...
It sure seems that way. I recorded The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers one week and had the record time set for a minute or two later and early. My dad wanted to watch something on CBS, but he had to cancel one of the Fox programs because of the overlap despite the fact the only recordings were on the same fucking channel.
 
This happened to me with Fios TV. My cable stopped working and still wouldn't work with a cable box change. The only option left is to pay a technician to come to my home so I can actually use a service I freaking pay for already! It was such bullshit that I just gave up. Unfortunately, I'm locked into a two year contract so I can't cancel it.
 
I never get charged for a cable company problem. Whether that means I exchange it or I have a technician come by and fix it.
 
You were possibly just unlucky as the boxes should be able to recover from a power cut, especially in standby mode.

I completely turn off my Xfinity Non-DVR Cisco RNG150N box at night, along with my PS3 Slim and Samsung HDTV and haven't experienced any issues (even remembers my favorite channels - talk about "state of the art" tech). In the morning, if I'm a little too eager to watch Peoples Court ;) and interrupt the cable box's bootup process, it can take over twice as long to display a show (channel guide takes a little longer to load).

My Xfinity "Cable box compatible" morning routine is take a piss, unplug PS3 power cable (as Slim dropped power off switch) and then power on surge protector leading to Cable box etc, brush teeth, pour cereal (usually oats with cold milk and a little sugar - yum :) ) and finally press the power on all Cable remote button.

What does drive me crazy is Beware the Batman disappeared from the On Demand listings ;), I jest (actually apart from this show there's a much bigger selection), no, my pet peve is they set the On Demand Pause timeout at just before the time it takes me to make a filter coffee - "Sorry we experienced an error" - Stop - On Demand (long pause) - Recently Viewed - Play - now my coffee's cold - actually I haven't finished pour over steps at this stage ;)...
 
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