NEED HELP! - FiOS to TiVo Premiere CableCard setup nightmare

doubler11563

I'm a long-time TiVo customer (NY/Long Island area) and have owned every model since the original back in '99. I currently have three TiVo's in the house - an old S2 and two Premieres. There haven't been any major issues to report until this past Friday when I switched from Cablevision Optimum to Verizon FiOS. I did my part in preparing for the install by running the Guided Setup before they showed up, so that all TiVo's in the house were ready by the time the techs came out. FiOS showed up promptly @ 9am on Friday morning and the initial setup (ONT, running wires, etc.) surprisingly took only 1 1/2 hours. They setup the S2 with no issues - connected it to a STB and validated that I received every subscribed channel. Then the cable card nightmare started with the Premieres... The first 2-man team only had 3 m-cards - one for each of my Premieres and an extra. They tried to activate/pair the cards for about 6 hours, but didn't get any reception on either TiVo... no channels were coming through. Then a second 2-man team showed up (around 5pm) with two more cards and they had the same issues - couldn't pair either Premiere unit and none of the channels were coming through. On the "test channels" screen it showed "No Channels Available" and LiveTV had a grey screen with "Channel Not Available, Contact Your Cable Provider For More Info". I had TiVo tech support on a 3-way call with FiOS FSC and the in-home FiOS techs... FiOS said the cards showed active on their side, but TiVo couldn't confirm the same on my end. My "Conditional Access" screen supported the TiVo tech support in that the "Con: = No" and "Val: = 0" - so the cards were neither activated or paired on my end. Then TiVo tech support noted that there was a high failure rate on the CC's (something like 40%) and that FiOS should come back and test a few more. The next day (Saturday) another 2-man crew showed up with a set of 8 cards and not a single one worked. Day 2 and another 6 hours later and we were no closer to a resolution. I'm simply not getting any signal on either TiVo Premiere. The FiOS techs again called FSC and they had them retest the incoming RG6 at each location, but the signal was fine. The odd thing is - when hooked up to the FiOS STB's, I had perfect video and received every channel from my subscription package... but when switching back to the TiVo's - no signal at all. I spent another 2 1/2 hours on a 3-way call with Verizon tier-2 and TiVo tech support yesterday AM and they continued to blame each other for the CC issue, but I'm the one stuck in the middle having to deal with this nonsense. FYI - I had no issues with the Optimum CC's (with the use of a TA). This setup obviously works for others and I refuse to give up! So here's the recap: - Two TiVo Premieres, neither works with FiOS CC's. Between Friday and Saturday, we went through a dozen Motorola m-cards and neither would pair. Numerous resets on the CC's and TiVo yielded the same results - nothing. - We confirmed (and re-confirmed) that the activation/pairing info on every reset is correct for every card on both ends - Pod ID, Host ID and Data. - FiOS insists that the cards are showing activated, however, my TiVo's are showing they're not - Con:=No; Val:=0; VCTID=0 (in Network Setup). - Six different FiOS techs were in my home over the weekend trying to get this to work without any success (only 1 out of 6 was at all knowledgeable with TiVo, albeit limited). - This was been elevated to tier-2 FiOS support, but they're just as clueless as the in-home techs and tier-1 support. They maintain that they've done as much as they could on their end. My brother (who lives one town over) has the same Premiere unit with a FiOS CC and had no issues with installation/activation/pairing. I can't be the only person with this issue... Can anyone here help?? Could the fact that I have an older Actiontec router (MI424WR rev.F) have anything to do with the FiOS to TiVo communication issues? Thanks in advance!

[Deleted User]

Hi doubler11563,

Please go to your profile page for the forum by clicking on your name, and look at the top of the middle column where you will find an area titled "My Private Support Cases". There you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. This should be checked on a frequent basis as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.