Fios TV One keeps rebooting

Our Fios TV One box has been rebooting on its own. This usually occurred when there has been a change in programming. Lately, it has been rebooting multiple times a day. Today, it rebooted three times, twice within a couple of hours. When the box tries to reconnect to the network, it is taking longer than it usually does. Also, we have two Fios Mini set-top boxes that are constantly freezing. This has been happening since we upgraded from the older boxes. When I go to change the channel, there is message saying the channel is unavailable, try changing to another channel and change back to this channel . . . when I change to another channel, a little box pops up saying "Unable to connect to widgets server. Please verify your Fios router is powered on and try again." I check the router and it is on. I turn off and wait a while and turn it back on; sometimes that clears the issue, sometimes not. Sometimes, it clears up on its own. This is very frustrating, especially in the middle of a show.

I've rebooted the router, all boxes, unplugged everything, including the ONT, and the issue persists. I will not contact support because they will tell me to do the same things I've already done. I've tried changing the splitters but that did not appear to work as there was no connection. I'm guessing Verizon has their own splitters that only work with their equipment. I do not know enough about changing out cables.

I'm just venting right now as these issues are becoming annoying. I have been a Verizon customer for many years and never had any issues with the previous equipment.

Any suggestions on how to fix these problems would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Accepted answers

cagill142

Well, I contacted Verizon Support and had a service technician come out. The tech was out last Friday and he quickly determined what the problem was. I wasn't home but my stepsister was here and he explained to her that the problem with the lost connection was due to the splitters. He said Verizon now has their own splitters that works only with their new equipment. We had Verizon prior and had the older Motorola STBs. Then we switched to Comcast. Then we came back to Verizon and we were given the new equipment. Don't know when Verizon created these new splitters, but the tech who installed our new boxes used the same splitters that were installed with the Comcast equipment, and we almost immediately started having connection issues.

The tech gave us a new Fios TV One box, replaced one of the mini STB and gave us a new router. So far, we have had no connection issues. I will reserve judgement until a month from now to determine if the problem is really resolved.

All comments

clem21

@cagill142
wrote:
Our Fios TV One box has been rebooting on its own. This usually occurred when there has been a change in programming. Lately, it has been rebooting multiple times a day. Today, it rebooted three times, twice within a couple of hours. When the box tries to reconnect to the network, it is taking longer than it usually does. Also, we have two Fios Mini set-top boxes that are constantly freezing. This has been happening since we upgraded from the older boxes. When I go to change the channel, there is message saying the channel is unavailable, try changing to another channel and change back to this channel . . . when I change to another channel, a little box pops up saying "Unable to connect to widgets server. Please verify your Fios router is powered on and try again." I check the router and it is on. I turn off and wait a while and turn it back on; sometimes that clears the issue, sometimes not. Sometimes, it clears up on its own. This is very frustrating, especially in the middle of a show.
I've rebooted the router, all boxes, unplugged everything, including the ONT, and the issue persists. I will not contact support because they will tell me to do the same things I've already done. I've tried changing the splitters but that did not appear to work as there was no connection. I'm guessing Verizon has their own splitters that only work with their equipment. I do not know enough about changing out cables.
I'm just venting right now as these issues are becoming annoying. I have been a Verizon customer for many years and never had any issues with the previous equipment.
Any suggestions on how to fix these problems would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Are all the boxes rebooting or just the VMS box? Are the minis connected via coax or WiFi? Did you replace the splitters with MoCa 2.0 splitters? Did you get an upgraded ONT with the new boxes? The ONT should look something like this:

The boxes could be caught in an update loop. Watch the lights in the front of the boxes, red indicates an update is being processed. You may have to contact support and have them push the updates to your boxes.

cagill142

The VMS box and set top box reboot at the same time. The boxes are connected via coax cables. When the service was first installed, the ONT box was a big white box. When the boxes were upgraded from the Motorola boxes to the Fios VMS and Fios minis, the ONT was not replaced. It wasn't until later that a service tech replaced the ONT with the newer model.

The splitters that were connected to the older boxes I believe were MoCa 2.0 splitters. I switched the current splitters with the previous ones but there was no network connection. I truly believe the issue is with the router. According to the router manual, the status LED should be a solid white, indicating normal operation. The light is out, meaning the router is off. But it cannot be off, otherwise, I would not be connected to the Internet.

dexman

A shot in the dark with this suggestion...

Can the remote STBs be powered down to see if that makes any difference with the main STB?

Also, can the error stats for the different units be checked to see if they point to something specific.

clem21

@cagill142
wrote:
The VMS box and set top box reboot at the same time. The boxes are connected via coax cables. When the service was first installed, the ONT box was a big white box. When the boxes were upgraded from the Motorola boxes to the Fios VMS and Fios minis, the ONT was not replaced. It wasn't until later that a service tech replaced the ONT with the newer model.
The splitters that were connected to the older boxes I believe were MoCa 2.0 splitters. I switched the current splitters with the previous ones but there was no network connection. I truly believe the issue is with the router. According to the router manual, the status LED should be a solid white, indicating normal operation. The light is out, meaning the router is off. But it cannot be off, otherwise, I would not be connected to the Internet.

You are correct, the light on the router should be white when it is functioning correctly. You may have a problem where the MoCa network is dropping out, causing the boxes to go off-line. Give support a shout and see if they can replace the router for you.

Screenshot 2023-05-16 at 09-20-48 Fios Router 3.1 User Manual - fios-router-user-guide.pdf.png

cagill142

I powered down both mini set-top boxes but that did not seem to fix the issue. As I mentioned before, the issue with the boxes freezing has been occurring since we got them. For the past month or so, one of the boxes has been now freezing almost every five to ten minutes that it difficult to watch the TV the box is connected to.

I'm sure the issue is with the router. All the error messages say to check that the router is on. When the freezing issue occurred, I checked System Information and the Network Status shows Offline. Page two of System Diagnostics shows Server Status :

EPG Server Status: Failed; VOD Server Status: Failed; Widget Server Status: Failed; Search Server Status: Failed; Voice Server Status: Not Connected