TWC TA randomly crapped out

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jziggity

Posts: 146
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 2:11 am
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TWC TA randomly crapped out

#1

Post by jziggity » Sun Jun 29, 2014 7:12 am

It has been about a month, so it must be time for another TWC issue to creep up. Randomly, both of my TA's crapped out tonight, sort of. They are still connected and showing a status of "ready" on the HDHR Config GUI, and solid green lights. However I still cannot view any SDV channels. Every/any SDV channel I try to tune results in this error message:

20140629-05:43:01 CableCARD: tr/resolve_tuning_rsp timeout error (cchost_tr_resolve_tuning:34)
20140629-05:43:01 CableCARD: message: Timeout requesting channel. Please try again later.

I checked all of the detailed TA diagnostic pages, and noticed under the SDV Mini Carousel that the status there is "McpDiscovery". According to Cisco's documentation on the STA-1520, this field needs to be CacheReady in order to be able to view any SDV channels. Well, I'd say we found the culprit then.

Of course a call to TWC tech support resulted in the usual rebooting process. When that did not work, they scheduled a truck roll for tomorrow afternoon. In what may have been a misguided attempt to save both myself and TWC some time, I tried a support chat with them later in the evening, attempting to get in touch with someone in tier 3 who might be able to check in to the problem further on their end. I strongly believe at this point that it is most likely a TWC network issue, not a hardware problem, since everything else in the TA diagnostic pages shows it is fine.

The first chat guy did the same song and dance, reboot, blah blah blah. I told him I really needed to chat with someone from tier 3, and bam, he swapped out with a guy who sounded much more knowledgeable on the issue. He said he checked their network from their side and everything was showing fine, so I'm sticking with the truck roll for tomorrow afternoon, if both TA's don't randomly fix themselves by then.

I am slightly less certain now about it NOT being a hardware issue, I suppose it could be? But both of them, at the exact same time? Fat chance, me thinks...

Has anyone else ever had this Mini SDV Carousel status get stuck like this?

MINI CAROUSEL INFO
Status: McpDiscovery
Def Freq: 0 MHz
Tvp/Tv Id: n/a
Load Time: n/a
Version: 0
Size: 0 bytes
Num Entries: 0
Cache Hits: 0
Cache Misses: 0
Cache Overrides: 0
Load Count: 0
Load Failures: 45
Last Load Err: TuningErr
Err Time: 06/29@00:42:59
Last Load Attempt:
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jziggity

Posts: 146
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 2:11 am
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#2

Post by jziggity » Sun Jun 29, 2014 4:00 pm

RESOLVED:

As expected, this was NOT a hardware issue. I called the CableCard support line this morning (it was already closed last night by the time I narrowed down the problem). They looked at some other diagnostic screens with me. They did not like the FDC (forward data channel) signal level on both TA's, one showing -9db and the other -8db. They want them to be between -7 and +7. But they also sent a bunch of refresh hits to both CableCards and TA's, and we did another reboot on both TA's again after that. Once those hits went through, EMM's processed for both CC's went way up, which is also something they were looking for. After the TA's were done rebooting, SDV Mini Carousel status for both of them changed to the appropriate CacheReady and we're off and running again. All SDV channels are back, and they almost seem to tune faster than before.

Hopefully this is helpful if someone else runs into the same situation. Truck roll cancelled, I can now go about the rest of my day! :clap:

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UCBearcat

Posts: 249
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 12:08 am
Location: Cincinnati

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#3

Post by UCBearcat » Thu Apr 16, 2015 4:11 pm

Two nights ago, our Switched Digital channels stopped tuning. To be honest, I've grown accustomed to power cycling my Cisco TA about once a month to fix this issue. I never have to power cycle my HDHR Prime, mind you. it's always the TWC provided SD box.
Anyway, before calling their CableCard helpline, I found this post. Sure enough, my TA was showing Ready, but I was getting the same as mentioned here - McpDiscovery. When I called the helpline, I pointed out this error and what it meant according to the Cisco manual. The dude still insisted it was a line signal issue. Admittedly, the line quality was just below spec, but it wasn't egregious. My HDHR Prime obviously wasn't having any problems w/ the line condition. :P

So, they schedule a truck roll for this morning. Yesterday they left me a voicemail saying they fixed something remotely and to try again. I got home - nope. So I called to tell them still broken. They said thanks and the truck roll is still schedule for tomorrow.
An hour later, they call me back to let me know (again) that something was fixed on their end. I tested it again. Nope - still broken.
Thursday morning - I'm waiting at home for them to show. (took the time off from work, mind you). I get a call from the tech who is scheduled. He informs me that this is an area-wide outage and TWC is aware of it. He won't be coming out, because there's nothing he can fix at my house.

Moral of the story here - I gave them very specific troubleshooting steps that pointed out a possible problem with their equipment. Then, they wasted 2 days figuring it out. The icing on the cake was that I took the time away from work to wait for a truck roll that never happened. Oh.. and he says the ETA could be another 48 hours.

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