I am not a Comcast basher, so I have no axe to grind. In fact, as a Comcast CXI, I feel like they offer the best chance for customer satisfaction of the providers in my area. Though no provider is perfect and all have room to improve, I recommend them to clients that ask me. (What is the best provider? The one you have now, if it is working!)

Background: I got called out for no internet service. Reboots are to no avail, so I get on the horn with customer service and even with a newer Surfboard modem, they can’t even see it. In the process of the conversation he notes that the house was tagged for “ingress”. A service call is set up, and a Comcast tech arrives.

He noted that indeed the house was tagged, and to prevent the ingress from reflecting further into their system and causing issues on the street, a filter was installed on the house line at the street. An hour or so later, filter is yanked, several fittings have been snipped and changed, and ingress levels are satisfactory. We re-register the original modem and restore internet.

I got a call a couple days later and one of two AppleTVs are unable to connect; logged in and that is fixed in a flash. But here is the weird part.

There are four legacy (hard drive based) RNG150/200 DVRs in the house, and two of them show no programs in the list, even though one of them shows 93% used, there is nothing in the list. OK, I power cycle them and the list returns, and I watch something off one the DVRs, call it good and leave.

The client had not been at home when I restored the DVRs, and reported several hours later that the DVRs were still not listing anything. So I went back out again and power cycled them, restored both, and this time he is there so I can demonstrate them to his satisfaction.

Ten minutes after I leave for another job, he texts me that the listings have disappeared again. While on site I had contacted customer service to ask how two legacy boxes could fail simultaneously. We note that these are not network based boxes; they stand alone; they do not share recorded programs; there is only the RG6 that ties these “together” but they do not talk to each other. It must be a coincidence that the ingress, the Comcast tech visit for internet, and two cable boxes acting weird could only be random individual failure.

I asked if a firmware update might have caused this. He said that the legacy boxes don’t allow him to “look” into them and see what firmware is loaded, but that the last firmware update for those boxes was from last year, or at least quite some time ago.

So the client understandably is connecting the dots and senses that he is being forced to update to the X1 platform against his will. I stay pretty neutral because we still have two functional boxes and I know how electronics can be.

FF to this morning early, and a text arrives, and DVR #3 has lost it’s listing information. So that’s 3 out of 4.

So........ what’s a logical troubleshooting kind of guy supposed to think?

RNG150/200 and DCX3400 are both still current and supported non X1 DVR's. Certainly in chicagoland anyway.

The silver Motorola DCT's are obsoleted at this point, but surprisingly, I still have clients that are using them.

That is true, but at every opportunity, they are trying to upgrade legacy clients to X1.

When the list disappears, do DVR functions (ie live pause/resume) work or not? Could be early signs of hard drive failure (SATA errors that cause the bus to drop out). In which case, could be complete coincidence, or a result of a power outage, or something when the filter was reset that caused them to reload their program which triggered something else... lots of reasons why old boxes may lose reliability.

I do believe they kill devices. Particularly modems/EMTA's when the need older devices removed as system progresses. However they don't make it public or system wide all at once. How could they keep up with the call volume? They also do updates in this fashion. Not so sure about your DVR issue. Quit answering the phone. Customer needs to call Comcast for a swap. Any guide, search or on demand issues? Could still be a signal issue if so. Not sure how they run their system. If any trouble with those other feature could mean a signal problem and list could still be tied to it.

Why wouldn’t he just upgrade to X1? It is by far the best platform out and you don’t pay anything more for it.

On a side note, I had something similar last year. Weird devices just falling off line, loosing guide info, on demand on one box and not another you name it. Client was fed up so I offered to investigate. (Issues before I was brought in) long story short I found an old first gen Moca filter the tech had reused months before I showed up. It was backwards, flipped it around and BAM instantly better.

Another job they were switching from Fios to Comcast and the tech was having similar issues to my other client. Told him to run out and check/replace the Moca filter. Immediately things worked, so you might want to take a look at the Moca filter the tech inevitably installed!

You might try the Comcast forum, this thread is older, but it gives you a place to start.

I have had good luck with local cable installers giving me the info for getting into the service menu- you might try that, too.

One reason - their DVR saved programs are totally different.

X1 - all programming intermixed, correct?

Can anyone confirm I have this right?

Not sure what you mean by intermixed. all the programming is the same, same channels numbers etc.

The ONLY place where there is some intermixing is when you go to a recorded program and it gives you an option to watch on the DVR, on demand or purchase it. Kinda goofy if you have it recorded but it’s only one extra button press.

It really is a fantastic system. Makes the rest of them archaic. At first the X1 was pretty rough, but it’s been polished to the point where it’s pretty damn reliable. (Especially the rack mount boxes)

Listing info keeps disappearing on my mother-in-law's RNG150 cable box. She doesn't have a DVR anywhere in the house.

Correct, you cannot have separate "play lists" for recorded programming.

Meaning what? If you hit the xfinity button you see the bottom “saved” then slide over to recordings and you see all of your recordings, same as any other DVR. The only difference being is the prompt to watch it via on demand, DVR or purchase the program when you select.

(Damn I wish photobucket still worked)

I believe the OP is saying that his customer has separate DVR's so they can keep the programs they record separate, giving them essentially 2 play lists, One on DVR1 and the other on DVR2. X1 is going to combine recorded from programs from either party into one list.

This is correct or at least what I think he means.

This has been holding me back from upgrading to X1. I have in-laws that stay with me in an apartment. My mother in law records just about every damn show known to man and would eat up all my recording space easily.

They should make it so you can choose which DVR to record to.