Rogers → Standard def box shows black screen on some local channels.

I just got my parents Rogers digital cable a month ago, they had an HD PVR and one SD box. Everything has worked fine for the last month. A few nights ago they said on some local channels like global and a few others, they will select the channel on the guide, but the channel is totally black. The information window is still there and says they're on global etc, it's just no picture. Other channels are fine. I just reauthorized the terminals 5 minutes ago so waiting to see if that works. If not, does anyone know what the issue might be or has anyone seen this? If they go to one of their analog cable TVs, global and other channels work, and the channel also works on the HD box, it's just the one SD receiver.

I would check the signal strength of both your SD and your HD box, perhaps they're both getting different signal levels? this can be caused by a wiring problem, or a bad splitter, or cheap grade cables?

you can also switch the locations of the box try the sd box at your other outlet, and vice a versa with your HD box, that way you have done your own troubleshooting, and if you do notice bad signal, that is likely the culprit, and you would have to see if changing out splitters, or replacing cables fixes it?

This seems to be a common problem lately ... I get it occasionally on my boxes ... both the HD and the SD box. Just seems forever to change channels sometimes ... signals are normal. It started with the HD box having about a few second delay when changing channels after a firmware upgrade that gave us the Cisco boot screen! It got better for a while and now it's worse.

I've been experiencing it almost every time we use Treehouse on Demand (my 1 yr old loves Barney), and experienced it a few times on the normal Rogers on Demand channel.

It manages to take out all channels when the one channel drops. Calling in results in them stating "Your signal is extremely low." I've had techs out multiple times checking the splitters and cables they installed, and even replaced the HD box. They show up, and the signal is 'perfect'. Its still happening, and its driving me nuts.

The only way we've found to fix it (til it happens again), is to pull the power on the box for 20 seconds, and then go through the long bootup process again.

I actually called rogers network support about this. The guy told me that when viewership is low, it make take a while for signal to reach my box!! LOL! He seemed serious!! Rebooting didn't help. Channel was still black. An hour later, signal was back.

On SOME channels, that is true ... there are some that are called SDV ... switched digital video" and they aren't transmitted unless requested. But that doesn't apply to most of the analogue channels and some of the digital ones.

In other words more bs from rogers.

Only noticed this late last night. Space channel 50/281 is blacked out on my sd and hd boxes. (Ottawa east)

There have been sporadic short term blackouts on some channels on a rotating basis but this one hasn't come back so far today. I didn't reboot since it doesn't seem to be that type of problem.

Does anyone else have any issues with that channel?

(lol)
Someone at Rogers must be reading these forum and pulled a switch or something. The channel just kicked in.

Hold it!!!!

Then just before sending this, it dropped out again.

Weird. (insert spooky music here)

If it's dropping in and out, that's a signal level issue. Call Rogers!

I was out this afternoon since I originally posted the problem. The channel is now coming in normal on all 5 of my boxes (3 sd and 2 hd). (no reboot required).

In the past when I had internal signal problems (since fixed), it was not consistent on all the boxes. This channel wasn't coming in at all even on straight analog bypassing the box so it looked like a outside / transmission issue to me. Had it not come in by now I would have called Rogers. Calling Rogers is often a waste of time the call agents don't often know much. After going through the standard obligatory routine (power off and on) they want to send a tech even when the problem is with them or even issues at the originating station. I have stories but you've probably heard them all (lol)

Thanks

Op, did you even bother checking your signal strength? its simple and quick to check it yourself.. it could save you a lot of time and unwanted calls to roger's

I'll check it if someone tells me how? It's been mentioned but how do I do it?

hold pause button for approx 10 seconds or until the envelope starts to flash on your stb... then press page up. use pg up and pg down to navigate, that was easy.

Thanks. This is for my 60 year old parents that live up north so they're doing it without me there so we'll see how easy it is I guess. Is it obvious what it says or is it going to be all in db and so on which won't mean much? Like will it say low signal?

Why? You pay for the service, like when I bought Dell PC's and Servers at work. I know what's wrong with it, I can fix it, but I have an onsite service contract.

"Hello Dell, it's broken, come fix it."

Same goes with Rogers, while you might have the knowledge to figure out the signal levels are supposed to be , many others do not. So you call Rogers and same come fix it.

you can have it broken for 2 weeks and put up wit waiting, or you can do it yourself and find out in only 5 mins. if you find out in 5 mins, and its nothing wrong, then your wasting your time by calling a repair crew to come over and check it out, cus they will do absolutely nothing... your pick buddy.

You can check the signal strength, discover it's low and realize that there isn't a damned thing that you can do about it anyway, and then do what you should have done in the first place ... call Rogers. Anyway, unless I'm greatly mistaken the stats can be read remotely anyway ...

They can. When I called about all my channels being out the first thing the guy said was "Wow, your signal is extremely low."

This just started happening to me too except I get a black screen with the words "Tuning HLN" (CNN Headline News, or whatever channel I am watching). Only happens on some channels such as Global timeshifting channels, HLN (but regular Global and CNN are fine). I'll call them tomorrow...don't wanna end my weekend in queue waiting for Rogers to tell me to unplug my box for 30 sec xD

Hmm seems like all my channels above 72 (and just ch.41) are all "tuning" except nothing ever tunes.

Resa1983...
Mine does the exact same thing and we've had the same experience with Rogers. All of my channels black out when I am on Rogers on Demand and need to unplug ..plug back in and wait till everything reboots...very annoying to say the least!!!

I'm in Ottawa and thought I was the only one experiencing this.

I commonly get RoD freezing the STB ... usually it sorts out after a few minutes.

This whole system is quite pathetic. SDV and RoD freezing the box, "please wait, changing date" any time from midnight to 4 am taking anything from 15 minutes to 4 hours!

They tried telling me that it was from a Rogers employee working in the area, which is why we lost all channels..

They had no response as to why a Rogers employee would be working in my area between 3am and 7am though, as that seems to be when it happens most often.

I live in an apartment building.. When my son wakes up in the middle of the night and won't stop crying and screaming from a nightmare, Barney is guaranteed to calm him down and stop the screaming... It makes it absolute hell having to wait on the box to reboot because it stopped working, again.

I am a rogers tech, and the majority of the time i go to a service call where the cx has been told that they have poor signal, it is not the case. if the box is not functioning correctly it will not display the correct signal levels. example..
the box will read fdc of -12 when my signal on chnl 2 is 13 and 70 is 9. i swap the box and the fdc jumps to 11.
i would reccomend looking at the corrective blocks to determine if a service call is necessary(altho not always reliable either).
if you have high uncorrected blocks it would indicate a problem with one of your lines.
you can of course just return your box to retail for a new one if you would rather not wait for a service tech to replace it.

Thank you techminded.

I've had all lines in my apartment tested & replaced, and my HD Box has also been replaced. The issue is still occurring.

Any thoughts?

I've had this problem and a few Roger's techs couldn't solve it. The signal is fine but sometimes some channels don't come in, and the box can't lock the channel. Sometimes it comes in weakly, where it will lock but lose so many packets that the quality ranges from 'a few errors' to 'Imagine a DVD if you let your cat eat it before you played it'. It's all the symptoms of a weak signal but no weak signal could be found. They kept giving me new boxes till they gave me a 3250HD even though I have a standard def plan. It didn't fix it. I eventually just complained till I got lots of refunds and the problem has MOSTLY gone away since but it's intermittant.

Now, here's the interesting part that I fuond. All the channels that die, die in specific QAM frequencies. Infact, I found that every channel that died was within a limited range of QAM frequencies and nothing higher or lower than that range. No tech could tell me WHY that was so however. Also, if one channel on one QAM frequency is dead, you'll find that every OTHER channel carried on the same frequency is suffering the same issue.

Sorry I can't offer any answers and just more questions, but maybe this will be useful to someone else.

good signal will still pass through a wet drop, but will not pass picture or sound. if your problem is intermittent, and it occurs during periods of heavy dew you probably had a wet drop. if your tech did not use his ohm meter to test the drop he will not see it. the signal meter that most techs carry does not test this.
If your confident that your tech did this and the problem is still occuring, then it is a bad box, or a problem outside of your home with the network, in my opinion.
(a drop is the line that goes from the roadside source to your house)keep calling and one of us will get it right.

if a channel is unlocked you need to see what QAM it is on. Usually if a QAM goes unlocked it is because there is interference getting in somewhere and knocking out that QAM. Ask Rogers to send a Senior tech that has a QAM meter. He can test the QAM starting at the box and working his way back to the tap till he finds where the QAM is cutting off.