How can I communicate with someone at Xfinity that understands CableCard activation/pairing?

That was pretty much my conclusion. The Bolt has been installed for 2 years but up to now we were using OTA. Where we are living now OTA reception is dicey at best so I reluctantly wanted to switch to cable. The only thing that gave me any hope that this would get solved is all of the stories of Xfinity not doing the right thing. I've escalated this pretty much as high as I can go with Xfinity. Negotiating with Tivo to get a refurbished Bolt. I also noticed they are now available on Ebay for ~ $50.

@Wjx  Apologies for the issue and the experience that you described above. I have sent some signals to your cable card that have been known to resolve this issue in many cases. Please let me know how things are now.

I have escalated your issue to the right teams so that we can get all of your subscribed channels for you on your TiVo. That team will review your account and contact you directly. Thanks for your patience.

Hi Comcast Ted;

Tried another cablecard today. On the phone with an agent for almost 3 hrs. Still no joy. She has scheduled an appointment with a tech to test the signal outside and at the wall outlet. Other than that she blames the tivo tuner. Although anything is possible our tivo bolt has 4 tuners and from what I have read that only 2 tuners need to be functional to pair with the cablecard.

Thanks for your response. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sorry for the late reply. I appreciate your help. TiVo is still not paired. Diagnostic fields in Conditional CableCard Access shows that the CableCard seems to be communicating with the headend  which is a step in the right direction but does not show Authorized and TiVo diagnostics says not paired. RS uncorrected shows a huge number. RS corrected is 0. Connected cable directly to T V and did a scan. Since I only subscribed to basic cable for now I thought that I would get a reasonable count of digital channels found. Minimal digital channels were found  by the TV scan (6) and those didn't correspond to my subscription. 

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@Wjx wrote: ... does not show Authorized and TiVo diagnostics says not paired. RS uncorrected shows a huge number. RS corrected is 0. ...

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"TiVo diagnostics says not paired" may be normal. My Roamio has always reported that. OTOH both RS numbers should be 0 or close to it. What do Tivo's diagnostic Signal Strength and SNR show?

Connected cable directly to T V and did a scan. ...

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You won't be able to use your TV do a meaningful channel scan. It will be looking at broadcast frequencies, not cable TV frequencies.

Hi Bruce. Thanks for your input.  I realize that TV will not show the correct channel number. I see things like 21-99 or 21-1. One analog channel (I think TV-Land) shows up. I really just wanted to see if I was getting any signal over the comcast cable. Have gone through disconnecting all splitters inside and out, cycling the Bolt multiple times, running setup multiple times,  etc.etc etc.

CableCard is Motorola M-Card:

CableCard conditional access says CON=Yes, EBCP = Yes, VAL=V

AUTH and CCI fields (?) are not shown.

Under Network Setup:

VCTID =26, OOB Messages increase when I press select on the remote. 

Under DVR diagnostic:

Signal strength  is "-" (0)

SNR rotates between 9, 21  and 15. 

QAM  oscillates between 64 and 256.

No signal lock.

Error code V52 when I check channels 

Of course Comcast says there must be something wrong with the Tivo.

Sorry for the long response.

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@Wjx wrote: ... Signal strength  is "-" (0)  SNR rotates between 9, 21  and 15.  QAM  oscillates between 64 and 256.  No signal lock. ...

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Either you have massive signal problems, or there is something wrong with your Bolt:

• Signal Strength should be at least 50, preferably 80-99
• Channels should read QAM-256
• SNR should be at least 29
• All channels should show Signal Lock: Yes

See Tivo's CableCARD Troubleshooting and Troubleshooting Digital TV Signals.

If it was me, I'd move a known good cable box from another TV to this location to test the signal. If I didn't have another box, I'd borrow one from Comcast. Either that, or pay to have tech out to check it.

Is this a new install or has the Bolt been working in this location?

@Wjx  Looks like Brianna on our team was able to connect with you directly on this. 

We verified pairing and validation along with headend and downstream plant. All looks correct on our side matched to your account but Brianna was still going to reach out to our addressability/headend team in the area to verify of no recent changes.

Let us know how it goes with Tivo. Thanks for your continued patience. 

Thanks ComcastTed., Things are still not working. I had alll but given up on CableCard and Tivo  but something interesting happened yesterday. A tech came out to check our connection outside and I asked him to leave a box so I could check inside as we are not comfortable having a stranger in the house at this time. I connected the box and low and behold I was getting all my channnels on the box. When I re-connected the CableCard/Tivo,  fields that I had never seen before showed up in Conditional Access including the AUTH and CII fields that Tivo Support said were critical. I suspect that it was info that the card somehow retained from signal to the cable box after I diconnected because when I refreshed, all the additional fields in Conditional Access  were gone. However it led me to believe that there must be something that Comcast can send that will goose the card into displaying those fields. Someone was supposed to call me after the tech reported his results but I haven't heard yet. I'm returning the cable box for now this morning so I don't get charged. Even though I explained why I wanted the box just to test the cooection the tech was annal about making sure I was billed. 

ComCastTed: Missed a call from Vanessa on Thursday. Tried calling yesterday and today but the estimated wait time was over an hour. Will keep trying. One other thing I noticed when I reconnected the Tivo was that the data information on the card conditional access changed after verifying the signal using the borrowed X1 box.  Hope that is a positive sign. The saga continues. Thank you so much for your continuing intervention.

Hi BruceW: Xfinity CableCard Dept. set up an appointment for a tech to check the signal outside. Said to borrow a box that I could use to check inside so the tech would not have to come into the house. Box worked fine and all channels came in. I disconnected the box and reconnected the Tivo and when I checked the conditional access screen for the CableCard it was populated with all of the fields that Tivo says should be there including AUTH and CCI with the correct values. This was obviously latent  or buffered information that was the result of the cable box being connected since when I refreshed the screen it was gone. This leads me to believe however that the issue is not with the Tivo itself but rather with the signal Comcast is sending to the card to validate and authorize.. 

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@Wjx wrote: ... This was obviously latent  or buffered information that was the result of the cable box being connected ...

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I don't know what that means, but I don't think "latent or buffered information" explains much. I imagine that Cablecard signals are sent to a specific card in a specific device, not all the devices at a particular location.

Have you re-run Guided Setup since switching from OTA to Cable? See https://tivoidp.tivo.com/tivoCommunitySupport/s/article/Repeating-Guided-Setup

Many times. No matter what I should not be getting different results on the cable card after I briefly connected the Xfinity box. Like I said all of a sudden the card was showing me all the critical infornation that I never saw when Comcast did their "hit". Something obviously woke the card up in the signal that the headend was briefly sending to the card immediatly after I changed back to the Tivo. I have cancelled the replacement for the Tivo box and I will give them one last chance today in a conference call with Xfinity. Otherwise I may just keep using Xfinity stream until my "deal" runs out and then switch to YouTube TV.    

Can anyone send me a picture of what the M-Card Conditional Access screen should look like on a Tivo Bolt? I'm missing some fields that Tivo Support says are critical (AUTH and CCI). Do these fields only appear once the card is paired?

@Wjx  As per Brianna and Vanessa on the Comcast team, it sounds like this was resolved when you got a replacment Tivo.  Please let me know if that is not the case. 

Thanks for your patience.