On Demand Picture Blanks Out

Hello @jorob, thank you for reaching out to us on forums. This issue would drive me crazy if I could not watch my favorite shows on-demand! I see Sara had recently commented in this thread about our incredible My Account application. Have you had a chance to download our My Account application and troubleshoot this issue?

@CactusThorn

Mine happens every minute or so. 

We are happy to take a look into your On demand and we appreciate your time. To get started please select the "peer to peer chat" icon (upper right corner of this page), click the "new message" icon, type/select "Xfinity Support", and then type/send your name with your address.

@Rosedale1 @XfinityJorge I have a theory (keep in mind, just a theory).  I just played "Big Sky" s2ep6 for 51 minutes, and it failed at exactly 2:00 a.m. (right on the hour, as always has been the  case for me).  Just for fun, I "deleted" it, then replayed the whole thing right after the hour had changed.  It only ran for 47 minutes and change, reaching the end successfully.  So my theory is this: maybe they are changing the commercials associated with the episode, and this confuses the location counters or something and that messes up the transmission of the episode-in-progress.

Whatever is going on, it must have been introduced in the last couple of weeks.  (I think I first noticed it around Dec.22.)  It's pretty obvious that a diagnostic app is not going to find anything at the individual customer level, and that the problem is at the server sending out the episodes.

@CactusThorn, I agree with you and Rosedale...  It seems to be getting worse, because it now is also  happening on the half hour also.....

When I contacted Comcast, they ran some tests and found an issue.....then refreshed the signal..  But, since there is nothing wrong on any other channel... it has to be them and their transmission.  And mine happened around the same date.

@Rosedale1 , This has nothing to do with the need for a refresh/reset. It is a Comcast problem with On Demand. Our neighbors are all having the same issue. So Comcast employees who also have On Demand haven't noticed ? When we get the blank screen we stop the program and start it up again so the sound returns.

@NJSenior How do you get the sound to return? I have to exit out of On demand and go back in.....    have your neighbors complained?   When I contacted Comcast, I asked if they had heard of this issue, but never got an answer.  I finally wrote the CEO, and got an email from someone,  but it still isn't fixed..  

@Rosedale1

I think that there is a general problem here.  The tech people make changes and introduce bugs.  They don't tell customer support about it.  Customer support has a list of reflexive responses to give customers (reset your box; exchange your box; download our app; go to private chat where the discussion won't be visible to other customers; etc.) but there is a big wall preventing any of the feedback from reaching the tech people, who could probably fix the problem in a few minutes or revert to the previous version while they redesign the change that didn't work.

There may also be a problem with making insufficiently-tested changes; I'm not sure about that, but I think that if they had some beta users such problems could often be caught before being released.

I don't know what we can do except keep pounding on that wall. :-(

@CactusThorn [Edited: "Personal Information"]  CEO . I have already written him, got a response from someone.  

I have reviewed the service issues you described in your email, as well as, the forum you referred to with our advanced repair team. At this time there were unable to find any outages or service problems which matched the symptoms you had described. I am, however, escalating it to our engineering team for a further review to see if there are any known issues and will follow up with you once I hear back.

I  could be wrong, but it seems out posts are being edited...  I put the email of the Ceo and response and do not see it.

@Rosedale1 I am going to take a guess that the ticket did not specify legacy, old-style cable boxes, and that the engineers tested using X1.  And of course, doing that, they would not reproduce the problem.

So, maybe make sure that you get to see or hear a copy of the ticket when filed and that it specifies which kind of cable boxes.

By the way, my playbacks of shows (I have not tried movies) always seem to go smoothly through the half hour and always hit the problem exactly on the whole hour.

@Rosedale1 Do we all have bad cable lines.... come on...  And the lack of sense of urgency  and customer service.......

@Rosedale1 Actually, the blank out does not only happen on the hour/half hour. It is random and can happen at any time. We have seen it blank out as early as 3 minutes, for example, and then the rest of the movie is OK. And, I don't think that commercial break errors have anything to do with this problem. PBS does not have commercials and it happens there too. Lastly..If your live TV is working just fine, then why would you need a new cable line ? It is a sole On Demand issue.

@NJSenior Let me clarify that "on the hour" means by the clock on the wall, not one hour of playing.  If you start at xx:57, it happens 3 minutes into the show.

I should also clarify that all my tests have been with network shows, not movies (so my results might differ from yours).  I have specifically had it happen with shows from CBS, ABC and NBC, and verified that it also happens with an HBO show when I tried it.

@CactusThorn Yes, I understand and thank you for the clarification. 

@CactusThorn 

Thank you and it also happens with movies. 

@Rosedale1 And for the aggravation.   I just  heard from Corporate.... there is nothing wrong and they want to send a tech,,,  WHY?????

Same here.   Offering to send a tech throws the ball back to our court.   They'll replace the cable line and box even though it's not needed.  When the problem still isn't solved,  Comcast will blame Voldemort. 

@Rosedale1 They do not care how much they inconvenience the customer.  There is nothing else wrong....... What don't they get?  This is what happens when you are the only choice.

@cmw112 MA here too.

@cmw112

We’re in California

@Rosedale1 For days, it shuts on the hour and occasionally on the half. But, in the past 2 days...the show I am watching is not "Saved"  so if I want to watch, it is from the beginning.. 

@Rosedale1  I did an On Demand test & chose the movie Predator on AMC and the Betty White program on PBS. Both went blank on the hour. No 1/2 hour blank outs.

@Rosedale1 Still just on the hour for me.  I ran a "Blacklist" episode from 11:06-11:56 tonight with no half-hour problem.  Ran it again starting at 11:58, and it froze precisely at 12:00:00 (within about 1 second as I watched it with one eye and time.gov with the other).

As another experiment, I started another show ("Amazing Race") and tried pausing it at around 12:59.  It still blanked out at 1:00:00 even though paused.

My shows have been saved to "Recently Viewed" so far (they only stay there for 24 hours), but if yours aren't and you have to start from the beginning again, note that the PAGE-UP key will move forward 10 minutes and the PAGE-DOWN key backwards 10 minutes, which should get you closer to where you want to be.