Contributor
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143 Messages
Mysterious problem with x1 box and remote
Last Saturday (10/5) - my X1 main cable box with DVR stopped responding to the remote. After 2-3 hours communicating with Xfinity Assistant and then human chat - it was decided that I needed a new box. A technician came on Monday (10/7) and installed a new box and gave me a new remote. The remote paired with the box with no problem and everything seemed to be working fine. The next day, however, when I turned the TV on - it would not respond to the remote. After about five minutes - it responded again until I turned it off. Now on 10/11 - sometimes the box will respond after a few minutes and sometimes I have to unplug the box for a reset since I can't reset through the TV since it is not responding to the remote. After another chat with a human and two calls from "Advanced" technical support - which basically refreshed my signal and did not solve the problem - another technician is coming Monday to "resolve the problem for sure". No one seems to know exactly what the problem is though. I'm posting this to see if this has happened to anyone else. Obviously something is not communicating with something else - but there is no apparent reason since it will work fine with every restart. I am very frustrated and wish that the advanced technical support actually was advanced. Thanks for any help anyone can offer
Accepted Solution
truthseeker719
Contributor
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143 Messages
3 months ago
Although I am happy to report that turning off the HDMI-CEC was the fix and my box is working (almost) perfecly - there is another strange problem. The voice remote function works - but it does not say "Listening" - it just makes a beep. If I say a command - it responds and changes the channel, etc. - but "Listening" does not appear. As I said above - this happened after I turned off the HDMI-CEC so I unpaired the remote and the re-paired it to the TV and receiver. This worked all day yesterday - "Listening" showed up again. But when I turned on the TV this morning - "Listening" was gone again. I was going to cancel my tech appointment since the major problem was solved - but I will keep the appointment to see if the tech know how to fix this, If anyone else has had this problem and knows the fix - I would be grateful to learn of it.
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BIslander
Problem Solver
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416 Messages
3 months ago
Have you tried turning off HDMI-CEC as suggested three days ago in the other post you made on this issue?
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XfinitySara
Official Employee
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1.4K Messages
3 months ago
Thank you for posting your concerns, @truthseeker719. Our Digital Care Team is the best at resolving issues as quickly as possible, and we'd love to see this get resolved for you. Have you tried the basic steps outlined by user Blslander yet? If not, that sounds like a great place to start, possibly negating the need for a Trouble Call (tech visit) Monday. Let us know if/when you get a chance to try that, and how it goes!
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BIslander
Problem Solver
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416 Messages
3 months ago
To be clear, I also told @truthseeker719 that turning off HDMI-CEC fixed the problem for others who had the exact same problem that he has - the X1 box becoming unresponsive on power up. It is likely that his AVR sends a message when it powers down that the X1 misinterprets. Then, the X1 doesn't respond when the AVR powers back up.
Regardless, this is so easy to test. Just turn off HDMI-CEC and see if that fixes it. Turning it off is not going to affect anything that matters. It affects the X1 powering off after four hours of inactivity. And it allows you to press the Xfinity button on the remote and tell the AVR to power up and switch to that input. That's it.
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BIslander
Problem Solver
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416 Messages
3 months ago
@truthseeker719 What a drag. Let me see if I understand. You scheduled a tech visit to fix a problem with your XG1v4 box becoming unresponsive, a problem you had already fixed by turning off HDMI-CEC on the X1. The tech says he's there because your Internet is failing, although you had not reported that as a problem. And after working on that non-problem for an hour, your Internet is now failing. Is that the gist of it? Wow.
Anything on the missing "Listening" text when you press the voice button?
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user_yed7tr
1 Message
26 days ago
Remote to xfinity box stops communicating. Rebooting box temporarily fixes problem only to have it stop again says later
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BIslander
Problem Solver
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416 Messages
26 days ago
@user_yed7tr Have you tried turning off HDMI-CEC as explained earlier in this thread? It's in Settings under Power Preferences.
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ttomet
Visitor
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2 Messages
26 days ago
The very slow to respond cable boxes is a widespread problem with Xfinity.
I have had this exact same problem for over 2 years. I've been a customer since the early 1990s before "Xfinity" purchased every cable system in the midwest around the Chicago area.
How long it takes for the system to respond to my remote commands can vary between a few seconds to nearly 20 seconds, and sometimes more as the system will lock up for a couple of minutes.
Over the past few months a new problem. When watching live TV, the system used to give us over 30 minutes of "back time", meaning, I could pause the live TV program for at least 30 minutes, and then come back and resume the program.
That changed some months ago, so that there is only about 15 minutes of "pause" time.
That reduction in pause time tells us that Xfinity's coax cable system has run out of data capacity, as it has been adding more and more and more streaming onto the little copper wire, that can no longer handle the amount of data that it tries to push through that little copper cable.
The limit is reached very easily and OFTEN these days, such that a simple remote control command can take 10, 15, 20 seconds or more before your command takes effect.
This data limit is now so bad that live TV pausing results in losing ALL of the pausing time.
More times than I can remember, I will lose all of the live TV pause time even while watching the program.
When it happens the program will stop, so that the screen is frozen, then the screen goes blank, and then comes back, and the live program time line is now gone, such that I cannot pause at all as there is no time on the time line to pause.
Everyday I get some remote command lock up, pause, or program lock and reset. It has become beyond ridiculous.
As our monthly prices/rates increase, Xfinity cable TV service becomes worse, slower, and the image becomes more and more compresses, such that Xfinity cable TV programs look blocky, grainy, and not anywhere near 2K HD quality it should be, and what we have come to believe we pay for.
As Xfinity has given more and more streaming apps priority to the very limited data stream available on that small and thin 75ohm cable copper wire, all services and image quality continues to worsen and suffer.
Everyone needs to know that that tiny little copper wire will NEVER be able to throughput the data quantity needed to give you a good quality 4k video stream. As it is, we can't get a good 2K HD video quality stream, even though we pay for it, 4k will NEVER be of a good quality.
I can stream 4K content using streaming apps on my newer TV, connected to Xfinity internet. However, that 4K content is also ultra compressed, such that there is much content that is overly compressed showing digital artifacts constantly, and it's only getting worse.
Take a look at video that shows an image where the camera is panning upward from under the ocean as it tilts up towards the surface and the sky.
You will see extreme "bands" of shade and color, that are distinct bands, not smooth gradation from dark to lighter as the camera tilts up.
That banding is the result of data "compression". Yes, even 4k content suffers because 4k has 4 times MORE data in the video than 2K.
And so, even though some of the 4K video looks quite nice, that happens only on video that has very little motion and/or shading variations.
As soon as the video action/motion starts to increase, we start to see "blocking", which is a video compression artifact caused by the tiny copper wire of Xfinity cable not able to pass the quantity of data the good quality 2K and 4K video needs so that it looks great in every video shot, and not just stationary images.
Xfinity has not improved their ability to transmit the increasing level of data that modern 2K, and 4k video need.
They can't improve that capacity, because they still use that tiny little 75ohm copper wire that is the SAME wire that was used by cable companies from back in the 1970s, when cable companies were building that cable network.
IN order to try and transmit all of the abundant and growing content available to day, they have to COMPRESS that data, which reduces the visual quality a LOT, in order to pass the compressed data through that little copper wire.
It has become so bad that even something that uses such little data, like the remote control requests, results in a remote command to simply show the TV program list can take over 5, 10, 15+ seconds to show you that list.
This has become beyond ridiculous, as that little copper wire reached in good quality limit about 15 years ago, and since then both cable service and quality have declined and continue to decline, as the prices continue to rise.
Xfinity need to invest in a much needed, much better, astoundingly higher data capacity, fiber optic network, that not only runs from the data/programming source/s but all the way into a customer's house up to the data box and/or TV, computer, and/or server.
ATT and Verizon created a fiber network over 2 decades ago, however, their systems don't end up giving better results to their customers, because their fiber lines do not run from the data source all the way into their customers houses.
ATT and Verizon have main truck lines that are fiber, but when those lines get to a community, such as a subdivision, the fiber downgrades to their old "twisted copper wire" pair, that was created and used when regular land line phones were a major "technology".
Fiber optic cable is massively more capable of carrying massive amounts of data. However, to take the full advantage of fiber, the connection needs to be from the source all the way to the house and to the device that connects to it. IOW, a customer's house has to have fiber connection into their house, and through their house so that they can connect their TV, computer, service or whatever device directly to the fiber cable.
So, Xfinity will keep sending their techs as "service theater" to a customer who says that their cable box and remote takes TOO long to respond, as they tell customers that they "need new cable" in their house, or new splitters, or whatever, and charge the customer.
When the truth is that the lack of remote and system response is because Xfinity's tiny copper wire system is archaic technology and cannot handle the data and demands of the modern digital world.
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BIslander
Problem Solver
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416 Messages
26 days ago
@ttomet Oh my. Your situation sounds dreadful. Not like that at all where I live. My XG1v4 box freezing was definitely caused by HDMI-CEC, a feature that serves very little purpose with their boxes.
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