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Mysteriously all 4 of my set-top boxes can't complete boot this morning
This morning all 4 of my set top boxes (2 small XiD-P, 1 small XiD-C, and 1 big one (AX013ANC) stopped working. Did the usual power cycle thing. After the Welcome screens, the smaller boxes end up displaying a message "Sorry there seems to be some trouble" and the large box gets to ask my language preference, but is unresponsive to the remote even after changing batteries in the remote. Had to go through the on-line chat bot on the Xfinity website twice (each about 15 minutes) before it recommended a human contact me. After 10 minutes I got a call back and spent an hour on the phone with a technician, who could not figure out what is wrong. I made sure the technician knew that my modem (owned not an Xfinity lease) was showing good signal levels, so it was not the Comcast cable plant. The technician offered a "self heal" operation that could take an hour. After the attempted "self heal" that did nothing, I got a text asking me if things were fixed. After answering N, I got a textbot walking me through a tech visit to my home, but not until tomorrow.
Any other diagnosis or repair ideas?
The tech visit will be a waste of time. He will in all likelihood come to the same conclusion I did. An overnight software upgrade download failed on each box, and rendered the boxes useless. Not the first time this has happened, but usually it only "bricked" one box. In my experience, the home visit technicians do not carry a supply of X1 boxes, so I will be forced to drive 45 minutes each way to an Xfinity store.
An alternate, and less likely theory is that somehow their customer database system has my account tagged to not provision the cable boxes (provisioning is the downloading of authorization key that enables the box to complete any software loads and to commence full operation. This has happened a few times with my personally owned modem many years ago, but hasn't happened again in more than 10 years. But I would have thought the technician I spoke to on the phone for an hour would have checked that...
Seems some work is needed to fix:
1. Really BAD customer service. I realize some shareholders expect Comcast to reduce costs, say by eliminating human customer service reps, even though in the end that act reduces top line and hence the bottom line and shareholder return. Any other explanation, say from a Comcast/Xfinity rep?
2. Really bad engineering. Software downloads can be risky for embedded devices like the set top boxes. The process has numerous anti-tamper steps to ensure the code comes from an authorized source, is authorized to run on the set-top box, and is authorized for that specific device. If poorly designed, each can indicate an authorization error, if there is an uncorrected random error in the transmission or handshakes between server and the set-top box. Further, if the code is not checked again once loaded into flash memory on the set-top device, errors can make the code crash or lockup when executed. If the BIOS software in the set-top box does not keep the old software in flash, and does not have an error-correcting, error-resistant mechanism to run the old software after new software is loaded, then the box becomes useless, a brick. Comcast/Xfinity is a large enough buyer of these boxes that they can specify how robust the over-the-cable reprogramming needs to be, and, are large enough to have their engineers or hired engineers analyze the design, and supervise the vendor's testing (both engineering and recurring production) of the units. But that costs money and again...
3. Really bad management. The cost of an in-home technician visit is substantially higher than the cost of avoiding these problems. And in the end, I will waste 2 hours of my time and the technician's time for the visit, plus 2 hours to drive to the Xfinity store and back to pick up replacement boxes, plus an hour or so to hook up 4 boxes, boot them up, make sure they work, etc. And more time if any one of the boxes is a dud or the problem is not technical but an error in their provisioning system that somehow prohibits me from getting provisioned.
4. Even worse management. In the past one could talk to a human customer service rep who would credit my account for down time when Comcast/Xfinity was at fault (nearly every time). Now they have an online system, and it appears designed to make that nearly impossible. When my bill was $100/month, the loss of a day of service as only $3, and so even if the credit never got applied, no big deal. But in this case it is 2+ days, and the bill is nearly $300/month, so this is $20. Doesn't seem like much but there are 14 million Comcast video subscribers. If 10% of them had this problem one time a year, this is $28M, in profit taken right off the top, not to mention the cost to pay the customer service technician and the in-home technician. Even the bean counters can't justify this.
Any disagreement from Xfinity here?
Any thoughts on how to avoid this in the future?
Official Solution
OldGrumpy1
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2 Messages
30 days ago
Update: This morning (the following day from my initial post) I did a remote reset from xfinity.com website, which did reset the large box. But went to black screen and did not recover. No button on the remote seemed to work. So I tried unpairing the remote (hold A & D buttons for 3+ seconds, then press 9 8 1. Then attempted to pair the remote (pressing the A button) but this did not work. However I noted the green light on the front panel of the box flashed for each button push on the remote (cannot be sure if that was working earlier). So I powered off the box using the front panel button, and powered it on again a few seconds later.
I observed some ellipses [ ... ] moving around the screen, and then the screen asked me to enter the last 4 digits of a phone number associated with the account. PROGRESS! The remote worked, although a little glitchy, and after entering the number and pressing continue, the cable box proceeded as if this were a new box, asking for a box nickname, and other stuff, and then the programming and the guide returned!
Then the TV in the kitchen began to work, and I was able to power cycle all the other XiD boxes and they worked!
Cancelled the technician call.
Couple of things that the initial help desk technician did not know but should know (shame on you Xfinity!) :
The likely culprit was the big cable box got dazed and confused (technical term) from a failed software update during the night before the initial failure observations. See item 2 "Bad Engineering" above. The series of various resets and/or another overnight software update seemed to eventually square this away, although I note that diconnecting power yesterday did not yield these results. This is supported by the fact that the cable box went through a new start set of activities (asking the phone number, completing the remote pairing to the TV, activating voice remote, etc. ). Whether the remote had gotten messed up is unknown, but resetting did not seem to cause any harm, so might be a good thing to do.
My assertions of bad management still stand, but now I know none of the devices were bricked, just in some messed up state, not easily cleared. Now to see if I can get a refund for the 1.5 days without cable TV.
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