Confusing pixilation problem across multiple tivos

[predgington]

18th October: Really started to notice extreme pixelation on both V6 and older Tivo. Communicated with VM via WhatsApp to sort out an appointment.

20th October: Technician visits. Checks everything and finally finds errors with cable from the front of the house to the local box and says he will book a cable repull.

5th November: Repull booked for this day but postponed to the 11th.

11th November: No sign of virgin media or improvement in the picture. Online check still shows connection problems to tivos.

13th November: Got through eventually on the phone. Told to reboot everything in the house, no effect. Told the repull had happened on the 8th. Says the problem with be prioritised and should be fixed in 48 hours.

15th November: No change (not very surprised). Call again and get another engineer visit booked for today. Realised I could check if anything had happened on the 8th as our battery inverter sends its current data regularly to a server and it's recorded there every 5 minutes. The plot for the 8th shows no break in the service. Also if they did repull then they did not do it all the way to the house as cable out the front was unchanged.

18th November: New engineer agrees there is a problem. However he checked the cable and claims it is now error-free. He tries replacing the splitter and HDMI cable but without any effect. Is going to try and book another repull and claims they should do the cable all the way to the front of the house.

Confusing things are:

If they did do the repull on the 8th why did I have no break in service that day? I wondered if I had misheard him so looked at other days around then and the longest gap between readings during working hours is about 15 minutes, but this often happens and assume a break in connection would be longer than that for a repull?

Given I can't identify when they did the partial repull did they actually replace the right cable? But if they did do it and the cable is error-free as the last engineer claims why are both tivos still having the same problem both in terms of the picture and the online check showing connection problems to both?

So now because having channels that are, to all intents, unwatchable does not count as a complete loss of service have to wait 2 weeks (which I rather suspect is a minimum estimate) for another, hopefully more complete, repull to see if that fixes the problem.

 

[japitts]

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@predgington wrote:

If they did do the repull on the 8th why did I have no break in service that day?

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My understanding of a repull is that the entire cable from streetcab to front-wall connection is replaced. So no - if you don't go off-service, it's not been done.

Our home was re-pulled many years ago, things may have changed since but I recall it being quite an episode. Several teams with accompanying vehicles, cables laid on pavements before being run in, etc. Not something you could do without being noticed.

[predgington]

and to add to the excitement we now find that after he replaced the splitter that the signal to the other tivo is now so bad just about every channel now showing no picture just text saying there is a problem with the signal rather than the pixellation we were previously getting.

[predgington]

Unfortunately as we were never told it was going to happen when it allegedly did no one was home at the time to see what may, or may not, have happened. I do know someone rang our doorbell about 11am that day but nothing when I got home to say who that might have been.

[Zach_R]

Hi @predgington, 

Thank you for your posts and welcome back to our community forums. We're here to help.

I'm so sorry to hear of your ongoing TV service issues. Has there been any improvement at all since your posts, or is this problem ongoing? Have you been in touch with the team since your posts? If so, what has been advised/actioned by the team to address this?

Thanks,
 

[predgington]

Hi,

Nothing since my posts. Still getting extreme pixelation. Hoping I might hear soon when they have scheduled another repull attempt but have hears nothing at all as yet. Problem going to be, I unfortunately suspect, the 12 metre or so section from the nearest cable manhole to our house which was put in many many years ago when it was Cambridge Cable and I am not entirely certain if it was done properly in ducting. I was thinking they might just initially try and replace the 2 metre section of cable on the inside of our front wall from where it appears to the splitter box as that section would have suffered more, I assume, that the bits underground so would be the most likely location of any problem.

[Alex_RM]

Hi predgington,

If you have a re-pull appointment booked, does this show via your online account?

Alex_Rm