Cox Cable Rescan 7/31?

[SoonerDave]

Was noticing a blurb on News9.com about Cox advising people with direct-connect TV's to "rescan" their cable boxes after tonight. That normally suggests some or several local channels might be moving around on their lineup. Anyone have any scoop? Didn't see anything about in the last bill, maybe I just overlooked it

[okatty]

Some of our HD cable channels were blank this morning - not sure if that is related or not. The non -hd was fine.

[Bobby821]

I believe Cox is doing away with there Analog channels and moving everything over to digital for more broadband bandwidth. This will require people to go back to using a cable box to receive ALL channels, they are offering a basic box for free for the first year and then it will be like $1.00 per month to rent after the first year is up and also it is $1.00 for additional boxes for other TV's. So once the conversion is finished if you have a tv hooked up direct and scan through the channels with it that will no longer work you will need a cable box for watching any channels.

[jn1780]

I believe Cox is doing away with there Analog channels and moving everything over to digital for more broadband bandwidth. This will require people to go back to using a cable box to receive ALL channels, they are offering a basic box for free for the first year and then it will be like $1.00 per month to rent after the first year is up and also it is $1.00 for additional boxes for other TV's. So once the conversion is finished if you have a tv hooked up direct and scan through the channels with it that will no longer work you will need a cable box for watching any channels.

Their schedule is saying it will be next year before this happens.
Oklahoma Oklahoma City January 18, 2016 - May 7, 2016
May 8, 2016 - October 5, 2016 5/7/2016
10/5/2016

Jan through May is when Analog channels will start to be eliminated in batches. January though October is the discount window for the minibox. Analog takes up 40 percent of cable bandwidth and they need this bandwidth for faster internet service.

Ending analog also gives Cox complete control since a lot of their techs forget to disconnect cable. A lot easier to automatically discontinue service with a simple command.

[zookeeper]

I know there were plans to add a couple more of the diginet sub-channels. But I don't see why that would require rescanning.
I just looked and this is all I found Attention Cox Cable Customers - News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |

Well, it's already messing with some local stations: Technical difficulties on KFOR | KFOR.com

[pure]

I was in Tulsa a few weeks ago and stayed at the Marriott Southern Hills and half of their channels were gone but it had a message with a URL to go get a Cox Mini Box, I guess OKC is about to start the transition.

Go All Digital - Learn More | Cox Communications

[MagzOK]

Stop feeding the cable pig! Use over-the-air HD and then stream SlingTV, Netflix and other movies ala carte via Roku or Apple TV! We've got all the TV we need without Cox. Just sayin'.

[okatty]

I had lost a bunch of HD channels off my non-box TV's.......called cox and they seemed confused but said to rescan and yes all re-appeared and for some reason seem to look better but prob my imagination.

[Mel]

^ I will have to do that. I don't use a box and I had to get my Saturday afternoon PBS fix on low def.

[okatty]

^ I will have to do that. I don't use a box and I had to get my Saturday afternoon PBS fix on low def.

Yep that was one of the ones I had lost too.

[TheTravellers]

May or may not be related, since it's been happening for a little while before 7/31, but anybody having problems with ABC Family, Discovery, TVLand, and Lifetime being "temporarily off-air" randomly?

Chatted online with Cox, they did the usual "reboot your box" (which I already did and it didn't fix it, but they went ahead and rebooted it anyway) and then "now I see there are calls about it and they're working in your area", which is probably BS and completely unhelpful, so I'll probably call them and escalate until I get a real answer, but wanted to know if this was more widespread first...

[SoonerDave]

May or may not be related, since it's been happening for a little while before 7/31, but anybody having problems with ABC Family, Discovery, TVLand, and Lifetime being "temporarily off-air" randomly?

Chatted online with Cox, they did the usual "reboot your box" (which I already did and it didn't fix it, but they went ahead and rebooted it anyway) and then "now I see there are calls about it and they're working in your area", which is probably BS and completely unhelpful, so I'll probably call them and escalate until I get a real answer, but wanted to know if this was more widespread first...

This is part of what I call a "bandwidth sparing" technique I think Cox is doing that effectively "times out" a channel on some customer equipment. I think it is especially if not exclusively implemented on channels that are delivered via what's called Switched Digital Video (SDV). I think its purely a matter that Cox is doing everything it can to squeeze the "last full measure" of bandwidth from their current setup; they have to compress their current signals like crazy to cram all their current content down the wire.

You could have a signal strength problem; there's a double-secret service menu in the STB that tells you the inbound and outbound signal strength, and if either of those numbers is out of range, it can cause strange video issues as well. If I can remember how to get to the menu I'll post it here...but I think that would manifest itself differently.

[zookeeper]

May or may not be related, since it's been happening for a little while before 7/31, but anybody having problems with ABC Family, Discovery, TVLand, and Lifetime being "temporarily off-air" randomly?

Chatted online with Cox, they did the usual "reboot your box" (which I already did and it didn't fix it, but they went ahead and rebooted it anyway) and then "now I see there are calls about it and they're working in your area", which is probably BS and completely unhelpful, so I'll probably call them and escalate until I get a real answer, but wanted to know if this was more widespread first...

Yes, as a matter of fact. Try this: Use your TV remote (not your cable remote) and move up or down one channel (or whatever) and then go back to the . channel with the message. Is it gone? Sounds strange, I know, but try it. If that doesn't work, try the same with cable remote. Believe it or not, this works for us every time.

On preview: What SoonerDave said. That is the cause. The "timing out"...

[Mel]

I did another rescan a few days later and now everything seems to be back to normal-ish. I got one extra channel out of it. WGN.

[TheTravellers]

Yes, as a matter of fact. Try this: Use your TV remote (not your cable remote) and move up or down one channel (or whatever) and then go back to the . channel with the message. Is it gone? Sounds strange, I know, but try it. If that doesn't work, try the same with cable remote. Believe it or not, this works for us every time.

On preview: What SoonerDave said. That is the cause. The "timing out"...

Nope, doesn't work, those 4 just break up constantly, video- and audio-wise, and apparently when the signal gets bad enough, they go "temporarily off-air", and it's only those 4, so it doesn't seem like it's my equipment (I have a DVR and go through that for all my channels, not the TV, and only one TV/DVR, so can't check other outlets/TVs), otherwise I'd expect more channels to be a problem, and not just those 4 consistently. Thanks, though, and thanks to SoonerDave for the signal strength info, I'll poke around and see how to get to it, I've been in those menus before, just not recently enough to remember how to get to them...

[SoonerDave]

Here is a link to a very lenfthy and somewhat old post on dslreports that goes throught the various service menus on the Scientific Atlanta set top boxes

3.1 Using diagnostic screens Scientific Atlanta hardware | DSLReports, ISP Information

It looks like a power range of +15/-15dBv is usable, whixh I think implies an ideal value of 0. The text above indicates that an out of range value will display in either yellow or red for a tolerable or unusable power level, respectively.

[TheTravellers]

Thanks, but it appears that 8300HD boxes running Passport software (instead of SARA) just can't get into diag mode, no matter what I try (about 15 different methods so far), so I'll probably end up getting a tech out eventually just to see what he can see since I can't do any troubleshooting myself....

[SoonerDave]

Thanks, but it appears that 8300HD boxes running Passport software (instead of SARA) just can't get into diag mode, no matter what I try (about 15 different methods so far), so I'll probably end up getting a tech out eventually just to see what he can see since I can't do any troubleshooting myself....

Traveller, I've actually been in my STB's menu and it can be done from the front panel. Just don't remember how. Got busy last night and just didn't have the time to research the key sequence (lol posted the link above from my phone hence all the silly typos).

I saw some posts about various key sequences to get in and I'll go back and research them later today. Courage!!!

[Bunty]

Stop feeding the cable pig! Use over-the-air HD and then stream SlingTV, Netflix and other movies ala carte via Roku or Apple TV! We've got all the TV we need without Cox. Just sayin'.

But a lot of people can't stand to be without Fox News. That will be the day when Fox News comes on one of the local over the air sub channels.

[Bunty]

I know Suddenlink subscribers, who don't use a box had to reset their TVs after Suddenlink recently made channel changes.

[TheTravellers]

Traveller, I've actually been in my STB's menu and it can be done from the front panel. Just don't remember how. Got busy last night and just didn't have the time to research the key sequence (lol posted the link above from my phone hence all the silly typos).

I saw some posts about various key sequences to get in and I'll go back and research them later today. Courage!!!

OK, thanks, much appreciated. I tried holding the select and info buttons on the DVR (8300HD DVR running Passport), COX button on the remote, select and exit button on the DVR, menu button, pretty much everything everybody on dslreports.com and other sites said to try and got nothing.

Turns out there's a pattern I've noticed - wife watches Family channel until she leaves for work around 11:30 AM, and it dies shortly afterwards, called Cox today, they said they'd send a tech out, so I scheduled it for when it usually dies on Monday, so (theoretically) we'll see what's going on then...

[okatty]

But a lot of people can't stand to be without Fox News. That will be the day when Fox News comes on one of the local over the air sub channels.

I can very easily live without that but sports channels not so much (i.e. Fox SW - Thunder games).

[SoonerDave]

I can very easily live without that but sports channels not so much (i.e. Fox SW - Thunder games).

Yeah even though we're now starting to see ESPN lose subscribers and start to more aggressively "test" direct-sales options, we're not there yet, so that (along with a few particular other channels), Cox for TV will persist at my place at least for a time, dangit.