Re: Excuse of the day calendar: Third-party tvs are not supported

Dec 08, 2019 Last reply: 6 years ago 2 Replies


Had to do what I absolutely dread this afternoon: Call Comcast for help. >


> There are two DVR boxes. At some point this afternoon, I started getting
> sound dropouts every 45 seconds to a minute affecting any channel I
> tuned in on either box.
>
> At Comcast, because it won't let you speak directly to an agent if it's
> for a technical problem, I had to wait till the automated system
> performed an "X1 Restart".
>
> That did nothing. The boxes were not restarted remoted. I'll give you
> one guess as to why.
>
> An agent called. I kept pointing out that the problem is on their end as
> it affects both boxes. Of course, the system told her to tell me to
> power cycle the boxes. I did. After several minutes, she claimed that
> the signal readings were adequate on her end. I have no idea if it did > anything.
>
> SNR read around 23.3 dB, with + - .2 variation. She had no idea why I
> asked her that but she looked it up and claimed that SNR between 20 and
> 25 dB was good. I don't recall what the ideal SNR is but I can look it > up.
>
> I asked her how the problem could be on my end if both boxes were
> affected. She asked me what brand of tv I used. I said we were
> discussing the signal as received at the boxes, which are the tuners,
> not the tv, and I wasn't using the built-in speakers in the tv anyway. >
> She repeated her query, explaining that Comcast doesn't support
> third-party tvs. I said to her that Comcast doesn't sell tvs and her
> query was irrelevant. She repeated it again.
>
> I told her to end the call and hung up. She called back yet again,
> wanting to know if there was any other way she could be helpful. I told
> her, once again, to end the call.
>
> I suppose she'll call yet again.
>
> I cannot stand help desk clerks who make s*it up like that, instead of
> just saying honestly that they don't know what the problem was.

You seem very unhappy.  Maybe you can get a D-wreckTV and Pew-verse bundle from Comcast's competitor?

I've had problems like this with Comcast. They are getting better. Not sure any internet provider is any better.

A third party TV. That's pretty funny. Like the man said, since Comcast doesn't sell TVs and the man doesn't, then any TV he's going to use has to be "third party".

Reminds me of my experience with Cablevision when cable internet first became available here. At the time, it was something like $125 to buy the modem from CV or they offered refurbished ones for $75. So I bought the refurbished one. Wouldn't work. I went through tech support, got nowhere. They sent a guy to the house. Only he didn;t know anything about modems or PCs, just TV. He claimed the signal at the TV was too low. He only was interested in there, not at the modem in a different spot. He claims the signal is OK at the street, but too low at the TV, I keep telling him the TV works perfectly, all channels. Nope, bad signal. He says they have to send a crew out to run a new cable from the street. I tell him that cable was just put in about 3 years ago because the neighbor had work done and they cut it. He says, doesn't matter, that cable must be bad.

So they send out a four man crew with trencher, spend a whole morning pulling new cable a few hundred feet from the street. Get it all hooked up, same thing, cable internet won't work. More time spent with tech support, finally they send out a tech that actually has a laptop TV and knows what a modem is. He swaps out the modem, it works. So, the refurbished modem that they are supposed to have tested and made sure it works, was no good. At least I got the satisfaction out of seeing them waste a lot of their time, screwing around for nothing.

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