Blackouts

[mknycto]

I am in Toronto. Are there any games blacked out for me other than some Leaf games? For instance if there are games that do not involve the leafs but are available on TVA sports (a channel that I do not subscribe to but is available). Are those considered "in market"?

[caboose187]

Sorry, doing this through my phone. I stream from my phone so I turn the WiFi off on my cell, open the GCL app on my phone and connect through my service provider, Rogers. Once the game is loaded I turn my WiFi back on.

[Montsegur]

Ya, since the update, my PC and PS4 get blackouts of the Leafs game (I'm in Embrun, 25 mins east of Ottawa).  Yet I get the Sens game, on my phone though, it's the other way around.  Not sure what's going on, but I think they have a lot of kinks to work out.

[s_adam]

I have not been able to watch an game since the upgrade. Either on my Roku or my PC. Always get the blackuout message. 

[johnbent]

That was a VPN for 4.99 per month and about 100$ US for the GCL season ... but i think with the internet included free GCL one just needs the VPN service to watch 100% of the games.   

its a shame one needs to resort to these measurse just to watch a game.

[Lochaber]

Ever since the recent 'update', I've been lucky if I can even get one game that isn't inexplicably 'blacked out' on my PC.  Prior to the update, the only games I would miss due to blackout would be certain Toronto Maple Leaf games, since my area (Paris/Brantford) is considered 'Maple Leaf territory'.

The day of the update, I did livechat with a Rogers rep to report the issue, and they essentially acknowledged that they were having all sorts of reported issues with the service.  I was assured that the issues were being worked on though, but there was no website or anything we could go to in order to check on the status.

Is there a status update on the widespread 'blackouts' that seem to be the norm post-upgrade?  If this is something that can't/won't be fixed, that will definitely have a huge impact on whether I continue on with the service in the future.

Thanks!

[s_adam]

I was able to watch the Montreal game from Toronto tonight, so it may have been resolved. The stream does stop to buffer on my Roku. And just stops on the iPad. Both devices on WiFi, 5Ghz, less than 10 feet away from the access point.

[Dodge15]

I am also having a problem with blackouts that NEVER occurred before the update. Tried to resolve with live chat twice and they disconnected me both times as soon as I mentioned the new update..... Coincidence?

[melissabougie]

I am glad that I am not the only one. Ever since the new 'update', I basically cannot watch any game. The only games that I am able to watch are canadian feeds and that is if they are not within my region (i.e. I live in the Atlantic region so my region are sens and habs games).

At this moment there are 7 games that are going on and I am only able to watch ONE!! That is the Calgary vs. Arizona game, and the only feed that I am able to watch is the Canadian feed (I believe its being played on the SportsNet channel).

I only use 2 devices to watch games and it is my PC and my android phone. I CAN watch these games on my android but not in my PC, there is an obvious issue and it is driivng me nuts. I was on the phone with Rogers Support last week for 1.5 hrs and I was basically told that it should work and it is my issue and there is nothing they can do.

The only ways they told me to fix it is to clear cache and use Chrome only, not IE or firefox. To me that does not MAKE SENSE at all, if it does not allow me to watch it it is not a browser related issue but ROGERS!!! The only reason I am with Rogers is because I have services that provide me with free NHL Centreice LIve, and if this issue is not fixed next year well there is no point for me in staying.

[RogersHassam]

Hello @melissabougie, @Dodge15, @Lochaber,

Were you able to get this issue resolved?

Thanks, 

RogersHassam 

[kanatablues]

So, problems again. Just so ridiculous ... here's an elementary piece of advice rolling out the new software, the first emphasis should be not be disallowintg access since it is most likely that (especially at this point in the season) subscribers trying to view games are trying to see games they have legitimately been watching all year.

I can only hope that Rogers is gonna pony up enough money to sign both Bautista and Double E because they are not giving me any other reason to stay ... I have just about every Rogers service offered, problems with virtually every one, countless hours spent with reps, and it had seemed like everything was finally sorted out.

Nope. Do they think that anyone but legit AND passionate fans actually want to watch Sabres-Senators? Just another software access bug, can't see on TV nor online ... cost alot less for the same lack of access, really don't need all that I'm paying for right now anyways.

Just counting the days til the cell phone plan is done, make it easier to move everything at once.

[melissabougie]

@RogersHassam

No this has not been resolved. At this moment there are 8 games that are going on and I can only watch 1!!! Again, only canadian feeds. Used to be able to get both feeds (US & Canadian).

I have already tried to solve this from online chat, and the first representative says "it is a known issue" and he will transfer me to the 'technical support', but then I am waiting for 50 min and still nothing so I just end the chat. If this is a known issue then why is it taking too long to get it fixed??

[Lochaber]

That would be a negative.  Tonight, all games are blacked out except for Dallas vs St. Louis.

Has Rogers made any progress on their end in figuring this out?  Since speaking to support about the issue the night of the 'upgrade' when it was acknowledged that there were all sorts of issues with everything, I have gotten no feedback from the Rogers side at all.

FYI - I've reproduced this using IE, Chrome, and Firefox on my PC.  Prior to the 'upgrade', I had no issues at all.

I was even able to reproduce the blackout issue on my phone earlier this evening, but I was able to 'resolve' that one by setting my Location Services to 'High Accuracy'.

That leads me to believe that the issue is related to however the new system detects your 'location' on a PC.  Can you provide information on how this is done, and whether anything needs to be done with browser/PC settings so that the new system will play nicely?

Initially, i wondered if it was simply checking the ARIN records for my WAN IP address, but given that resolves to a city in south-western Ontario (Burgessville to be precise), that seems unlikely.  I even tried enabling locational settings for my browsers as a test, but that had no impact either.

Some guidance would be appreciated, as would some feedback with respects to what Rogers is doing on their end to get to the bottom of this.

This is the first year I shelled out $$$ for the GameCentre subscription, and I have to say, with these recent issues that were introduced partway through the season (where everything had been working fine beforehand), it's making me very unlikely to consider going down this same road next year.

[lockdown2341]

A "known issue" just means that the company is aware of it being a problem affecting a larger number of users (as opposed to say, 3-4 individuals. The length of time for them to fix the issue depends on what is actually wrong and what they need to to fix it.

[RimaT]

Ever since the switch over to the MLBAM service for GameCentre I've been running into blackout restrictions that should not impact me.

I am in Calgary, AB and want to watch the Vancouver Canucks, and according to https://gamecentrelive.rogers.com/en/support-game-availability-ab/ only the Flames and Oilers games should be subject to blackout restrictions. 

I also know there is another thread on this board (http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/RogersGCL/thread-id/561/page/5) , but I wanted to also voice my concern, dismay, and frustration with this. 

Calling Rogers and trying to interact with the LiveChat feature has been basically useless, as no individuals that I've spoken to have provided any clarity on the issue -- most have just said 'you should be able to watch...' and that's about all they can offer. Utterly frustrating.

Please update this thread when there is further information available or, hopefully, a fix to this issue.

[Dodge15]

Once again flames vs Kings blacked out on game center. I am in BC! Not in Alberta! Message says away team (flames) is available on local broadcast, that being Alberta so not available. Once again I'm in BC! This is getting old and I will NEVER purchase game center again. So many problems. So many issues. Every representative has said sorry but have done nothing to fix the problem. If any of you are on the fence about purchasing game center this year or next DONT DO IT!!!

[RogersHassam]

Hello Community, 

If you are experiencing blackouts being applied when they shouldn't be, please send a private message to @CommunityHelps with all details regarding your issue: username, the platform you are using (mobile, web etc.), Android or iOS and app build version. We can create a ticket for the issue to be tracked and investigated if you haven't already had a ticket created. 

Thanks,

RogersHassam  

[David11]

I have also been having issues with blackouts since the new platform was launched.

I usually watch games on iPad, PC or Roku. But since the upgrade I get blackouts for almost every single game on both PC and Roku while everything works fine on iPad. Only National US feeds would be available consistently for PC/Roku (basically 1 game a day with a bit of luck).

After a marathon session of 1.5 hours with 5 representatives over live chat, a ticket was filed; that was over a week go. This week I spent some time on monday and tuesday night trying to trouble shoot this with a rep over twitter and found what could be the issue.

I figured the iPad uses the GPS to pinpoint my location while the PC/Roku would use my ip. After checking my ip location, it returned a place (a fair distance from where i live) somewhere close to the borders of Quebec, Ontario and the US.

I performed a test to try and determine if my ip was the issue: I connected my laptop to a different network, using my cellphone as a hot spot. This allowed me to watch games that were blacked out moments earlier without any issues - supporting the theory that my ip would be the cause of my problems.

Rogers' rep on twitter told me he updated my ticket with this information, that was 2 days ago.

At this point, in my mind, solving this issue should be a simple matter of whitelisting said ip address, but I'm still waiting. I guess this problem doesn't affect enough customers for Rogers to care. I'm getting tired of wasting my time running in circles with Rogers reps, just so I can use the service I paid for.

Hopefully this post helps other customers figure out what the cause of their blackout issues may be (and then wait for Rogers to actually do something about it.)

[s_adam]

Geolocation on a level smaller than country can be useless. Especially when dealing with national ISPs. When I was with Bell, I often got French language websites because the IPs are registered to Bell Montreal. My office is just North of Toronto. We have business fiber through Rogers and it geolocates to Vancouver. 

[rrobinson]

Every game I go to in GameCenter is blacked out. All games no matter what teams. I am using the Roku App, but problem also happens with Android.

[RogersHassam]

Hello @rrobinson and @David11,

Welcome to the Community! 

If you are still experiencing this issue, please send a private message to @CommunityHelps with all details regarding your issue: username, the platform you are using (mobile, web etc.), Android or iOS and app build version. We can look into this for you. 

Thanks, 

RogersHassam 

[dshelly]

I think I'm having the same problem as some other posters. Gamecenter on my laptop tells me every game is blacked out, but I can watch them on my tablet. How do I resolve the laptop issue?