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Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

DMF1
I'm here a lot

This is a continuing problem when watching tv. This is incredibly annoying especially when watching sports. I thought it may be just our neighbourhood as everyone seems to be having the same problem. Having talked to others it appears this may be a broader issue which Rogers refuses to address. I hate to think this is the low standard Rogers expects us to put up

23 REPLIES 23

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@DMF1 Sounds like you may me reporting the same problem as this one, where audio goes silent and the screen goes blank for about five seconds before coming back on again.

 

I have personally seen this happen at my house and at my parents' house.  .As far as I can tell, it's an issue with the set-top box, not a network issue or due to any problems with the Ignite TV streaming infrastructure in the back-end, and I have only seen it happen with the Xi6-T.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

DMF1
I'm here a lot

it happens on all three TVs and not always at the same time, are you saying all my set top boxes need to be replaced?

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

cokeybil
I plan to stick around
My ignite has been out since 6:30pm Nov. 5 2023. It's 7:30pm and nothing. Total tv package! Rogers needs fix this. i6 stb.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@DMF1 wrote:

it happens on all three TVs and not always at the same time, are you saying all my set top boxes need to be replaced?


I don't know.  We need to wait for the support teams to do a more troubleshooting.  I'm leaning toward this being a software problem; others suspect failing hardware.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

RogersJo
Retired Moderator
Retired Moderator

Good Day @DMF1! 😊

 

Thanks for bringing this to our much needed attention. As an avid sports fan myself, I can imagine how frustrating this experience is. 

 

As @-G- mentioned, it could very well be a  set-top box issue, or potentially a software issue. We'd have to complete a process of elimination via some troubleshooting to determine the cause and to find a resolution.

 

With that said, please feel free to send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can assist you further. For more information on how our Private Messaging system works, you can find out more here.  

 

Regards,

 

RogersJo 

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

DMF1
I'm here a lot

So what are the next steps. Go offline. Can you actually help here.. If you can I’m sure others would be interested in the solution.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

We have also had the same recurring issue - had the Rogers tech out last week, everything tested fine including the gateway that was upgraded a few months ago. However after the tech visit we did opt to replace the 2 mesh PODS we had (from Gen 1 to Gen 2), have replaced HDMI cables to the STB's, have even swapped STB's, and refreshed gateway multiple times - all to see if the issue might be hardware related.  Ignite HomeConnect app shows all devices "strong wifi" when connection strength tested. We have started recording the date/time as well - for instance, on the one set on Sunday night (watching MSNBC) it happened 3 times within a 2 hour period (8:14pm, 9:21pm, 10:15pm).  And today it has happened on the same set twice in the past hour (1:13pm, 1:14pm, 1:42pm - watching CNN).  So it's both TV's (both connected by WIFI to the gateway) no consistency as to which TV or when <sigh> hope Rogers gets what sounds like a system-wide issue sorted out, frustrating for sure.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

To all of you who are currently experiencing this issue: what model of set-top box do you have?

I have seen this happen with the Xi6-T, with varying degrees of frequency.  I have not seen this happen yet with the XiOne.  I don't know whether this affects the Xi6-A.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

Datalink
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

2..And, what model of TV do you have, just to see if this makes any difference.

 

3.  And, is the Xi6-A, Xi6-T, or XiOne connected directly to the TV, or is it connected thru a receiver, then to the TV.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

Hmmm....all ours are Xi6-T  What is the XiOne and why hasn't that been offered to customers as an alternative?  I didn't know anything about the newer PODS that were available (albeit at a cost, whereas the Gen1 ones we had were n/c) until the Rogers tech pointed it out.  I'm already paying for STB's every month, if I have to pay a little more to avoid this annoyance, I'd like that option.  Thanks -G- for raising this point.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

2 smart TV's, one Samsung, one Toshiba.  Both connected to Xi6-T STB's that are connected directly to the TV's with HDMI cable.  That's why, because both video and audio were blanked out, that I replaced HDMI cables, just in case.  We also have another Samsung smart TV but frankly we don't watch it enough for me to comment on whether the issue is associated with that STB (also Xi6-T) or not.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv


@Pelicanlady wrote:

Hmmm....all ours are Xi6-T  What is the XiOne and why hasn't that been offered to customers as an alternative?


I don't think Rogers has a good understanding of the problem and if some do, they haven't passed that into on to their field and support techs.

 

I didn't know anything about the newer PODS that were available (albeit at a cost, whereas the Gen1 ones we had were n/c) until the Rogers tech pointed it out.  I'm already paying for STB's every month, if I have to pay a little more to avoid this annoyance, I'd like that option.  Thanks -G- for raising this point.


When I saw this problem happening (MANY times per evening) at my parents' house, my initial thought was that it was network-related, or perhaps that something was "resetting" on the set-top box.

 

Over the years, usually, with Ignite TV, if the screen went blank for any prolonged period off time, it was due to seriously bad network problems.  If there was very low network throughput, very high latency, very high packet loss, etc., there won't be enough throughput to sustain even a 10 Mb/s network stream, the set-top box will run out of data to process, and when that happens, the only thing it can do is drop audio or display a black screen, depending on the severity of the network conditions.  You may also see the set-top box temporarily lowering the video quality, when it needs to lower the bit rate in order to maintain the video stream.

 

However, when my parents' TV screen went black, I did not see any signs of any network problems.  There were no uncorrectable codewords errors getting logged on the modem, ping RTTs to 8.8.8.8 were in the 15-25 ms range, no signs of packet loss that I could see, no problems with Wi-Fi -- from a network perspective, everything was healthy.  It was also strange that the blank screen always lasted precisely 5 seconds.  There were never any 2 second dropouts, or any less-minor problems, such as audio dropping out.  The set-top box's stream buffer was intact and I could rewind the video to see what we had missed while the screen went black; the video stream never dropped.  Another time, I had the Guide open; video went blank for 5 seconds, and when the picture came back, I was still in the Guide and nothing running on the set-top box showed any signs of resetting.  Also, when the video comes back after going black, the TV also displayed the current input and resolution, as if I had just plugged the set-top box into the HDMI port.  This all points to the HDMI connection dropping.  I also tried several different HDMI cables but could not make the problem go away.

 

It may be a hardware problem with the set-top box.  That might explain why I saw the problem all the time at my parent's house but very rarely on the Xi6-T set-top boxes at my house.  However, MANY Rogers customers are reporting this same problem.  ALL (that I have seen) report that their video is also dropping out for precisely 5 seconds.  There may also be other contributing factors that cause this glitch to occur very frequently for some and very infrequently for others.  That leads me to believe that something is getting "stuck" in the set-top box and its internal software is detecting this and resetting the condition after precisely 5 seconds.  If the set-top box's software doesn't log any such recovery events, you would need a development environment and some expensive test equipment to capture the set-top box getting into a bad (but recoverable) state.

 

Upgrading the Pods in your home is not necessarily a bad thing.  The Gen 2. Pods (if you require them) provide MUCH better Wi-Fi performance.  However, it won't do anything to fix this problem, at least not as I understand it.  As far as I can tell, it is NOT caused by a network problem, or by any problem in Rogers' back-end systems or the Ignite TV streaming infrastructure.

 

Switching to an XiOne may make the problem go away, or maybe there is a software problem that replicates on all set-top boxes.  I don't know for sure, and that's why I'm asking which model of set-top box that people are using when they see this glitch occur.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

Kersinternet
I've been here awhile

When I think about it this recurring issue may have started after I installed the free pod. Who knows? I just unplugged my pod and the problem identified on this string occurred immediately thereafter.  I will get back after a day or so to see if this is actually the problem.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

Nope! Just happened again!

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv


@Kersinternet wrote:

When I think about it this recurring issue may have started after I installed the free pod. Who knows? I just unplugged my pod and the problem identified on this string occurred immediately thereafter.  I will get back after a day or so to see if this is actually the problem.


Any time that I have seen this happen, it was definitely NOT network-related or due to any problem with Rogers' back-end systems.  If that were the case, I would have seen this problem occurring with my XiOne set-top box as well (so far, I have only seen this happening with the Xi6-T boxes), or it would have also affected multiple set-top boxes in my home simultaneously.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

tupelo
I plan to stick around

I have the Xi6-T box (2nd one) and can confirm it happens regularly on wired and wifi connection.  It is strange as it only started for me about 1 month ago - before that it was fine.

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

tupelo
I plan to stick around

So how do we go about requesting a different model of Box?  

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

Hello @tupelo,

 

We appreciate you sharing the details of your issue with us. I know first-hand how experiencing technical problems with your TV service can be frustrating.

 

If I understand correctly, you've started experiencing issues about a month ago, with your Ignite TV equipment. Is that right?

 

Can you tell us about your setup and the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far?

 

We'll need a bit more information from you to better understand the situation. Is everything fully functional with your internet service? 

 

Looking forward to your reply!

 

RogersMaude

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

tupelo
I plan to stick around

Internet is fine when the issue occurs...not seeing it drop.  The problem appears to be greater in the evening, than during the day.  There is no pattern that I can discern, or particular channel.  For example I was watching last night for about an hour without an issue - then had it blank out 4 or 5 times in a 5 minute period.

 

My setup is the Rogers Box, is connected to my Denon AVR, and then to the TV.  I thought it might be the Denon at first, however when I stream (also through the Denon) there are zero issues.  None of the other devices (Xbox, Blu Ray, etc) drop connections either, which are also connected to the Denon.  I should also say the Denon AVR is new, so pretty sure it is not the problem.


Rogers box has been replaced once, and has not corrected the issue.  I have had it connected both Wifi and Ethernet with the same problem.  


Model is an Xi6-T.  Another person who posted mentioned he has only seen the problem with that box/model.  The XiOne appears to work fine, so I was wondering how I would go about requesting one of those to test?  I can set it up myself, as I am familiar with the technology.

 

 

Re: Regular blackouts ( four or five per hour ) when watching tv

@tupelo if deemed valid, we can complete the modem order for you. Please click here to send us a PM @CommunityHelps to get started.

 

 

 

 

RogersZia

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