Thought I would write to describe what happened on my Rogers Digital Cable TV.
A week ago Friday morning, a number of channels were just showing black screen. And the selection of which ones were black screen seemed to change from time to time. Most often, Ch 3, 4, 10, 23, 29. 40, 43, 46, 56, 181, 185, for example, were regularly just black screen. Sometimes, 185, 181 and others would appear. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. It was happening on both my Rogers 8642 digital boxes. Throughout, the Guide was there and the Channel information bar (channel and show) would always be there.
Initially, I thought something was amiss at Rogers and they would know it and fix it. But as the problem continued, I decided to report it to Rogers Technical Support. After going through some troubleshooting activities including several box resets, Tech Support raised the issue up in their office and provided a ticket number, saying that Rogers would respond within the next 24hr.
Rogers indicated that there was no problem at their end. And no similar reports of problems from my area.
Rogers called back the next day with a message to call them back re a ticket number (different than the original ticket number they gave me). I contacted Rogers and provided both ticket numbers. They indicated that the team had decided a ticket was not the best way to go. After a few more tests/resets they indicated that a tech would have to come out but if that was necessary I would first have to agree to convert from Rogers Digital TV to Ignite TV (which is now available without requiring a bundle with internet service). Unfortunately, even with the discount the agent was able to provide for two years, it would be ~$10/month more than what I was paying now for the important channels I currently received. The agent indicated that if price was an issue, she could connect me to a colleague who would possibly be able to do better. I agreed to speak to another rep. But after 1/2hr on hold, I was still ~57th in the queue. I decided to try again after the weekend.
By Monday morning, things were mostly the same. But then later, fewer channels were missing (Ch 4, sometimes 10, 40, 43, sometimes 185, for example). But by Monday night, the large contingent of missing channels continued to be missing.
By Tuesday morning, most of the many missing channels were still missing. Then partway through the day, all the channels returned. It has now been a week with all channels working just like normal, through all kinds of weather. It's as though there was a Rogers issue and somehow it was rectified.
In the past when I had local signal issues some of the channels would indicate Loading... and then would indicate it was not available, but it would not just be a black screen (no picture no sound). So this appears to be different.
I am not sure why this happened or how it was rectified, or if the fix will continue to hold. But, given that a number of other Community members have run across this kind of issue in the past, I thought I would let the Community know what happened here and that a combination of time, and likely good back-end work by Rogers, seemed to rectify things on their own.
I think it is good to report such instances to Rogers. I think also, if it is not immediately clear that there is a signal strength issue at your location or an area issue or a Rogers back-end issue, it might be best to wait a few days (especially if it is on a weekend) to see if Rogers can just fix things on their own and everything might work out before requiring a customer to get a tech out and/or to make big changes to their services.
I will say that all the folks I dealt with at Rogers were friendly, professional, and helpful. But in this case, I am pretty convinced it was something at the Rogers end that needed fixing and was fixed, but the Tech Support group I was dealing with did not have the information/tools at their end to be able to identify / resolve this. It would be good if these tools and information were more readily available to the Tech Support customer interface staff if indeed that was the situation here.
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