DVR Chatter

Is your cable on at the moment?  Maybe it tried to download new firmware / software and failed.  Now it's in a loop.  Is it making any sound at all?

If your cable is working, it sounds like the 6416 is hosed.  In general, if you're a Comcast customer, you can bring it to the local office and swap it out.  You lose whatever you had recorded on there, but it sounds like you've already incurred that loss anyway.

In my experience, once these things start to show signs of failing you're best off just swapping it out.

In the future, just leave it on all the time.  You'll have less problems.

RamsGold wrote:

The problem is that i bought this box... so im definetly into looking for ways to fix the problem so I dont have to start renting a new box.

Thank You

LOL - enough said.  These boxes have never been for sale in the US by any cable operator.  They scanned the network, found an unauthorized piece of equipment, and disabled it.

If you're in the US, you bought a hot box.

RamsGold wrote:

No I am actually from Canada... they do sell the boxes here.. but you really think it could just be shut off by the cable company?

If you're from Canada, YMMV about whether you can use a purchased box or not.  I know they have been sold there.

They can absolutely remotely disable (de-authorize) equipment.  But if the box was legally purchased AND your cable company allows you to hook purchased boxes up to their network, why would they disable it?  Is there a reason they would do this in your situation that you are not telling us?

Most likely is a hardware failure.  Most folks here are US based with leased boxes, and I don't know that anyone here can help as far as opening it up and checking each piece of hardware.

The one option you have is to do a factory restore:
1: Unplug Box
2: Hold down MENU button on the box (not remote) and plug machine back in.
3: Release MENU button when front display says BOOT
4: Arrow down to make display say COLD and hit select/ok on box.
5: Give it a few seconds and display should go to EF, then back to COLD.
6: Once this is done, power cycle the machine and let it download. Could take close to 30 minutes or longer.
7: After all is done, your machine may turn off, if it does just turn on and you should have a 0 on display.
7: Now it is up to the generousity of your cable company. You have to ask them to send an INT signal to your box. This will reinitialize the unit for operation. Again, the process could take some time.

Frank wrote:

They can absolutely remotely disable (de-authorize) equipment.  But if the box was legally purchased AND your cable company allows you to hook purchased boxes up to their network, why would they disable it?  Is there a reason they would do this in your situation that you are not telling us?

Yes this is true, however, disabling the box on the account will not render it inoperational like he describes; it will simply not recieve programming. It will stick on either NOT AUTHORIZED or ONE MOMENT PLEASE. And as far as i am aware of from personal searching and keeping in contact with our security team, there has only been one case of someone "chipping" the newer DCTs successfully, and he is roasting behind bars for a little while. He was some sort of electronics engineer or simlar.