Contour 6 Problems

If only Cox would switch back to Motorola. Cisco and their middleware is nothing but trouble IMO.

I unfortunately have to agree with you.  I've been a Contour Record-6 user since September and have come to realize that this equipment is tragically flawed, unreliable and far more irritating than it's worth.  Living this week with yet another round of inscrutable errors, freezes, missed recording, failure-to-rewind properly, along with a clumsy guide and search function, I realize that my only recourse is to dump this miserable box.  Speaking with the installer/tech who came out today to troubleshoot my latest, it appears that Cox knows about all of this and is working on a major revision of the Contour firmware.  I guess the Tech Support people don't get told this since any conversation with them makes it seem like I'm the first and only customer to have any problems.  Ask the installers; they get to see the real issues.  Since I've now lost all confidence in Cox's ability to fix these issues and no longer want to tough it out until some vapor-ish future fix materializes, I'm planning on ordering a TiVO DVR, believing the additional expense is well worth it for some peace of mind.  Just think of Contour as Cox's Windows 8.  Good luck. 

I have had a technician come out 3 times and still have the same issues mentioned in this forum.

Stephanie A:

I called and set up an appointment for Saturday, February 7th.  I had two optional time slots, and I chose 1-3pm.  That morning I ran some errands and was home right at noon only to find a note from the technician saying he came by but no one was home.  A voice mail on my home phone came in at 10:33am from the technician saying he was on his way.  Sorry, but that's not the time I picked.

From that date to this past Saturday, February 21st, the box locked up four more times, failed to record six shows in one week, "lost" connection to the other two receivers, and twice was unable to play back recorded shows on the DVR itself.

Twice in this time I used the support menu on the DVR to send reset signals - beats me if it did any good.  I also ran the self diagnostics.  The first three failed: Connectivity 1, Connectivity 2, and Network.  I called tech support on February 17th.  All that happened there was I lost an hour of my life while the tech sent refresh signals and had me running around three rooms resetting the DVR and receivers.  Finally got them to set an appointment for a tech to come out, which was for Saturday, February 21st, between 1 and 3pm.  At 2:58pm, the tech called saying he just finished lunch and was on his way. 

The tech arrived and spent 15 minutes standing in my den telling me how screwed up the Cisco DVRs are and that Cisco was working on software/firmware fixes that should be ready in early-March.  I got the feeling he was getting ready to leave so I showed him the error reports from the self-diagnostics.  He looked at the codes (10.32.something) and said he had never seen those before and would have to go out and look them up.  He came back a few minutes later to say he was going to "monitor the line from outside".  After 15 more minutes he came in saying he found "excessive noise" and a "weak signal" feeding the house.  In the 20+ years I've been with Cox at this same house, I've been told this exact same thing by Cox at least a dozen times.  He also said the cold weather was "shrinking the cables which sometimes creates gaps in the line".  Riiiight.

In the end he did some rework on connectors, came in, reran the self-diagnostics which passed.  He said the terminators (?) on the main line were the wrong ones and that maintenance would be by later to fix that.  To this date I have no idea if that was done or even if it was a legitimate issue.

So now here it is February 25th, and since the technician's visit five days ago, the DVR has locked up twice, rebooted once on its own, giving me a hard time playing back recorded shows (both directly from the DVR as well as a receiver), and sitting there with a blank screen for up to five minutes when simply changing a channel.  I've manually rebooted it and it seems ok for now.

Bottom line: this Contour 6 is by far the worst piece of ** I've ever seen.  The only thing I can rely on is it failing.  I think it's time for me to call Customer Service and demand a refund for cable services since I had this heaping pile of garbage was installed.  I only wish Verizon FiOS was in our area.  My daughter's been with them in Newport News, and they've had their version of a 6-channel recording DVR for two years and never ONCE has had any problems with it whatsoever.

Stephanie,

we the frustrated contour whole home customers deserve more transparency from cox on these known issues. We are paying for your premium product and getting nothing but a horrible inconsistent experience. 

the combination of inconsistent installation quality, less than honest support on the phone and here in the forum, and frequent disruptions for our family had made contour a major pain point. We feel locked in due to the fact thAt we cannot swap out the DVR withou losing all our recordings. 

Even when the system is responsive the DVR is less functional than your non-contour DVRs. Maybe in 2015 there will be a way to see which shows have not been watched yet.  Ya know like on the legacy DVRs you still sell?

maybe we can have the main DVR show TV when it is turned on instead of a black screen a few times each week. 

It may be time to just cancel contour service or cox altogether.  There's no way I am paying an early cancel fee either.

Cox Contour whole home DVR has been a colossal failure and waste of my money and sanity.

Step up, Cox, and come clean on the known issues and time table for their correction so your customers can make an informed decision to deal with the frustration or move on to another DVR option.

Stephanie,

I'd really love to know what that ticket shows what work was completed to "fix" the issue outside.

Tell me, just how many times do you expect me to make appointments to fix this piece of garbage?  Why is it Cox can't remote in and troubleshoot?  Heck, from my home computer in Virginia I've been able to remote into my dad's laptop in El Paso, TX, my brother's computer in Indianapolis, and my aunt's computer in Grand Rapids, MI, and I've been able to do that as far back as 2002.  So why can't Cox do this with the Contour-6?  It's basically nothing more than a computer minus a keyboard.  Heck, you can see the box via it's IP/MAC address, and you can send updates to it and send reset signals, so why no remote access for troubleshooting?

And I have to agree with ATPTourFan: the only other "solution" you're offering is to swap the box out, and in doing so I lose whatever shows I have recorded on it.  Again, this is the 21st Century!  Why can't you simply connect the old box with the new one and transfer the shows?  Better yet, ever hear of "cloud computing"??

Now on to the updates on the problems.  Six more random reboots; four different times I was unable to playback without manually rebooting; unknown number of times doing any function - changing channels, pausing live TV, playing back a recorded show, etc. - the DVR displayed a blank screen for anywhere from 10 seconds to five minutes before executing my choice; the new receiver that was part of the initial Contour-6 install "lost connection" and had to be rebooted; 25 which is the number of times I uttered the statement, "I wish Verizon FiOS was in my neighborhood!".

I had almost all of the same problems. Had about 5 super smart people who had little idea what they were doing try to fix my system.  Finally had someone who knew his stuff. He said the problem is that Cox keeps downloading updates that confuse the machines.  I need to go back to the basic system.  These are the words to tell customer support:

I want you to do a I2I3 Back to Back. (That was the letter "I"). Isolate on Main unit Only. The Box ID is (give the last 4 letters of the box).  

They may say that it will erase all of your data, however on my 9865HDC, all my programs were fine.

All of my problems were cleared and the system works just like on the TV adds.  Be aware that if Cox sends too many updates to your system, you may begin to have problems again.  Just call up and do the I2I3 thing again.  It has been 2 months so far and everything works great.  Good luck.

I have had my Contour Record 6 for apx 1.5 years.  Cox had a thread on this forum with a name like "Welcome to Contour...." where we could post our experience.  I had quite a few problems with my Record 6 in the beginning.  Not as severe as yours.  Something has improved because my Record 6 has turned out to be very enjoyable.  The members of this forum were able to give me fixes and workarounds for many of the problems i was experiencing.  Cox Moderators gave me suggestions.  Right now i can record lots of shows that i would previously have missed with the previous dvr.  And i can listen to Pandora on my tv. 

You should ask for a brand new Record 6. If that one fails to work, you can throw in the towel and say you tried.  No use continuing with a box that functions for less than 48 hours without major problems.