Few channels are temporarily off air

This has been happening to me as well for the past couple of months, on my digital cable.

It's always one channel at a time that says "Temporarily off air" and "Try again later" with the name of the channel. I have had it on MSNBC, CNN, and now NBC. - Does your say the same thing when the channel is missing?

Everything else works fine and no problems getting the same channels on my min-box on other TV. Sometimes the station will work part of the day, then be off at night and vice-versa. I have tried twice to contact support via chat; a couple of days ago the agent went through resetting everything to no avail. She said she would have technical support contact me within 24-48 hours, but nobody has called me yet.

I tried chatting with an agent again tonight but she sounded VERY busy and impatient. I tried telling her what the person said the other day, but never got it sorted out.

I'm sorry you're having problems but am somewhat glad that I'm not the only one having this weird problem. I may just try taking this digital box in tomorrow and swapping it to see if that makes any difference. You may want to give that a try if you don't get any results. 

I'm in Arizona and pay well over $200 a month for cable and internet.    

This is a permanent "feature" of COX CABLE that has been going on for the 30 + years I've been forced to deal with them due to  the corrupt local governments that grant them monopoly status and keep competition out (like when, at COX's behest, they denied Verizon's request to install FIOS in Santa Barbara area.)

My channel outages are always the "premium" channels - HBO, Cinemax, Showtime etc.  Then they have the TERRIBLE signal on PBS and 1008 which gets "blockies", freezes, loss of audio typical of poor quality and overly low bit-rate MPEG compression COX is famous for.

And don't bother complaining to them - at best they will send out a tech who knows less than you do about video compression, disttibution and QOS who will rewire your entire home theater system, so that nothing works properly and charge you for a service call, all the while refusing to check signal levels at the outside pole.  At  least that was the strategy in the 90's and it appears to remain unchanged.  

Yet you can count on a constant 10% - 13% annual increase in your bill while the outages get longer, involve more channels and COX will only fund more advetising telling you how wonderful and reliable thier service is.  Lies, Lies and more Lies.  They're just a bunch of... well, the name says it all.

lunarmagpie said:
Does your say the same thing when the channel is missing?

Yes. The message is always the same.

Service Unavailable

Sorry, there is currently no TV signal detected on this channel. The channel may be temporarily off air. Please try again later. If the problem continues, please contact Cox Customer Service at 1-866-961-1207. Reference M.3.1.4 when calling. Alternatively, you can press the GUIDE button on your remote control to watch programs on other channels.

The problem is NBC and PBS are two of my top three favorite channels. I'm thinking of canceling the TV service and going back to a digital antenna.

Thanks for replies.

Hey Elsie,

We can take a look from our end. Send us an email with your address to Cox.Help@Cox.Com. Include the link to this forum.

So glad to know it's not just us having the same issues over and over.  I have to have our box rebooted any time we want to watch BBCA HD and several other channels.  We always get the Temporarily Unavailable message on those channels.  OnDemand hasn't worked in about 6 months. 

We chat constantly with people, we've been in the local store multiple times, we've tried other boxes, we've been on the phone with several people.  It's always the same things from them.  Even when I tell them all the stuff we've already done, they're like "try this" and it's the same things, or "we'll have a tech come out" and I say we've already done that. 

I'm so sick and tired of paying for services, channels, etc. that we don't even get and haven't in months.  They've given us one "credit" of $10 for our trouble, and when I had a fit about the $20 "self-installation kit" fee when we got a different box to try (what kit?! they didn't even give us a new set of cables - just a box that hadn't even had the last customer's information wiped off it!), they did finally take that charge off, but that's it. 

Same old story every time we talk to them, no matter what format it is.  And that's with them assuring us that we are valued customers because we've been with them for 20+ years.  Well, that's not really by choice since we don't have any better options around here.  I just hate that they keep making it seem like it's our fault in some way, but then you look at the forums and things and see everyone having the exact same issues and you know it's Cox and not the customer that is having the problem, but they can't admit it.  And yeah, the commercials touting their great services while we keep getting to pay more and more for less and less.  UGH.

Hello,

We would like for you to reach out to us outside of forums so we can assist with these service related problems.  We want everyone to enjoy all the services they subscribe to and have nothing but nice things to say about the products we offer. When available can you please reach us on Twitter at @CoxHelp, visit us on Facebook, or email by at cox.help@cox.com.  Supply us with the account name and full service address with the link to this thread.  We would like to help.

Hi Lunarmagpie,

We'd like to help. I regret such an experience. Please email at cox.help@cox.com for support. We can check on any updates for you and take the most recent readings with you to pinpoint exactly where the trouble appears to originate.

Thanks in advance,
Erica W.
-Cox Forums Moderator

Hi Frustrated99,

That's not the experience we want for you. Please email us at cox.help@cox.com with your full address and link to this forum, for support. We want to make this right and help you enjoy the service. 

Thanks in advance, 
Erica W.
-Cox Forums Moderator

The tech fixed the problem. It was a bad trap.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/3380

No charge for the service call.

Hello Elsie,

That's great. Did you have any other issues?

Thanks, Erica -- will give that a try. I appreciate your reply!

   lunarmagpie You are most welcome. We look forward to providing support.

Erica W.

-Cox Forums Moderator