Smart Card for Set Top Box

[filmfan]

Hi...First of all I am being fitted with a V+ Box on Saturday 10 May, not me the TV LOL.
But, I wonder if it will work correctly....I have been with Diamond/NTL and now Virgin for ever. I have a second Set Top Box in my Daughters room as well.

At about 4 O Clock this afternoon when I switched it on I got the message that my Smart Card was Invalid and the same thing happened to my Daughters.

We are paid up to date and never missed a payment....Phoned the Help people and the chap tried to send a Signal to switch them back on...No Joy...Did the disconection for 10 seconds..again No Joy...was told it was probably the signal to the house and he could not get an Engineer out to me untill Monday 12 May.
The only Channels we can watch are the 5 Terestial ones on 101 etc...and a couple of the ITV ones such as ITV3 and the BBC 24 hour News Channel on 601.
He said they would credit me with some refund.

Now !...on Saturday will the V+ Box have the same problems..was told that the Engineer on Saturday was an Installation one and might not be able or have the time to check the Signals to the House.

Long post but wanted to explain in full....anyone know the answer to the V+
working ?????

Walter...City of Lincoln

[spiderplant]

Sounds like they have disconnected your current boxes in error. It doesn't need a tech to visit to fix it. Call them again and hopefully you'll get someone who knows what they are doing to put them back on.

It's hard to predict what will happen with the V+.

ps. welcome to the forum!

[homealone]

when I converted from analogue tv, to digital, I noticed that the analogue stb was disabled prior to the visit - it may be the same for your installation - which the tech will, hopefully, explain

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Sounds like they have disconnected your current boxes in error. It doesn't need a tech to visit to fix it. Call them again and hopefully you'll get someone who knows what they are doing to put them back on.

It's hard to predict what will happen with the V+.

ps. welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the reply...will ring them tomorrow...the chap I spoke to was hard to understand and I think he may have just been a customer service type.

Thanks for the welcome
"walt"

---------- Post added at 23:28 ---------- Previous post was at 23:20 ----------

Originally Posted by homealone

when I converted from analogue tv, to digital, I noticed that the analogue stb was disabled prior to the visit - it may be the same for your installation - which the tech will, hopefully, explain

Would that have affected both STBs...I am only having One V+ installed..and it was ordered and paid for on Tuesday...2 days before the "Invalid Smart Card" error....The Box that is being exchanged for a V+ one is one that replaced my old Pace Box that had gone belly up...it is called "A Samsung HotBox" from what the installer said ...installed/replaced last Friday the 2nd May. It will only support One Channel at a time, so you have to watch the Channel you are recording which defeats the object.

Oh well we will see what happens when I ring them tomorrow. Hope they dont get all Uppity with me.
"Walt"

[homealone]

as spidey says, call it in, please let us know how you get on

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by homealone

as spidey says, call it in, please let us know how you get on

Okay..Phoned Virgin, spoke to nice Lady ...did the 20 second power down...she tried to send a Signal but with no success..said that Engineer would call on Monday 12 and would fix it either with New Card or New Card and Box for my Daughter and my V+ Box tomorrow would work (?????) with a different/new card in it.
Will update as and when it is solved or not LOL.
Thanks for all help so far

"Walt" City of Lincoln

[filmfan]

Smart Card sorted...Someone was a bit quick and deactivated my Smart Card because of the Imminent Installation of the V+ Box...but they Deactivated the whole input to the house.

The engineer that came down this morning to install the V+ Box installed that with no problem Ra Ra Ra...

Then he looked at my daughters Smart Card and eventually he discovered that they had Allocated my Smart Card number to her box and because my box was replaced with the V+ Box her card was not recognised...The Engineer soon solved it by putting my old Card into her Box and reactivated it......3 Cheers for the friendly Tech...3 BOOS to the quick fingered person at Virgin who mucked it up.
I am still a Fan of Virgin...I was a subsxcriber from the days when it was called Diamond...that was a lorra years ago.

Everything Okay now with DVD Recorder working as well.....but Video Recorder has gone Belly up....Oh well.

Walter ...City of Lincoln

[Nedkelly]

Glad to hear its sorted .Why oh why do they insist on sending techs for missing channels when the card has not been paired i have had 3 jobs today for this .And everyone has said card not paired why send a tech when this can be done over the phone

[Nilrem]

Presumably because the "check list" on the computer doesn't have an option for "check card is linked to right box(es)".

I've had the same problem, and despite asking them over the phone to check (as suggested on the forums) they didn't/couldn't, so an engineer was sent :/

[monkey2468]

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

Glad to hear its sorted .Why oh why do they insist on sending techs for missing channels when the card has not been paired i have had 3 jobs today for this .And everyone has said card not paired why send a tech when this can be done over the phone

I had 2 yesterday! NDT, when the Number dropped off the switch is also another good time waster!!

[MickyD44]

I hate to say it, but we had VIP installed at the weekend, and we had a few problems where the V+ box wasnt seeing the movie channels.

Called CS who told me we only paid for it on one box???

Eventually got her to understand what the VIP package was and she said the V+ card hadn't been setup to receive movies, and she would sort it. Usual blurb of give it 24 hours etc....

The movie channels came up straight away, so she did that bit ok, but today and yesterday we are getting 'Your sim card is not inserted correctly......' and you sim card is invalid etc...

We have an engineer coming tomorrow.

Why cant we have some English CS people who know what they are doing? Surely it would be more cost effective these days than using an engineers diesel to do a call out for something that can be fixed over the phone.

[Rob]

It could be two separate things, the database setup error of someone not having paired the two set top boxes to the account so they both get the full services you are entitled to, and secondly a Set Top Box, or Card being faulty in some way. You'll probably know more once the tech has visited.

[colin-bennett]

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

Glad to hear its sorted .Why oh why do they insist on sending techs for missing channels when the card has not been paired i have had 3 jobs today for this .And everyone has said card not paired why send a tech when this can be done over the phone

Hi
Just for my info when you say paired do you mean the correct occurances ??

[MickyD44]

Brilliant service really, I cannot fault this in any way.

Called last night (wednesday) at about 5.15pm, the tech came at around 11 am the next day spent 1/2 an hour faffing around with settings and trying various combination's of card/box and decided he couldn't figure what was causing the problem so changed both.

He then made sure everything was setup correctly including movies etc.

Fantastic service by Virgin and the tech.

[sstainer]

Originally Posted by colin-bennett

Hi
Just for my info when you say paired do you mean the correct occurances ??

paired means the card is linked to the stb [married in a very strange way lol]
like a pin is paired to a credit card