How to spoil a movie night in one easy step.
Last night, my wife and I decided to watch a movie using Verizon FiOS TV’s video-on-demand (VOD) feature. About an hour into the movie, the audio started breaking up and the video started pixelating. Then this error message appeared:
“Error
A problem has occurred with your request. Please ensure that the wires are securely connected to your set-top box. If you continue to experience problems please contact Verizon at (888)553-1555 and specify code (CL-14).”
Yes, happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Verizon. My wife had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I put on some soft music and used the opportunity to help Verizon debug their problem. I’m such a nice consumer.
Incidentally, in the old days, area codes were optional for local calls, which is why they were put in parenthesis. Most area codes are no longer optional, and toll-free area codes never were, so let’s all agree never ever to put area codes in parenthesis again. Mmm-kay?
I called Verizon and waited 18 minutes on hold before getting to speak to somebody. While on hold, I did what every TV consumer would do in the same situation. (No, not go to the bathroom.) I went to the basement, restarted the broadband router (being sure to leave it off for about 20 seconds), came back upstairs, restarted the cable box (ditto), and tried to access VOD again. No luck, same error message. One variant of the error message simply referred to “Error 14” and didn’t include a phone number.
Guess what the Verizon representative suggested? Yup, restarting the router and cable box. So we did, same results.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
At this point, my romantic Valentine’s Day evening was toast. Maybe the V-Day Blizzard of ’07 had knocked out a Verizon server? Maybe VOD was getting hammered by all the romantic couples in New England? I asked the Verizon rep where he was. California.
I was on the phone with Verizon for 55 minutes and they were not able to solve the problem. We verified that FiOS Internet service worked fine, Verizon TV worked fine, everything worked except VOD. Sounds like a Verizon VOD server issue to me. Or maybe I was just imagining the problem. Could be either.
I had to ask the rep what Verizon was going to do to make this very patient customer whole. (Hint #1: good companies take the initiative to make their customers happy and actually have their own ideas about how to do this. Hint #2: keeping customers on the phone for 55 minutes to debug a 2-hour movie and then offering no compensation isn’t one of those good ideas.) He asked me to call back and check on the trouble ticket. After my prompting, he said that he’d ask his supervisor about giving a week of service credit (whatever that means). I explained that I had invested 55 minutes of my life on this and was not investing any more time. I said that they could email me to close out the matter. The Verizon rep said he had no means to send email to me. (They should try Verizon FiOS Internet service in California.) “Humor me,” I said, “and enter my email address in the file.” He did. I’m not holding my breath.
Verizon is making Apple TV look better every day.
FIOS has been one big pain in the butt. I have the TV, internet, and phone bundle. The phone works for 4 minutes and then cuts off. CS says try 3 or 4 different things then call back for the 5th time today. Finally they say they’ll send out a teck next week. Glad I have a cell phone. Verizon FIOS is more expensive than promised and phone service is crap
the best fix is to unplug the box wait one minute and then plug it back in..fixes 90 percent of problems
I bet that you have a coax signal booster in your house which amplifies the signal coming in. Since the Verizon signal comes in hot, you don’t need this. I had ond with Comcast and I had the same problems you talk about. If you have this booster, your set top box is essentially “swimming upstream”. Take the booster/amplifier off and that will fix your problems. Good luck.
Verizon FIOS: While attempting to do a channel change we must have accidentally hit a wrong key or two on the remote – within 5 seconds a large black rectangular box appeared blocking most of the screen which we could not close. Some of the online help sites mention that this issue could be remedied by simply turning off the “Close Caption” option. This remedy did not work either as we turned the CC off within BOTH the Verizon system and the TV’s system itself. Any clue on how to remedy this issue? Thanks!
i have fios and i get no pixelation whatsoever.The picture is amazing..crystal clear even on std.I agree sometimes the remote freezes but i think thats because i like to scroll alot and i change channels frequently..Im a man what can u say lol..but doesnt bother me
correction.the cable companies amplify their signal ever 500-600 feet from pole to pole.these are called line extenders,which have automatic gain control that compensate for any signal loss caused by temperature fluctuation.they’re not without their set of problems which requires a technician to minor adjustment,and when there’s a power outage,they sometimes fail.
Fios issues abound.the transmission medium that Verizon uses may be to blame for the pixelation and VOD freezing up.The deliver pure fiber from their head-end,with absolutely no active device,such as an amplifier to preserve the signal along it’s pathway to the homes.There’s very little attenuation(reduction in signal strength).this high signal level is hitting your cable boxes a level that is sometimes way above the threshold for the receiver in the boxes to decipher(decode).it is called alaising,and it is akin to talking through a microphone,but projecting your voice over the top portion of it.what this means is that your audience will not hear your entire voice.for this reason the verizon techs would sometimes put what is called an attenuator to drop the signal a bit,but this introduces equal loss at all frequencies,with the most adverse effect being sending out request from you box for vod programmes.when verizon say 20db hot,they mean it.”you should see his truck”on the other hand,the traditional cable companies can adjust their signals to required levels from their amplifiers located at every 5-6 feet at each pole location.in a digital domain,pixelation will always be a problem with whatever service provider you choose.some are controllable while others are not such as those caused by the so-called “sun outages”where uplink and downlink satellite signals are affected by the earth’s rotation around the sun from March-October.all in all,choose your provider based on how quickly and professionally they resolve your problem.
it was the offer online when I signed up. I thought I printed the stuff out but can’t seem to locate any “proof”. The remotes are all fairly sluggish, but the one in the living room (the tv we actually watch) is having problems a lot. If you hit any button, you may not get a response. I usually wait about 20 seconds or so before hitting the button again or it ends up doubling up on the button. This is particularly annoying when your scrolling through VOD or you recordings. You try to look at info and then are on the buy screen, or delete screen etc. I called and had the box reset and remote did better.
andy..what remote control problem and who advised u of target card..was it verizon or a kiosk that sells fios in amall
I have had verizon for nearly months now. The remote control problem with my hd dvr box is very irritating. someone mentioned earlier that they never received the item from the promotional offering, same thing here. I was supposed to get a target card but never saw it. I tried calling several times and the tech support doesn’t help much or seem to care. Have also had hours on hold (sometimes on ym cell minutes) to get transferred, hung up on, or to finally reach someone who tells me it’s another department I need to speak to. The internet speed and tv quality is good though. The service and equipment is very poor. Wouldn’t recommend it really, broghthouse sometimes gave a headache, but never anything as bad as fios.