Upgrade to Add Channel message

mjgillen

New to Spectrum and this issue has me perplexed. I have the Spectrum TV Choice package and selected my 15 channels in addition to the 40 or so "over the air" or free channels. The three boxes I have are the Spectrum 110 boxes.

My problem is that when I use the CHANNEL UP/DOWN on the remote it stops on channels that I don't have a subscription for and I get this message that says "Upgrade to Add Channel". Which is like most of the channels as I don't subscribe to many of them. I was expecting to just scroll through the channels that I pay for.

I have called Customer Support (CS) many times. The first time I called was the same day I installed the equipment and they said to change the Channel Guide options which I did to only show the channels that I am subscribed to. So yes the guide mostly only shows the channels that I have a subscription to and I can use the guide to jump to a channel like CNN and then when I use the UP/DOWN on the remote I go to a channel that I am not subscribed to and I get the message. It's like the remote/box is not in sync with the Guide.

Several more calls to CS and the last couple of times they say that's the way it's supposed to work. Well I cannot believe that. I've been watching cable TV since TV was black and white and I have never seen the up/down arrows do that before.

So I am asking the common folk on this forum for their collective advice and experience with similar issues.

Any help appreciated. If I can't get it resolved I'll have to leave Spectrum and I just got here!

Thanks

William_M

Hi @mjgillen, welcome to our community!

I'm sorry for the trouble with the filters, I can definitely understand not wanting to scroll through channels you don't subscribe to.

Are any channels being skipped at all when you put on the subscribed filter, or it just goes through every channel number one by one? Do all of your receivers do the same? If you press okay twice to open the mini guide, do you see the channels filtered there?

mjgillen

No channels are skipped. Lots and lots of pop up messages.

All receivers behave the same way.

Channels are filtered in the Guide because I set the option to only show Subscribed channels. Before I enabled that setting it would show all the channels and the ones not in my subscription had a key symbol next to them indicating that they are locked.

thanks for trying to help.

Michael

William_M

If you press okay twice to open the mini guide, do you see the channels filtered there? Unfortunately if all the receivers have the same behavior it does seem that is the intended function with that guide version. You are welcome to try exchanging receivers at a Spectrum store for a different model but we cannot guarantee availability.

HT_Greenfield

There is no subscribed versus unsubscribed filter so mark your ❤️’s and then hit GUIDE and then hit ▲•◾️ and select ❤️’s as the filter and then preface your ⌃/⌄ channel surfing by hitting GUIDE (or 🆗 twice for mini-guide) and then surf away from there.

mjgillen

That’s not an appealing solution.

mjgillen

"You are welcome to try exchanging receivers at a Spectrum store for a different model but we cannot guarantee availability."

What does that mean? How would exchanging receivers fix anything?

Satch

I need to chime in here,

I am pretty convinced that the remote control up/down button over-rides the Time Grid channel filters on all boxes and guides. This is by design and not a bug.

The theory is that if this option was not there, it would be too hard to get to a channel that was not a part of the filters. Box swaps will not fix software design issues. I run the ODN Guide, have my filter set to "Subscribed," and when I press channel up/down, it goes in a numerical sequence. That's the way it is designed . My box is a Cisco 9865 DVR.

Satch

mjgillen

"I am pretty convinced that the remote control up/down button over-rides the Time Grid channel filters on all boxes and guides. This is by design and not a bug."

Wow. Well I guess I will be moving to another provider. Thank you to all that chimed in. Too bad the software is not more flexible. Oh well. I am sure they mean well. Image of the tree swing comes to mind...

mjgillen

Also, the APP behaves correctly and only allows me to view the channels that I am subscribed to.

HT_Greenfield

Correction: i just figured out that Spectrum Guide does have a subscribed versus all channels guide filter setting and where it’s at: 

Hit GUIDE then ▲•◾️ then nav » to the Guide Settings tab and then nav ⌄ to Show Channels and hit OK to toggle from ALL to SUBSCRIBED. But the filter under the Filter Channels tab needs to be ALL CHANNELS ironically enough if you want to avoid any compound filtering.

Thus enhancing the guide and mini-guide surfing experience but like Satch already covered, the nature of the beast is that every channel on the medium is tuner-present and the direct ˄/⌄ channel function is oblivious to anything else.