No, not the economy.

I got fed up with not being able to watch On Demand offerings on cable last night so I finally gave up thinking ‘it’s probably just snow on the lines, or flooding, or high winds, or volcanic/seismic activity’ and phoned Comcast to sort it out. 40 minutes of classical music later, I hung up before my mobile phone died. Then I tried email. Today I got a reply suggesting using their ‘live chat’ .  Click on the ‘more’ link or whatever it’s called if you’d like to read the conversation between John.Michael.37920 and Ms. Fisher in its entirety. Basically I’m waiting the proposed 15-30 minutes now and thought posting about Comcast would help pass the time.

Last night we ordered some Mexican food from the local El Salvadorian restaurant (I know…), and since the line was bad and there was a lot of background noise, rather than spending the usual 5 minutes spelling gwyn, I gave my name as Paco. Unfortunately this led to even more confusion and thus we ended up with Tacos de carne asada rather than burritos.

I’d like to say more has been happening of note but not really. Lots of work. Lots of walking the dog. A fair bit of reading. Countless hours on the internets… Half my family appeared in Taunton’s Gazette last week. That was probably the highlight… Doesn’t he look happy? I think I inherited the “Yay-It’s-snow!” gene…

Ah well, I’m off to check if I can watch The Soup on demand yet. If not I’ll be live chatting again for a substantial chunk of this morning.

Gwyn: For 2 months the On Demand programs have not been working properly. I thought it would eventually sort itself out, but no. The code it says to quote is: SRM 0812 . I emailed about the problem, your reply was to use Live Chat…

John Michael: Hello Gwyn, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is John Michael.37920. Please give me one moment to review your information.

hi John

I will be more than happy to assist you. Rest assured that I will do my best to help you with your concern.

Hello, Ms. Fisher.

Mr Fisher, but never mind

I will try to help you with your concern. Please give me a moment to check what that error means.

Oh, I apologize, Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Fisher, could you verify the error code for me, please? Is it 0812, or 8012?

0812 is what I wrote down, but I could check again, it will involve a 5 minute wait…

Mr. Fisher, that will not be necessary.

good

I’ll just check on the error codes here. While I am doing that, could you please check if all the connections of the digital box is tight? Also, have you tried rebooting the box?

Okay, I’ll do that. Back in 5 mins. I have not tried rebooting or checking the cables

I see. I will wait here, Mr. Fisher.

Hi, i turned it on and off by removing the cable, checked the connections were tight, now it gives me code: SRM 8001

I see. Mr. Fisher, this is the error code description for SRM 8001: Subscriber attempted to watch a VOD video. The session was set up successfully, however the set top could not tune to the stream even after a configurable number of tune attempts.

Sounds about right

Now, I am going to try to send a signal to your digital box to see if the stream would be corrected. I will need to check for any changes.

I will need the last four digits of your SSN to have access to your equipment and send the signal.

1234

May I have the last four digits of your SSN, please?

Thank you.

I will send the signal in the next couple of minutes. Please check if there are any changes.

okay in 3 minutes I’ll check, back here in 5

Okay, Mr. Fisher.

user Gwyn has left room,analyst John Michael.37920 has left room

user Gwyn has entered room,analyst John Michael.37920 has entered room

i take it losing my internet briefly was a result of the signal. I’ll go and check…

Yes, Mr. Fisher, that was the reason. Sorry for not notifying you earlier.

No worries. The on demand is not giving error messages but is still unwatchable. ie. lots of blank screens/ pixelation/ artefacts/ no sound

Well, Mr. Fisher, all the channels should load in about 15 to 30 minutes. However, if it does not load after the said time, I would suggest that you chat back with us. You could inform the next analyst that we have already tried the basic troubleshooting steps. The next step is to send out a technician to check on the digital box, or , if you would prefer, have the digital box swapped at your nearest local office.

aha. Okay, I’ll try again in 15 minutes and see what happens. Thanks for your help, John

You are welcome.

Is there anything else I can assist you with?

I’ll let you know in 15 minutes…

have a nice day

[…]

Have a great day.

Analyst has closed chat and left the room