The general sequence of failure is as follows: The sound will drop out while the picture continues. The picture will then slow down and sometimes freeze before the screen goes blank (sometimes leaving the closed captioning running if I have it on for several seconds until it disappears). Picture and sound will eventually pick up for no more than a few seconds before stopping again. Then the same short segment of audio or video will repeat often interspersed with a moment of black screen. It may skip ahead to catch up with the feed, but may not regain stable signal without intervention.

In the meantime, changing channels, opening the guide, etc. with the remote lags terribly. Sometimes turning everything off with the remote or changing channels will help, but doing so brings up a status bar, suggesting that it is buffering. The only measure that works consistently is resetting the device by disconnecting and reconnecting the power. However, it will take a few minutes (again, signal seems to be buffer). It seems that each time I resent, i get less uninterrupted time to watch television until I have to reset again. I usually give up within a couple of hours.

The setup: The box is connected to a standard, dumb ~15 year old Toshiba LCD television. I displays what you plug into it reliably. I have had similar results using coaxial and HDMI inputs/outputs. I have one female f-type outlet in the room which feed the cable box and a cable modem (which has worked for about 10 years) via a 5-1002MHz digital splitter installed with the previous cable box. I have read that this type of splitter is correct when TV and internet share a cable.

I have spend hours troubleshooting this and have gone through the standard steps recommended by Comcast (reset box, check connectors, check power). Comcast's chat bot says I need to schedule a technician visit, for which I will be charged. For a variety of reasons that is not going to happen. As far as I am concerned, they "upgraded" their system, which broke the service that I was paying them over $100 per month to provide. If they broke it, they can fix it. However, this reminds me of setting up internet using telephone lines years ago when some of the connectors could not transmit the additional data of the new service. If I have to pay for troubleshooting and repair, it could get expensive and not succeed.

I have seen in other forums that other Xfinity users have encountered similar problems. However, I have not seen a solution. If there is something I can do inexpensively myself, such as replacing cables or the splitter, I do not mind trying. However, I live in a condo complex, so there is nothing I can do outside my unit.

Thanks in advance for any solutions.