Comcast X1 platform experiences second major outage in less than a week

Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) X1 platform experienced its second major outage in less than a week Wednesday, with reports of pay-TV outages spread across the nation and concentrated in major cities including Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia.

Comcast-loving activist blog Consumerist has a heat map of where the outages occurred.  

"We are currently experiencing an interruption with X1 service and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience," the company stated in one its forums Wednesday.

Comcast advised its customers experiencing technical problems to perform several troubleshooting tasks: hit the power button on the set-top for two seconds and let it restart; if that doesn't work, the next stop is to hold the power button on the box for 10 seconds and have the system reboot. For the bereaved who still needed help, the MSO also invited customers to live chat with a rep by accessing this link.

The Wednesday outage followed a similar X1 problem that occurred over the weekend. Pressed by DSL Reports for an explanation of the problem, a Comcast rep responded, "In the process of upgrading the platform with new services and features, a technical issue arose that caused problems for our customers. We've identified the cause and our engineers are working to fully restore our services. Additionally, we will be reaching out to impacted customers to ensure their service issues have been resolved and they are satisfied with their service."

For more:
- read this DSL Reports story
- read this post from The Consumerist

Related links:
TWC explains outage as DirecTV quietly experiences its own technical issues
Charter ISP customers cope with major weekend service disruptions
Comcast apologizes for latest customer service travesty, but denies getting ex-PwC accountant fired