While driving to work yesterday, the XM radio suddenly went out and the station said "UNAUTHORIZED" and went to channel 1. We have a lifetime subscription. We can hear the preview channel just fine, so I am assuming everything with the car is okay, correct? We called XM 3 times yesterday and were on hold forever and they re-sent the signal each time and it still didn't work. So frustrating. Has this happened to anyone else? I feel like I will be spending my weekend dealing with this. sigh.
I have had mine for 15 months now and have never lost the signal. Others have reported having to have their XM signal resent but I have not heard of multiple times and still not working. You may want to contact your dealer and report this.
Why would the dealer have anything to do with this? I would exhaust all the XM route before I went to a dealer, most of whom are clueless as to anything involving a radio. In fact, most dealers outsource their radio work. I guess it would be worth a try, though.
First, since the OP stated that XM has tried multiple times to resend the signal it does not appear to be an XM problem. Second, the car is under warranty so they need to check to make sure it is not something wrong with the XM receiver.
Absolutly guarantee the problem is with XM and not the radio. XM/Sirus records are so screwed up they don't know what they are doing. I have had to call them 5-6 times about screw ups over the last year on my account and I am still not sure they have corrected it!
If you say so. I have not had an issue with my XM signal so am not a good one to comment on that. Question for the OP's benefit, is there a way to verify on your radio that XM did in fact send the reset signal to your radio? I have heard of others being on the phone with XM and being instructed to be on Channel 1 or 0 when XM sends the reset signal so that they can verify the reset signal was received.
Seems that if she is receiving XM on Channel 1 the receiver is probably fine. My guess is someone at XM has a number transposed for the Radio ID and is sending the signal to the wrong radio. All I know is yesterday on my way to work my XM all of a sudden started working and I never reactivated the service after the initial trial period! Hmmm... (Just Kidding... )
Paul58 Good point. I obviously went right passed the part about her receiving the preview channel OK.
After the response from Paul58, if you have not already done this, I would recommend tuning your SAT station to Channel 0 and recording your radio ID number. Then, when you call XM (one more time) I would give them this ID number to be sure they have your correct radio number listed. Then I would have them resend the signal to your radio number, while you are still on the phone, and watching your radio to be sure that it is reset properly.
EXACTLY the route you need to take. You can also go to the XM/SIRUS website and have a receiver reset sent without being on hold for eons! You can aso verify you reciever ID number wth your account and make sure it's correct. I use this feature more often than I care for, but it ALWAYS works!!! The fact your receiving channel 1 OK, the system is fine.
Thanks KK6PD. This is nice to know that you can send this activation signal from their web site. I went to my XM web site account and clicked on my radio number. A screen comes up with three options to choose from. The last choice is: Send Activation Signal - Resend an activation request to your receiver in case you missed it or only the preview channel is available for listening. Sounds exactly what the OP needs to do.
Thanks everyone! I will try calling them again and checking the number. It's difficult since they put you on hold forever and I have to be in the car. I am thinking it is an issue with my account because I can't even login to the website. I called and they gave me a user name and password and I still can't login. I hope I get this solved soon. I've had satellite radio for 5 years and I listened to FM for the first time in ages yesterday and couldn't take it with the commercials and the censoring of naughty words. lol.
Sorry about your "adventures" with XM. Be sure to report back and let us know what the problem was and what it took to correct it. I have had XM radio for about 16 months now and really enjoy the lack of commercials, the music choices, sports, and never having to search for a station while traveling. It is even more enjoyable since I have been able to get the 1/2 price subscription for the second year now.
Still no progress! UGH! I had them double check the number and they said it matched. Still did not receive a signal. May have to sit in my car tomorrow night once again and hope I can talk to someone who I can understand. I really hope I don't have to take it to the dealer.
As others have said, since you can receive the preview channel Channel 1 without a problem, that should mean that your car system is working fine. You should not need to take it to the dealer. You just need to receive a valid reset signal from XM. If they have your radio ID number correct, the question remains as to why you cannot seem to be able to receive the reset signal. Still assuming that XM is sending the correct signal. If you could get your online account working, then you could verify your information and send the reset signal at your convenience. Just out of curiosity, you are entering the 4 character security code under where you enter your ID and Password? I skipped over this the first time after they added this feature and it took me a couple of tries before I entered this code and was able to log in.
I finally have an update. We got busy with the holidays and just not wanting to deal with it. Today we finally called again and got the problem resolved. Thankfully it is nothing with the Prius radio and it was on their end. What happened was I got a Lifetime subscription in November 2009 plus I got the Nav traffic for a year. In the beginning of December, they switched over to a new system or something that does not allow for Nav traffic along with a Lifetime. I don't know why they just didn't deactivate the Nav traffic then. Weird. I also don't know why this didn't come up the many times I called them. I asked a few times last month if there was an issue with the account and they said no. So they got rid of the Nav traffic which I wanted to do anyway because it's horrible around here, and they re-activated my Lifetime. I wasn't in my car when they do this so I'll have them re-send the signal in the morning and hopefully we'll be back up and running tomorrow. Kudos to whomever was the last guy I talked to because we got disconnected and he actually called me back once he had everything taken care of. Just glad it wasn't an issue with the radio because that would not have been fun.
I'm dealing with a similar issue right now. I have Navtraffic and it's working fine, but XM suddenly stopped working and only goes to the preview channel. They've sent the activation and reset signals a bunch of times but still not luck. Ugh.
