Programming your FIOS remote when you get a new TV

bigscreen_samsung_plasma_50_lgIt’s a great day when you get that brand-new big-screen TV and are ready to watch movies and TV in all their glory. The only annoyance is that your new TV came with its own remote, and you already have one from your TV service provider. This can be from Cox, Comcast/Exfinity, or Verizon/FIOS (plus others). In most cases the remote will control at least your converter box and your TV – but this first has to be set up. And darn it, you lost the manual that came with your remote control!

Our members can (and do!) ask us for help. It’s not rocket science, we follow the same basic process to help them, and you can follow these same steps to do it yourself for your own situation. Here’s what we do:

  1. List your TV’s brand, your cable TV provider, and the model number of the remote remote that came with your cable TV (usually printed on the backside of the remote). For instance,
    • Samsung TV
    • Verizon FIOS TV service provider
    • P265v1.1 remote control from FIOS
  2. Do a quick internet search, in this case we’d use the search term “verizion fios p265v1.1 manual”. The manual for this one happens to come up right near the top as a PDF.
  3. Use the instructions on that to re-write only the steps you need for your particular situation.

p265_RemoteIn some cases, the remote may not have a model number on it, so we just ask the member for a picture of the remote. Then we can search through google images (using the search term “verizion fios remote control”), which takes us to the Verizon page with all their remote models and instructions. You can do the same thing with your brand of remote – just go to the page from the company that provided it (Cox, Comcast, etc.).

So in our example above, our step-by-step instructions are:

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  1. Make sure both the TV and the FIOS converter box are turned on
  2. Holding the remote, press and hold both the green ‘OK button and the number zero button at the same time, until the red LED blinks twice and stays on, then let go of those buttons
  3. press and release the three button, the three button (again) and then the one button. After that the red LED button will blink twice and stay lit. (331 is the code for Samsung)
  4. Press and release the channel up button (CH at the top where there’s a + sign). Wait one second. Repeat that until the TV turns off.
  5. Test by pressing the TV button at the top of the remote and make sure the TV turns back on. Also press the volume up and down buttons and the Mute button to make sure the remote also controls your TV’s speaker volume.
  6. If any of them do not work, press and hold that button on the remote. Release it as soon as the key works. Then test the volume and Mute buttons again to make sure they all work.
  7. Once they all work, press the green OK button to save the programming. The red LED will blink three times and then turn off.

Verizon

As a bonus, you can set the remote to turn on (and off) both the TV and the FIOS converter box at the same time. Here’s how (this works for this particular FIOS remote regardless of which TV brand you have):

  1. Turn on both TV and FIOS converter box (on the remote, this is labeled as “STB”)
  2. Press and hold the green OK button and the number two button at the same time, then release them. The red LED will blink twice and stay on.
  3. Press and release each of these number buttons in turn: nine, seven, seven (977 is the code to set the remote to do both at the same time). The red LED will blink twice and remain on.
  4. Press the STB button. The red LED will blink three times then go out.

From then on, both TV and FIOS converter box will come on when you press the STB power button. If you decide later you don’t want this, follow the same steps above, but for step 4, press the green OK button instead.

Here’s a link to Verizon’s remote programming guides.


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11 Comments

  1. Thanks for the article. Both worked perfectly for my setup!

  2. The programming of the volume on my Samsung tv works while programming but as soon as I hit the OK button to confirm, the volume buttons no longer work. Any help with this would be great

    • HI Gregg, I’ll take a guess that you have the P265 remote, and that the only problem is with the volume up, volume down and mute buttons.
      In the manual (see https://www.verizon.com/cs/groups/public/documents/onecmsresource/p265usermanualmarch_e48a.pdf) there is a “key fix” method of getting the volume keys to work (this is from the instruction manual):

      1. Press and hold the and asterisk buttons simultaneously. • The Red LED will blink twice and then stay on.
      (the asterisk button is under the #7 button)
      2. Press and hold the key that does not work correctly (e.g., the volume up).The remote control will try a new code every second.
      3. Once the TV responds correctly, release the button.
      4. Press
      to save the current settings and finish programming your remote control.

      You’ll do this each time for any of the volume control keys that don’t work, so once for volume up, once for volume down and once for mute. Test them all in-between, it may be that just fixing one key fixes them all.

      • Thank you. Same result though. I have tried everything.

        • Sorry Gregg, there’s only so much I can do without hands-on diagnosis. I should tell you I have 3 Samsung TVs and the FIOS P265 remote works perfectly on them with the instructions in the article. Perhaps you have a defective remote?

  3. How do I control the tv channels with the food control? It’s a Toshiba tv. I want to be able to use my remote to control the channels on my tv not the cable box

  4. Christopher J Grassia

    Worked for me on my VIZIO – thanks!

  5. I recently moved and had to leave Frontier Fios. They did not want their remotes back. I would like my Frontier p265 v? to operate my ATT Uverse cable boxes. Can my remote be programmed for that?

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