Sky+ HD: Many problems

JBoyle4eva

OK, over the past few months a problems has occured with my Sky HD box. Firstly, picture began randomly freezing. Flicking channel fixed this, but then another problem began.

When the box was put on standby overnight, all planned recordings failed and had to be re-entered manually. It happened today when the box wasn't even on standby.

AND now, it's not receiving some channels. From what I've found, CNN, The Box, Cartoon Netowkr and Sky One don't work on my HD box. However, they work on my SD box in the kitchen:mad:

Any advice besides calling Sky? If I do, I'll have to get my mum to consent the phone call as she's the account holder.:rolleyes:

Sam Radford

Sounds like the usual PSU fault:
http://notonyourtelly.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1390

JBoyle4eva

Mmmm...considering a lot more channels have stopped working today, the problem is increasing but I'm not technically knowledgable to know how to sort out the PSU, so gonna call Sky themselves.

There is also a very minor problem with my SD box in the kitchen, it can't receive a few channels either so there seems to be another problem possibly with the LNB. Nonetheless, gonna give Sky a call

fat-tony

How old is your HD box? If it's still under 1 year, then SKY may replace it if it's faulty.

Mine is over two years old at this stage and I'm going to take the case off to see if the capacitors are "bulging". If they are I will order a replacement PSU.

However, I have a view that crappy firmware in the box is also a cause of a lot of failed recordings.:eek: Sometimes two programmes on the same channel which are recorded back-to-back (say 7.30 - 8.00 and 8.00 - 9.00) will fail or you will find that several programmes on one particular day will fail. I've checked the signal strength on the setup menu when this happens and found that the second LNB is not locked. This can be an indication of a problem with the SKY Anytime service which is recording content onto the 160GB portion of the disk reserved for it. You can try turning off this feature to see if it resolves the problem. I had this problem months ago, turned off SKY Anytime and it fixed the issue. Recently I turned on the service again, worked ok for weeks, then about a week ago started to get failed recordings again. I've turned it off and problem solved agin.

There is a new EPG software release due this month for HD boxes and perhaps this may improve the situation of failed recordings. However, if the root cause is failing capacitors in the power supply, then the only solution is replacement.:mad:

JBoyle4eva

Well, the box is about 20 months old, so warranty is gone. However, yesterday I contacted the local Sky dealer who installed it. He came out last night and had noted some channels were not working on both boxes. He tore apart the dish, put upa new LNB, re-aligned the dish and nothing changed on either box.

He was stumped, but is coming back on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I've called SKy themselves. Gonna cost E100 to get a callout, but it's not until Monday 11th and everything is included in the quote (i.e. maintenance, re-cabling, etc) so gonna see what my local guy says on Tuesday and see if it's better getting Sky out.

jesus_thats_gre

Tell them that you don't fancy paying the money and are considering cancelling.. You will very likely get it for free..

JBoyle4eva

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Tell them that you don't fancy paying the money and are considering cancelling.. You will very likely get it for free..

Well....I should've, but we've already booked. Could ring back and threaten to cancel as it's a pretty steep price we're paying for Sky as is.

slave1

Tell them that you don't fancy paying the money and are considering cancelling.. You will very likely get it for free..

My box died a few weeks ago, out of warranty, was quoted the €100 call out fee, wasn't having any of it, the HD boxes have known reliability issues, yer man was having none of it so I asked to be put through to cancellations, cancellations lady asked why I was cancelling, politely told her about my box dieing and I was not paying €100 to fix my 4th SkyHD box (all other replacements under warranty), she said they'd send out the engineer for free, still told her I was going to cancel anyhow because the €15 is too much and got the call out for free, 90 day warranty and SkyHD sub at half price for 6 months...just be polite and definative and they will make you an offer, they do not want to lose subs...

byte

slave1 wrote: »

My box died a few weeks ago, out of warranty, was quoted the €100 call out fee, wasn't having any of it, the HD boxes have known reliability issues, yer man was having none of it so I asked to be put through to cancellations, cancellations lady asked why I was cancelling, politely told her about my box dieing and I was not paying €100 to fix my 4th SkyHD box (all other replacements under warranty), she said they'd send out the engineer for free, still told her I was going to cancel anyhow because the €15 is too much and got the call out for free, 90 day warranty and SkyHD sub at half price for 6 months...just be polite and definative and they will make you an offer, they do not want to lose subs...

Seems you got a good deal there, slave1!

Tony

Good job, well done

slave1 wrote: »

My box died a few weeks ago, out of warranty, was quoted the €100 call out fee, wasn't having any of it, the HD boxes have known reliability issues, yer man was having none of it so I asked to be put through to cancellations, cancellations lady asked why I was cancelling, politely told her about my box dieing and I was not paying €100 to fix my 4th SkyHD box (all other replacements under warranty), she said they'd send out the engineer for free, still told her I was going to cancel anyhow because the €15 is too much and got the call out for free, 90 day warranty and SkyHD sub at half price for 6 months...just be polite and definative and they will make you an offer, they do not want to lose subs...

Sam Radford

slave1 wrote: »

got the call out for free, 90 day warranty and SkyHD sub at half price for 6 months.

It does beg the question: what will you do when the "refurbished" box fails the same way after 90 days? :cool: