Sky Plus

[rsv gone!]

Dover Nige said:

Mine did this today too.

Does your surname begin with B or near to B in the alphabet? Do you live anywhere near Kent?

I've left mine unplugged for the last half an hour and will be switching it on again in a tick. Hopefully that'll cure it.

I'm convinced Sky send stuff to the digiboxes to screw them up if you've no insurance (and no, I don't believe in aliens or any other conspiracy theories!).

My surname starts with a C and my SKY+ box was playing up earlier, too.

[V8A*ndy]

croggers said:

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, please move if it is.

My wife and I have Sky Plus. We have had it for over a year now and all was great. A wee while back, they contacted us informing us the guarantee on the box was expired and wanted to know if we wanted to take out another one. We declined.

In the past couple days, it's been on the blink. We have various things on record, which have failed a few times for no reason. It said no signal, but I was watching one checking to see if it was recording and it was fine. If it does record, it then won't let us play them.

Today, our box totally messed up and would not come up with anything on the screen for over an hour and we had to watch boring terrestial. Now, has anyone else had this problem and what did they do?

I am asking before I give Sky a ring to see have some ammo if possible to help the situation.

Croggers

Ok sounds like the power supply is on the blink (leaky caps). This messes the clock up and one of the tuners goes on the blink.

The best advice I can give you is to ring them up and say you want to cancel your sub. They will ask you why. Tell them the box is stuffed and you can't afford the £65 refurb unit. You might get a result.

[MrV]

rsv gone! said:

Dover Nige said:

Mine did this today too.

Does your surname begin with B or near to B in the alphabet? Do you live anywhere near Kent?

I've left mine unplugged for the last half an hour and will be switching it on again in a tick. Hopefully that'll cure it.

I'm convinced Sky send stuff to the digiboxes to screw them up if you've no insurance (and no, I don't believe in aliens or any other conspiracy theories!).

My surname starts with a C and my SKY+ box was playing up earlier, too.

I am right down the alphabet and mine had a spaz attack last night ,its only a month old so maybe just a freak one ,pissed at it though as I only got the first 3 mins of 24 ,I don't suppose anyone knows when it is repeated do they ?

[Allanv]

forgot to add earlier..

Welcome to Sky..

And the reason i found the engineers fix was after a call from sky about the warranty it started to play up because i said i didn't want it.

And they can send updates down the dish as we never had the phone line plugged in ever.

[MrV]

And suprise suprise the bloody thing has just frozen again

[Allanv]

MrV said:

And suprise suprise the bloody thing has just frozen again

do the fix remember the warning

[OJ]

Our Sky+ boxes have been as reliable as Gordon Brown's left eye. I think we've gone through 3 or 4 under 2 different subs.

The only one that seems to have lasted forever is a particularly noisy one (fans and HDD), I assume the noisiness stems from some fix for the reliability and the design was dropped because people whinged about it being loud

[MrV]

Allanv said:

MrV said:

And suprise suprise the bloody thing has just frozen again

do the fix remember the warning

Will do after after I have watched BSG and CSI

[Bec]

Living outside of the UK I have, of course, no option to enjoy the benefits of a Sky box.

However I may possibly know some people who are able to offer to install such services here in the Netherlands, and the advice from them was that many Sky+ boxes fail after around 12 months in operation. The cause of these faults was not elaborated upon, but it does seem that it is common to experience problems after a year or so

[croggers]

Dover Nige said:

Mine did this today too.

Does your surname begin with B or near to B in the alphabet? Do you live anywhere near Kent?

I've left mine unplugged for the last half an hour and will be switching it on again in a tick. Hopefully that'll cure it.

I'm convinced Sky send stuff to the digiboxes to screw them up if you've no insurance (and no, I don't believe in aliens or any other conspiracy theories!).

Shockingly my surname begins with an A and I live not a million miles from Dover.

[croggers]

Soovy said:

So they offered you a warranty, which you declined. Then the box has broken.

On what basis do you think they have any liability?

I understand the non warranty part, but I'm paying for a service of being able to Record and pause the TV, which I cannot use.

[Silver993tt]

Well, as soon as my Sky box fails again (and it will be out of warranty nexttime) and they don't change it for free, I'm cancelling my subscription which also includes Sky broadband. It seems to me that they are intentionally supplying cheap boxes that will go wrong in order to make alot of money out of their insurance offerings.

[croggers]

Thanks guys, I shall have a ponder on Virgin site and see what offers they got, that maybe the way to go. Shall see what happens I suppose.

[andygo]

We had our original sky+ box for four years and just after Christmas it gave up. I rang Sky and they offered to send an engineer and box out at NO COST. I didn't ask, wasn't arsey ect, they just offered.

Gobsmacked? Yep!

Engineer came round, swapped the box, after 1/2 hour realised it wouldn't record. Wel, it was one of Sir Alan's best, clearly reconditioned by one of his apprentices.

Called Sky, they sent out another engineer FOC, replaced the box again with a Thomson- same make as my long serving original- and knocked £15 per month off my sub for next 3 months.

Can't really knock that for service.

Look at www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums for info as well. Navigate to sky+ forum.


HTH

Edited by andygo on Tuesday 27th January 21:35

[Dover Nige]

croggers said:

Dover Nige said:

Mine did this today too.

Does your surname begin with B or near to B in the alphabet? Do you live anywhere near Kent?

I've left mine unplugged for the last half an hour and will be switching it on again in a tick. Hopefully that'll cure it.

I'm convinced Sky send stuff to the digiboxes to screw them up if you've no insurance (and no, I don't believe in aliens or any other conspiracy theories!).

Shockingly my surname begins with an A and I live not a million miles from Dover.

I wonder if I'm on to something here....?

• Tinfoil hat on & not answering the door when the unmarked van pulls up outside**

[croggers]

Dover Nige said:

croggers said:

Dover Nige said:

Mine did this today too.

Does your surname begin with B or near to B in the alphabet? Do you live anywhere near Kent?

I've left mine unplugged for the last half an hour and will be switching it on again in a tick. Hopefully that'll cure it.

I'm convinced Sky send stuff to the digiboxes to screw them up if you've no insurance (and no, I don't believe in aliens or any other conspiracy theories!).

Shockingly my surname begins with an A and I live not a million miles from Dover.

I wonder if I'm on to something here....?

• Tinfoil hat on & not answering the door when the unmarked van pulls up outside**

I never took the tinfoil hat off. Wise.

[Silverbullet767]

Just threaten to cancel, you'll get a new one free of charge.

That extended warranty is just ballocks....

Hold on I'll put you through to our retentions team....

[andygo]

Silverbullet767 said:

Just threaten to cancel, you'll get a new one free of charge.

That extended warranty is just ballocks....

Hold on I'll put you through to our retentions team....

I didn't need to offer to cancel - I was just very nice to them. I'm sure they have heard of the 'I want to cancel' ploy before. I suppose it just depends on who you get.

[Lordbenny]

Dracoro said:

And as a bonus you can get proper fast broadband!

'proper fast' I wouldnt be that sure.

I have Virgin and it aint that fast! However, ANYTHING is better than Sky broadband, they are, without doubt, thw biggest bunch of cts know to man!

[miniman]

Lordbenny said:

However, ANYTHING is better than Sky broadband, they are, without doubt, thw biggest bunch of cts know to man!

Why do you say that? The tech support, if you get through to Delhi, is terrible, but if you can avoid that, the service is great IMHO. Especially considering how cheap it is.