Sky+ froze

Osem · 16-12-2009, 11:54

Hi. My elderly mum in law rang in a panic the other night to say her Sky+ box had frozen. She'd already been onto Sky who ran through a series of basic checks with her apparently and was then told she needed to book an engineer. He came today and managed to 'fix' the problem (not sure how as MIL didn't bother to find out exactly what was wrong!) but from what little I can understand he told her the problem was due to a lack of recording space on the HDD. Anyway what she's been told sounds odd to me because she didn't get any sort of warning message beforehand, the picture on the TV picture just froze as she was watching telly and the Sky+ box became unresponsive. I'm interested to know what may have happened because I obviously want to avoid her having a similar problem again and having to shell out for a 'fix' unnecessarily.

I will try to find out more later but, frankly, she gets so confused sometimes, that may not shed much light on what happened.

NoKnowledge · 16-12-2009, 12:04

The picture shouldn't freeze even with 0% left.

Osem · 16-12-2009, 13:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoKnowledge

The picture shouldn't freeze even with 0% left.

No I wouldn't have thought so but she's saying that's what she was told...

I'll find out more later anyway.

NoKnowledge · 16-12-2009, 13:52

I've been to 0% with my sky+ box ages ago and the picture was fine with no problems at all except the recording part obviously, the planner will automatically erase one recording to record another.

**Paul** · 16-12-2009, 13:59

Sky+ boxes are always recording - thats why you can freeze the picture or go backwrds at any point.

Osem · 16-12-2009, 14:02

I'm sorry to sound rude but, to be honest, if the engineer had told my MIL that the problem was caused by a faulty jam doughnut inside the electrical supply she'd probably have believed him.

Mick Fisher · 16-12-2009, 16:06

There is an option in the settings for the sky+ box to automatically handle a disk full situation or not. Check the status of this setting.

I think it is wise to leave some disk space for overheads. With a PC 20% is recommended. I never let my sky+ go beyond 10%-15% full before I start deleting stuff.

Osem · 16-12-2009, 20:26

OK I've spoken to her now and she told me that when the engineer came this morning he turned on the box and it worked straightaway. He told her the problem was probably due to glitch caused by the lack of recording space available and after having fiddled about with it and gone through some basic troubleshooting checks (such as she'd been through with the telephone support desk), charged her £65 before leaving.

All was well until this afternoon when the box again malfunctioned. It appears therefore that his diagnosis was wrong and she's going to have to call them out again. Hopefully this time they'll either fix or replace the box.

**Paul** · 16-12-2009, 20:28

.. and refund the £65 since they screwed up first time.

Tezcatlipoca · 16-12-2009, 20:28

I hope she won't have to pay *another* £65...

Osem · 16-12-2009, 20:46

Unfortunately she's a bit of a soft touch so although I've advised her to complain, in no uncertain terms, I have a feeling she'll be fobbed off.

NoKnowledge · 16-12-2009, 21:00

the £65 also gives her a 3 month warranty so I doubt she'll have to pay again.

Osem · 17-12-2009, 08:53

Warranty aside I'd be very unhappy if they tried to charge her again for the same fault. We'll see anyway and I will report back here when we get to the bottom of this. Cheers guys

Osem · 24-12-2009, 22:47

Just to update - Sky engineer finally came again yesterday and swapped the Sky+ box with no extra charge. MIL's happy for now so we'll stick at that!

Cheers everyone.

Osem · 03-01-2010, 14:05

Hmmmm... Just to update. The day after her box was swapped MIL discovered that she was unable to record TV. She called the tech people and was taken through a process which seemed to cure the problem but the next day it happened again. She tried the tech support people again but the problem reappeared so she arranged for another engineer to call. He came yesterday and told her the replacement box had been wrongly installed!!! According to him, Sky have been using a lot of contract staff lately and they don't all seem to know what they're doing. Anyway the box has worked since yesterday so fingers crossed! Suffice it to say that I won't be joining Sky's 'family' any time soon.....