By , Sky's EPG was dated, with the same basic system being in use for almost nine years at the time. Still based off of the same OpenTV 1. This is the final software release for the Thomson box. Soon after, the Pace, Amstrad and Samsung HD units also joined in on the update, with them recieving the 8.
Early Unix-based firmwares were largely similar in visual appearance to the previous OpenTV 1. Compared to R, this firmware bought a significant improvement in visual clarity, and added an extra two channels to the EPG listing pages. Over time your SKY box may develop a problem or a background update may have failed leaving your box still functioning but with 'glitches' such as any one or more of the following:. Nine out of ten times the reason for any of the above is a software fault.
If you think about it there are a myriad of different SKY boxes out there all at different software versions and SKY has to push firmware updates out to all of them and those updates must work otherwise the volume of support calls will increase.
What tends to happen is for a small percentage of us SKY box owners those updates will fail. When this happens your SKY box is supposed to be able to recover and will try again and again to apply the update. But what if the failure means it is stuck in a state that means it is unable to receive and apply the update or to reinstall the software to fix itself? The good news is that you don't need to call SKY and wait in a call queue as you can resolve this problem yourself.
No need for an engineer call out either. The update will be complete when you can perform a search or add a program to your planner without being informed that your box is initialising. When all else fails most SKY support staff will direct you to perform a system reset.
This process will perform a low-level format of your hard drive followed by a reload of the firmware. This WILL erase all your recorded programs and delete your scheduled programs. A system reset is only recommended when you have exhausted all other options such as multiple software updates. This is where your SKY box can no longer read the contents of its hard drive. Something has happened to the data on the drive such as corruption caused by a power failure when it was writing to the disk.
You could try updating the software but chances are that won't fix your problem. The IT gurus among you could remove the hard drive and connect it to a PC and point a tool such as Spinrite at it, but again there are no guarantees although I have heard of limited success with using a hard drive repair tool like Spinrite followed by a system refresh.
For serious failures where you cannot get to the menu system to perform a system reset then you can perform one via the facia buttons as follows:.
Tip: If you have to perform a system reset but you can still see your scheduled programs list, I highly recommend using a digital camera or your smartphone camera and advancing each page in your schedule while taking photos so that you can easily rebuild your schedule later. For those of you with only the one satellite cable coming into your property i.
This is done as follows:. Your box can fail to receive a signal for a variety of reasons. Working from the dish to the box the failure reasons include bad weather, dish movement, obstruction such as tree in full-bloom or man-made structure between your dish and the satellites, faulty LNB, water ingress where the cable connects to the LNB, damaged cable, moisture on the F-connector at the box end, frayed wires or bent centre wire at box end, software failure or box hardware failure.
In my experience the most common problem is bad weather or a faulty connection due to age. If you do find a cause that is not diagnosable from the above list then do let me know. To check if your Sky box has the latest available firmware installed you will need to know your manufacturer name and model number. Next you need to know your revision number which the Sky firmware also calls the 'Model Number'.
To get this number carry out the following:. Work your way down the column until you find a matching Model Number. If your Model Number is at the top you have the latest version.
For some reason Sky have not added the ability to detect automated clashes to their Sky box firmware. It can detect if you are trying to add a program to your planner that will clash with two existing programs but it cannot detect if it does it itself due to scheduling changes and Next Series additions.
I myself use the app in conjuction with MySky reminders to add programs to my Sky boxes without disturbing what the family is watching on the TV right now. You can also delete programs and browse channels without bringing menus up on the TV.
To remove clashes just start the app and connect to your Sky box and it will tell you about any clashes and will present you with options on how to resolve, which might entail moving a few programs around.
I find that 8pm to 10pm Monday to Friday is when most clashes occur as this is the primetime TV slot. I record so much TV that I tend to switch a lot of my series recordings to the early hours when clashes are unlikely. Both HD and non-HD programs are repeated in the early hours so you can still get your programs without having to make sacrifices.
Avoiding clashes means that you do not have to download the programs later or have to wait for the next repeat of a missed program if you have no or slow broadband. One point worth mentioning that I myself have experienced multiple times living in rural Britain is that the Sky boxes are susceptible to power fluctuations when recording. And when you press 'i' for more info it says it failed due to a power cut.
What power cut you ask yourself? Your clocks are not flashing , and all electronic devices reported no outages. Chances are it lasted less than a second but to your sensitive Sky box it was enough to fail your recording. I've tried surge protectors with no luck.
When the lights flicker in our house we quickly check the Sky boxes and sometimes we get lucky, but often not. If you have a solution then let me know. For now I continue to check my recordings for any FAILURE messages once a week in order to download the program that failed before it is removed from the list of available programs.
After a planner rebuild or software update your Sky box may take some time to refresh. During this period you may notice that your planner shows scheduled programs as time and dates and not by name. Don't worry, what you are seeing is the link to the program in the planner. Your TV guide has yet to fully update so it does not know the name of the program that it is scheduled to record at 9pm next Tuesday, yet, but it will once it has completed downloading the TV guide.
If you go into the TV guide and press the button to advance 24 hours you will see that the TV guide is still updating. Once this process is complete your planner will correctly show the names of the programs that it is scheduled to record.
Sometimes a failed recording usually due to a 'technical fault' refuses to be deleted. You can delete other recordings but not this one.
The reason is that there is no actual file to delete. This could be because when the recording was attempted it failed immediately before recording even one-second of the program to disk, or because the first attempt to delete it worked but it failed to remove the entry in the planner. Either way, what you are left with is a ghost entry.
The only way to get rid of it is to force the system to check what is actually on the hard drive, which means performing a planner rebuild. After the rebuild the ghost entry should no longer be present. Some people have reported that some recordings just won't delete but when they download or record the same program again or another in the series and delete the nested programs the recording is finally deleted.
Sometimes your Sky box will just crash. The general symptom is a frozen picture on the screen and no response to the controls, whether via the remote or facia, or a channel or recording is playing but the system won't respond to any commands. If you were playing a recording from your planner the blue circle lights may still be animated on the front facia and pressing the remote results in LED flashes on the front of the box but there is no response on screen.
There is only one course of action with a system crash: power the box off then on again. Turn the power off to the Sky box for at least 30 seconds then power it on again. It may take ten to twenty minutes before your box will respond as normal without informing you that it is initialising or being generally slow to respond.
You can backup your recordings to DVD in SD format using the play and record method outlined in your user manual. Here is a list of the failure codes that I have encountered so far, along with the common problem associated with the fault code and suggestions for resolving. Note: These codes may now be out-of-date due to recent software updates. You could try the Sky on-screen error message lookup tool.
This is a bug in R of the Sky firmware that leaves you unable to access your deleted items folder. You will get the message "This section is currently unavailable as multiple programmes are being deleted. Once completed you'll be able to view the deleted programmes and restore them to your Planner if required". This has been fixed with R of the firmware. To check if you have the update press Services then select Settings, scroll across to System Details and look at your Model Number.
If you still have the R version you can force R onto your Sky box by performing a System Refresh. Your box will now let you access your deleted items folder and should correctly report the amount of free space you have left. Some mature content recorded or downloaded may also require the PIN to access but it can be hit or miss in that it won't be for everything.
You'll find that your little ones with access to the remote can access any non-adult channel 9xx range or anything in your planner without restriction. You can up the security level by moving to the Ratings tab and setting Restrict on PG to 18 certs. Although the description says for movies only this also works for anything with a certificate set. A more advanced option is the Channels tab. You can set every channel to require a PIN after 8pm or at any time.
Note that this can become really tedious after a while and if you set both the Channel and Ratings lock you can double-PIN some channels. All that PIN entry is going to wear out those number buttons that your PIN uses making it easier for the little ones to guess your PIN or they can just watch you entering it over and over again. Until Sky improve their parental controls your only real option towards protecting your little ones from mature content and offensive language is to hide the remote and set the channels and playback for them.
You'll have to put up with them coming to you asking you to change the channel or to start another recording but it is far less tedious than having to lock every channel and non-U rating in order to lock down your Sky box. You may notice that your Sky box appears active overnight but there are no new recordings in your planner.
The reason for this is that Sky are pushing downloads overnight to your box via the dish not broadband. The content they are pushing is popular shows and movies that you 'may' wish to view or purchase. It is pre-downloaded to save time downloading it on demand later. Scroll through the More Top Picks suggestions until you see a program with the playback icon already present.
Select it and select the option with the playback icon and press the 'i' information button. It will tell you when it was downloaded and the size of the download. It used to be services or something like that. I'm having problems with the box and want to do a factory reset on it. Paul Banned.
DaveG Active Member. I've had nothing but problems after this update, I've had failed recordings, and when I check it, it comes up with the no signal banner, but both my inputs are showing locked and good. I keep having to do a 3 pin reset. I flamming hate updates, I think it's sky trying to get me to upgrade to skyQ. And don't get me started on ios and windows updates. I blame Donald Trump. DaveG said:. I've had nothing but problems after this update. I think it's sky trying to get me to upgrade to skyQ.
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