topic Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart in Sky Stream

Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

CornishJules — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 10:02:02 GMT

We've had Sky a month and occasionally programmes will freeze, the picture is of poorer quality and sometimes the programme or channel will restart, like it's been turned off and on again.

Now it's possibly a connection issue but we've 150mb speed and the puck is about 18ft from the router in the same room.

A restart normally does the trick but then the problem returns later that day or the day after.

It happened this morning so I did a speed test and it was down to 75mb. Restarted the puck and the speed was back up to 150 and the picture fine.

Why would restarting the puck improve the broadband connection?

Thanks

Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 10:41:41 GMT

@CornishJules wrote:
Hi
We've had Sky a month and occasionally programmes will freeze, the picture is of poorer quality and sometimes the programme or channel will restart, like it's been turned off and on again.

Now it's possibly a connection issue but we've 150mb speed and the puck is about 18ft from the router in the same room.
A restart normally does the trick but then the problem returns later that day or the day after.
It happened this morning so I did a speed test and it was down to 75mb. Restarted the puck and the speed was back up to 150 and the picture fine.

Why would restarting the puck improve the broadband connection?

Thanks

Sky Stream is different to most other streaming services in that it is almost entirely server-based. Very little is stored on the puck itself, therefore it is more of a slave device. This means however that it requires a constant, fast and stable connection to Sky's servers in order to maintain stability and functionality.

If you are connected to your router via WiFi then the connection can be subject to interference and the speed can fluctuate. Pucks don't deal particularly well with speed fluctuations which is potentially what you are experiencing.

If possible, try connecting the puck directly to your router with an ethernet cable and turn WiFi off. This will take WiFi interference out of the equation and allow you to see if your connection is better suited to being wired.

When you did a speed test, did you do it via the Netflix app on the puck itself? Running a network check from here is the only way to discover the actual speed being received by the puck, not what a speed test app on a phone held near it is receiving.

Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

CornishJules — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:26:48 GMT

Thanks for the answer - I'll try things before connecting.via ethernet

I've just turned it on and Sky was saying it's not connecting to the internet, even though Sky Service Status and the Router being ok

So I've done a hard reset on all devices, had to enter the WiFi password again and it's now saying Excellent WiFi Connection

We'll see what happens now

Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:45:03 GMT

@CornishJules wrote:
Thanks for the answer - I'll try things before connecting.via ethernet

I've just turned it on and Sky was saying it's not connecting to the internet, even though Sky Service Status and the Router being ok
So I've done a hard reset on all devices, had to enter the WiFi password again and it's now saying Excellent WiFi Connection

We'll see what happens now

Do the speed test from the Netflix app on the puck - it tells you the actual speed the puck is receiving, not just 'Excellent'.

Open Netflix, navigate to the Get Help menu top left and click on Check Your Network.

Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

CornishJules — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 19:59:25 GMT

Yeah

Been fine all day but then started freezing again and the Netflix speed test states 3.56mbps !!!! The online broadband speedtest has dropped to 65mb

Not happy

Re: Screen freezing and occasionally channels restart

CornishJules — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 20:33:33 GMT

Now just switched on and off by itself !

The EE router was in a different room and we never had any connection issues with the Youview box.