topic Re: Slow mini box in Sky Q

Slow mini box

Amy249 — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 13:07:29 GMT

We have Sky Q (2tTB box) with two mini boxes. Since the middle of last week (15th or 16th Jan), both mini boxes have has become very slow to respond to the SkyQ box.

Channels up to 30s to load, the planner takes several minutes to populate and some channels never seem to populate. The recordings menu takes several more minutes to load. Individual recordings take around 30s to start playing after selecting. Fast forwarding and rewinding lags to the point where the functionality is unusable (both take ages to start and stop).

The SkQ box itself is absolutely fine (no lag on channel selection, recordings, populating the planner after rebooting, or recording functionality). Streaming is also fine across all the boxes.

We have ethernet within the house and have turned off WiFi via the engineer's menu on the SkyQ and both mini boxes to rule out WiFi being the issue. The issue was the same over WiFi (we have multiple Gb WAPs around the house because we work from home).

All the boxes have been rebooted by unplugging them and waiting >30s multiple times and I've used the menus to reset the network connections and reconnect to the SkyQ box multiple times on all the boxes.

We've deleted a bunch of recordings to ensure there's plenty of space on the SkyQ HDD (it's currently at 28% used). I've even refreshed all the apps on the SkyQ box via the engineer's menu, in case one of those was causing the problem.

The Sky Q box is connected to our BT router (our broadband is full fibre @ 900Mbps) via a Gb switch. The two mini boxes are connected to the router via 100Mb switches (the Gb switch and 100Mb switches are on separate ports on the router). I've verified the speed on all the ethernet connections via my laptop connected to internet speed tests.

The problem seems to be with the ability of the SkyQ box to serve channels and recordings to the mini boxes.

We've tried the Sky chatbot and it gives the usual basic 'reset' answers. We're unable to find a Sky support telephone number that isn't also a chatbot.

I'd rather not completely reset the SkyQ box because we'll lose the remaining recordings.

Are there any other solutions? Does anyone know what number we need to call to actually speak to tech support who can diagnose the issue?

Re: Slow mini box

Mr+Flibbles+86 — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:10:42 GMT

Hi there, I’ve escalated your post to our Community Messaging team who will invite you to a private chat shortly and help you with this.

Just look out for the colourful bubble to start the conversation.

Here's more information on how Community Messaging works - https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Did-you-know/Escalating-a-post-to-a-Sky-expert/ba-p/3711147

Re: Slow mini box

Chodley — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:38:48 GMT

The normal number gets you through to a person eventually

I assume you tried rebooting the main Q as well?

do you have any traffic monitoring on that main switch? Wondering if it's seeing any packet storms.

anyway maybe the online live chat help here will help resolve.

Re: Slow mini box

Amy249 — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:40:41 GMT

Tried to chat yesterday, but I didn't have the verbal password, so got locked out of the chatbot for 24 hours.

I have found a sticking plaster solution to the current problem, but still want to know why the problem has suddenly occurred.

I replaced the last 100Mb switch on my network (feeding one of the mini boxes) with a Gb switch. Speed at the cable to the mini box is now around 860-865Mbps, compared to 90-95Mbps with the old switch. That mini box is now useable again.

I don' t understand why the box was perfectly fie with sub-100Mbps until the middle of last week, but now needs almost ten times those speeds to be useable.

Re: Slow mini box

Chodley — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:46:38 GMT

Have you tried a new 100Mb switch?