One channel (Quest Sky 144) was buffering.

[StephenM1966]

My Sky Q box kept buffering/freezing on channel 144 & 244 (Quest and Quest +1). I went through all the help pages and some of the community pages with no answers to my problem. Only the Quest channels seem to be affected.

I telephoned Sky and spoke with a very helpful support guy. After a lot of yes/no questions and a number of system setting queries he came to the opinion that my dish was at fault. It seems that all the holes in my dish relate to the channels and not its appearance. So he called for an engineer to come and see to my dish/ Sky Q fault. Appointment made for tomorrow evening (great)..

Hopefully I can watch Quest without the screen going blank and the sound going off every 5 minutes for a few seconds.

Excellent service.

[bob1234]

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@StephenM1966 wrote:

My Sky Q box kept buffering/freezing on channel 144 & 244 (Quest and Quest +1). I went through all the help pages and some of the community pages with no answers to my problem. Only the Quest channels seem to be affected.

I telephoned Sky and spoke with a very helpful support guy. After a lot of yes/no questions and a number of system setting queries he came to the opinion that my dish was at fault. It seems that all the holes in my dish relate to the channels and not its appearance. So he called for an engineer to come and see to my dish/ Sky Q fault. Appointment made for tomorrow evening (great)..

Hopefully I can watch Quest without the screen going blank and the sound going off every 5 minutes for a few seconds.

Excellent service.

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Well I have heard some tall stories but that takes the biscuit. If it is the dish it will be alignment.

[fizzdisco]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Laing1]

Now I know why there is a shortage of engineers 

They are either putting holes in dishes for any new  channels on Sky or filling in the holes for the channels that have been removed  🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Rhonny]

@StephenM1966

I had to check it wasn't April 1st!

Hopefully the engineer will look at your signal and alignment. Just don't mention to him what the person told you, unless it's to give him a good laugh and break the ice.

(Oh bother. A bird just dropped one on my dish. That's ITV2, MTV and Dave ja vu out of action then...) 

[StephenM1966]

I have every intention of mentioning this to the engineer. If it is a bunch of flannel then |I will laugh, if it isn't flannel then I will know one more thing. Regardless, my Quest channels will be fixed and I will not care about your opinion.  

[Rhonny]

@StephenM1966

None of this is disparaging of you! It's the nonsense that the call handler told you we're incredulous about. The holes on the dish are nothing to do with channels:

"The reason that your dish is full of holes is for purposes of weight and reduced wind-resistance (aka likelihood of being blown away). The dish works fine as a reflector, despite being full of holes, because it is picking up long-wavelength radiowaves / microwaves."

Your engineer will get your Quest signal sorted for you. 

[Trackermonkey]

Did you get this issue resolved? 

I have noticed the fault today while watching British Superbikes on Quest.
The tv screen goes blank and the sound goes off for a split second, every 20 seconds.

if I rewind the program for about 10 seconds and then watch it slightly delayed, it's fine.

[Doc5907]

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@Trackermonkey wrote:

Did you get this issue resolved? 

I have noticed the fault today while watching British Superbikes on Quest.
The tv screen goes blank and the sound goes off for a split second, every 20 seconds.

if I rewind the program for about 10 seconds and then watch it slightly delayed, it's fine.

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Have you tried covering a few dish holes ??

But seriously, have you checked you have the latest software version Q160 ? If so then switch your skyQ off at the mains for  30 seconds and restart box

[StephenM1966 · Accepted solution]

Yes.

2 engineers came. They replaced my Sky Q box, my dish and LMB. It all works fine.

They said my signal strength was low (30) it is now it is now betweek 70 and 80.

On your sky page, go down to "Settings", Then go right to "Status", then go right to "Satellite Signal", then go right to "More Info". Press the "dot" button.

If your signal strength value is lower than 70 (mine) then talk to sky and they will probably do the same. BUT you will lose ALL of your recorded info like favourite/rare films and tv programmes etc.

I hope this helps.

[Trackermonkey]

Thanks for your reply,

I've  checked my signal strength as per your instructions and it's good at 80.
Signal quality is 90.

i only have the issue on viewing the live Quest channel. If I pause the program I'm watching for 10 seconds or so, then press play the problem doesn't occur.

i can live with it as it I don't watch Quest much and really don't want to lose my recorded content by replacing the box.

[StephenM1966]

@Trackermonkey 

My dish and LMB was about 6 years old and the engineers said that the LMB was probably the cause of the poor signal and the intermittent picture problems. I would suggest you call sky (beware that the call operator might try to insert some flannel into the conversation). They sent engineers around the next day and got the situation under control. You might get the issue sorted within 24 hours like I did.

[Godfrey]

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@StephenM1966 wrote:...My dish and LMB was about 6 years old and the engineers said that the LMB was probably the cause of the poor signal and the intermittent picture problems.

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The whole point of training even their basic Sky engineers how to use and interpret the results displayed on their test meter after a scan of the full 67 satellite transponder signals, quite apart from the clear RED / GREEN display is surely to allow them to then use their professional technical knowledge in order to identify the actual faulty component, and not just change everything in sight.................... so I am surprised that the Low Noise Block performance was not immediately identified as either being defective or meeting the required specification.

If............ the LNB was FAULTY................ why then change the Sky Q receiver, with the loss of all the customer's recordings?

Godfrey.

[StephenM1966]

@Godfrey 

I was asking the engineer if it was common to lose recordings that I had set to keep. Every now and then films that I often watch vanish, they are not in the deleted/restore section. He thought that My Sky Q box was particularly noisy. 

They replaced the LNB and the disk  was showing signs of age so they replaced that.

They said that the Q box was particular noisy and that I could have a new one that was in thier van that should be quieter. They said that the loss of the odd file might be an intermitent fault on the hard drive but they couldn't be sure. So I took the new one. Time will tell if it was a hardware problem or not.

Either way, 24 hours after my phone call to sky my system was working fine (minus my recordings).