Sky Q Mini boxes need reactivation every day

[Keithy+Weithy]

My two Sky Q Mini boxes need to be reactivated everyday.  This started happening a couple of weeks ago after almost a year of mostly working OK.

And this is the first time I have ever needed to reactivate the Mini boxes, despite not having changed anything in terms of Sky Q setup and location of the main box, router and Mini boxes.

I ran a software update on the two Mini boxes and main box, but that hasn't helped.

Any hints/tips/ideas ?

[Chodley]

This was the state mine got into when I finally decided to give up on wifi and just use ethernet (powerlines) between the 3 boxes. Probably not the most useful answer but it saved my sanity.

[Keithy+Weithy]

Thanks for the suggestion, I have considered ethernet over power lines (a friend suggested it a couple of weeks back), but there's two things that have given me pause for thought (a) the main Sky Q box is in an extension to the main house, which has it's own mains ring, whilst the router and two minis are in the original part of the house , so I'm not sure how well they will all connect and play together (b) one of the minis is mounted upright on the back of a LED TV which is flush(ish) to the wall - behind the TV (and hidden by the TV) are the two power sockets for the TV and mini box, so I'm not sure how much the ethernet powerline box will stick out and push the TV away from the wall.

Any suggestions for powerline ethernet devices ?

[FJRBL]

I use devolo magic2 as powerlines. 

They are quality pieces of kit and provide a good WiFi mesh around a large house. 

The advertised speeds are an exaggeration though. I get roughly 60/70mbps from a 500mbps line. 

HOWEVER WITH REGARDS TO SKY Q

I have NEVER had a satisfactory, consistent connection via Ethernet - it'll work for a while and then not and more fiddling etc will be required.

This applies whether WiFi is off on all boxes and it's pure Ethernet, whether WiFi is on on all boxes and still connected by Ethernet or indeed a varied combo of the above.

it has never just worked for an extended period - and I've been at it for years. 

[Chodley]

I've got wifi Q to mesh/internet

Wifi turned off on minis and 5GHz on the main box as it only uses 2.4 to connect to the broadband

I would say it's solid but not bulletproof. Still get occasional random behaviour.

I'm using netgear 600Mb powerlines. Yeah they are bulky.

[Keithy+Weithy]

OK, so I've done a bit more thinking/investgaation. Of my two mini boxes, only one needs reactivation - this mini box is mounted on the back of a TV, but the router is 5m away with clear line of sight, so I don't think there is a connection problem (could be, but I don't think so). The other mini box is upstairs, further away, and seems at the momnet to not need reactivating.

What is interesting is that the "failing" mini box (downstairs, behind the TV) has a different software version to the "OK" mini box upstairs.

Downstairs: Q170.000.23.00L (5dhvnjw)

Upstairs: Q180.000.26.00L (5f5ezi8)

Both mini boxes have the same hardware version (32D00B)

I updated the downstairs box a couple of weeks ago, and again last night, but it is still stuck at Q170 etc.

Any idea if there is a way to force a software update? And could this version of the software be the cause of my problem ??

Tonight I'm going to try with the mini box moved from behind the TV to check if the TV is blocking the wifi signal somehow...

[SandraWilson]

Did you resolve this?

I have almost exactly the same situation: 2 Sky Q Minis, one of them is fine, but the other one (within 5m of the router also) needs reactivating every night. The only difference between us is sometimes it fails to re-activate after numerous attempts and I just have to give up. This is only happening in the evenings. The following morning it manages to connect to the Sky Q Main box on its own and it's working again.

It's only been an issue for about a week now.

I'm certain it's a glitch in Sky's shoddy firmware, just need to find a way to un-glitch it.

Did you find a way?

[Keithy+Weithy]

So it turns out that the bad mini box had an earlier firmware version than the other/good one, and wouldn't update to the latest firmware. Sky replaced the bad mini box, and they have all worked fine ever since.

[SandraWilson]

I was having a play around with them yesterday and noted both my minis have identical software versions.

If I  go to update it, eventually it completes and the next time it goes into standby it turns off as if it's installing new firmware. When it starts back up the software version number is the same. I can do this repeatedly.

For some reason Sky Q boxes don't seem to know if the latest firmware is installed so it just reinstalls the current version (presumably, who knows what it's doing internally).

The lack of techincal detail from the device is infuriating. It should tell me the version of the latest firmware, instead of this odd behaviour.

So many problems could be diagnosed and fixed by the user if it just gave a little bit of detail as to what the issue was, besides the ambiguous screen telling me there is a 'connectivity issue' of one kind or another.

Anyway, I attempted to update both the minis, and although the versions remained the same, later that evening I didn't have the issue, they both remained connected to the main Sky Q box... From past experience however I feel like the problem will likely return tomorrow, if not the next day.

[bullmc2]

Hi,

Did you get sorted? I have Sky with a few years now and no issues to date, but in recent weeks my Mini box constantly loses connection with Main box. Like you it only seems to happen in the evening and I have checked all connections and tried the online fixes. I have been trying to call Sky support all week but crazy wait times and tried DM on twitter yesterday which is another disaster. If I had another alternative, both Sky boxes would be in the skip now but sadly I'm stuck with this overpriced crap.

[Chodley]

connect them over ethernet / powerlines

[Keithy+Weithy]

You could also try taking the main and  mini  box out of Eco mode.

[SandraWilson]

Haven't had a problem ever since I did a did a factory reset on the sky q mini box, so evidently it was due to a glitch.

I also recently found (and unsuccessfully tried reporting) a glitch with the latest model of router, whereby disabling WPA2-PSK (AES) caused the entire mesh network to become unstable (constant dropouts, disconnects, etc.) I emailed sky with my carefully written diagnosis and asked them to forward my message onto their engineer department about a month ago, they never got back to me, I doubt they ever did forward my message to anyone that mattered.

[removed] It's totally unacceptable to pay this much for a monthly service that doesn't work so much of the time. The price is always going up but the standards are dropping. I'm half tempted to report them to Trading Standards.

Moderator note: removed inappropriate comment

[bullmc2]

Thanks guys. Sky replaced the box and everything working fine since👍