SkyQ Download Failed Item Unavailable

[mike1944]

Just a reminder folks "Sky Believe in Better"😁😂😁

[debkitty]

Yes I am, I reset it then it does it again, I reset it and it does it again, I'm getting really fed up with all this now 

[SecretBob]

@grayuk @grog+arson 

I'm with both of you, both your last posts are in line with what I have seen and tested.

The DNS change worked for me yesterday, I downloaded a number of program episodes just for test purposes. I downloaded all the episodes of Landscapers with no issue. I tried 3 episodes of Sharp Objects and a couple of other random episodes from Sky Atlantic. I've just been to check again this morning, the DNS change is persistent (still there) but I noticed 2 episodes of Sharp Objects had failed with Error External Network Issue or something similar. I tried them again and they worked this morning. I tried episode one of Succession, it started and then failed after a minute or so with the same external network error. I tried it again a minute or so later, and it downloaded fine.

There seems to be a couple of issues here:

One is the DNS change, although I can't for love nor money understand why Cloudflare and Google DNS work but BT DNS doesn't. All the DNS servers should sync changes over about 24 hours, it makes no sense that these two external services have the necessary changes but BT doesn't. BT aren't exactly a small ISP, and you would expect their DNS servers to be picking up the changes propagated from everywhere else. It's almost like teh Sky changes are being withheld from BT, or BT are ignoring them.

For now, changing to either option should work, as long as the settings are properly saved.  If for any reason the settings revert to the original BT hub DNS setting, the problem wll return.

The second issue, is that there also seems to be a bandwidth issue. As seen in my Succession test failure this morning, which worked a minute or two later. It might be that there are a lot of people on this thread (or not) still trying to do the same downloads. Only Sky can fix that one.

For what it's worth, I raised a ticket about this with BT yesterday,  explained the issue, gave them the DNS fix and asked them to look into it. I have had an email confirming the case, but, I'm not confident it will go any further.

[berniejn]

It does seem pretty clear that it's related to DNS but - it seems odd to me that a change from the ISP-provided DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 should make a difference - they're both widely used public DNS servers but I would expect ISP-provided servers to be able to resolve any public names equally well.

In fact, on my routers I usually set DNS manually to 8.8.8.8 and 9.9.9.9 just because that seems to work well.

The client (Sky Q box) then uses the router to resolve DNS and the router uses whatever it's configured with.

However, what worked for me was setting my router to use 8.8.8.8 as primary and the IP address of a Sky broadband DNS server as secondary (I used 90.207.238.97). Then set Sky Q to auto to pick those up through the router. Since I made that change the problem has not re-occurred.

It may be coincidence but I was wondering if maybe Sky have some servers (Ad servers?) where the names are not published to the wider DNS servers but can only be resolved by Sky DNS.... No real evidence for that but it seems possible to me.

However, end users shouldn't of course need to implement workarounds to get their expensive Sky systems to work properly! I should be speaking to a Sky engineer on Thursday and will direct him to this thread.

[grog+arson]

Hi @SecretBob I cannot disagree with anything you have said, its all very sensible and succinct, lets hope that Sky and BT gather their toys up and get this sorted as its not great having to apply local fixes that may cause issues in the future when either or/both of them perform updates. 😊

Just to confirm, what Sky hardware are you running, just in case this is specific to a certain version of the Sky box?

[grog+arson]

@GaPe Good bit of information, as per @SecretBob what version of hardware are you running, hopefully its the same and anyone with the same are fairly assured of a fix to get them through Christmas 👍

[grog+arson]

Hi @debkitty are you referring to the reset of the DNS to 1.1.1.1 in the Sky Q box network settings, as i cant see the post you are referring to?

[grog+arson]

Thanks @berniejn that's really useful information.

How long have you been running with these settings?

And for those less comfortable with this type of change, always make sure that you note the original settings on your Router before making any changes and be aware that the next BT firmware update will probably reset the Primary & Secondary DNS back to their defaults.

[debkitty]

I'm having problems with downloads failing and also my sky q keeps disconnecting from the internet (bt) 

[grog+arson]

@debkitty The post from @berniejn above may help you out with your problem, it may also help with the network disconnects, but ultimately the only thing to fix that may be to directly connect your Sky box to your Broadband Router with a cable, this can either be direct (run an Ethernet cable from Sky to Router) or using Powerline sockets if that's not possible (i use Devolo and they work fine).

[grayuk]

@debkittyWhen you change the DNS do you save it before switching off at the wall?

[SecretBob]

@debkitty 

Did you save the change? I didn't the first time I did it, which results in the DNS change getting overwritten with eth original settings, and the same problem returns.

If you save the change, power the box off to flush any DNS caching, then power up again and check the settings, they should still be there. If they are, it should resolve the issue. If the DNS setting has reverted to the original settings (hopefully you made a note of them before changing them), the problem will most likley return. It means that either the change you made wasn't saved correctly, or something more peculiar is going on with your system.

[berniejn]

@grog+arson I made the changes about 20 hours ago. So far so good....

[Essexgolf]

Just got mine working.

I had failed downloads and also the wifi kept dropping out repeatedly from my BT router. I connected it again and 2 mins later it would drop again.

To fix this I connected the sky box to a TP-Link device to run the broadband signal through the electrical circuit. Also then changed DNS to 1.1.1.1.

So far all good, we'll see hwo long it lasts but im back up and running at the moment.

[Essexgolf]

PS. Should I change DNS on the mini-boxes also, or just the Q box?