I first had this problem with sky go on my Windows 11 laptops whilst away from home for a few days and posted here back in November 2023. I then found it started working when I was back at home and was able to use it once or twice whilst away if I had used it recently at home.
However having not used it for a few months I had problems again last night whilst away from home (a few miles away, but still in UK) on the same windows 11 work laptop that I was using last year.
I removed the sky go app and reinstalled the latest version I downloaded from sky. It still didn't work but did pop up a message that it needed access to my location. The message that said this disappeared before I had the chance to answer yes or no, and did not reappear if I closed the app and tried reopening it.
The sky go app would just say that it was downloading updates, but if I checked for network usage on my mobile WiFi device that I was connected to there was no download in progress over several minutes of monitoring.
So I looked into whether I could enable access to my location. I went to the windows start menu and typed "settings" in the search bar and hit enter. I loaded the windows Settings app and I believe there were some location settings under "privacy and security" or something like that. In the location settings, location was already enabled on the pc for windows store apps, but not for desktop apps, so I enabled location access for desktop apps.
Sky go still did not work when I restarted it, nor after restarting the PC. I don't think the laptop knew where it was, it does not have GPS and was connected to a mobile WiFi network, so could have been anywhere.
I went back into the Windows location settings in the Settings app and this time I used the Default location option to set a default location for the laptop to supply to apps that are asking for a location if the laptop is unable to work out where it is, I specified my home address as the default location.
When I then closed and reloaded the sky go app it sprung into life asking to agree to some cookies or licence agreement or similar (the kind of stuff you just agree to without reading it) and the sky go app was working. I was then able to load sky sports F1 just in time to see that the qualifying was delayed until today. Still, watching the rain in Brazil was better than watching Strictly.
I have not yet experimented as to what would have happened if I had set my default location to somewhere else in the UK. Would the app still have worked, or will it only work if it 'thinks' I am at home? I'll probably just leave it as is. I will see if it still works when I'm in Devon next week.
