Slow response/freezing on ALL mini boxes

[Neil+Cheyne]

I have Sky Q (2tb box) which is in my living room, same room as Sky Q Hub with Uktrafast Broadband from Sky getting 400mb+ no problem.

I have 4 Sky Q mini boxes, all connected to the main box with no issues, all ticks, internet works, access to Apps with no problem.

About 3 months ago, we started to notice that all Sky Q mini boxes are slow to respond when changing channel, be that by typing in the number i.e. 101 or going through TV Guide and selecting the channel.

It can at times take up to 15/20 seconds to respond and then will freeze and unfreeze repeatedly for a further 10 seconds or so.

Same goes for pausing/rewinding live TV, it is very slow to respond when it was once instant.

All mini boxes are positioned on top of sideboards/desks/TV units with plenty of room around then to prevent signal disruption and allow heat dispersion.

I have so far had two engineer visits, the first resulted in a new Sky Q 2 TB box which resulted in losing all recordings. Whilst this maybe appeared to 'improve' the response by a bit, it was short lived and we were back to the same issues in no time.

Second visit resulted in a new Sky Q Hun which also came with issues reconnected all devices to a new WiFi with new passport. Again, this appeared to improve the issue but again, we are now back to the same issue.

Every device has been fully rebooted, reactivated and reconnected etc. with no improvement.

The non Sky device setup in the house is typical of a family of 4, three smart phones, three iPads and a couple of echo dots but nothing which causes any issues with broadband speed etc. 

It would seem strange to me that all 4 mini boxes which are all of varying ages as we have increased the number gradually since getting Sky Q several years ago but I cannot see what could be causing this.

Software has been checked on all boxes as up to date.

There are no devices nearby any of the mini boxes which may interfere with them.

House is 11 years old, timber frame, sadly not wired up for networking so no realistic option to hard wire boxes by Ethernet although I'd love that option if I could do it. No way I'm tacking cables to skirting boards all throughout house when I pay Sky plenty for a product designed to work wirelessly.

Third engineer coming in 2 days. Who knows what else could be be tried in absence of replacing all four mini boxes.

Anyone with any ideas, please let me know.

[PandJ2020]

Does the main box work ok?  Delayed channel changes can be caused by dish alignment/signal.

[Babetta]

Hardwire main box to hub and disable 2.4 and 5 on main nox if they are in close proximity (within2-3) metres of each other. Also sky engineers can run hardwire for you externally so not along skirting boards (only if there are no obstacles and there's safe and easy access around the hose). You may benefit from turning 2.4ghz off on mini boxes as well as amazon echo (if in proximity) will cause interference. 

[Neil+Cheyne]

Yeah, main box has no issues at all.

[EastenderEK]

Did you try turning off 2.4 mhz on any devices and if so, did this solve the slow response on the mini boxes? I ask as I have exactly the same issues with my 3 mini boxes?

[Neil+Cheyne · Accepted solution]

So strangely it turned out that I had now TV sticks in my daughters bedrooms which didn't have sky boxes and they were interfering. I didn't really believe three engineer but he was using some strange kit I didn't understand which told him this. After he was away, I did some testing of my own and it was clear that when the sticks were on, the mini boxes played up, when I turned the now tv sticks off, the mini boxes worked fine. I wasn't about to start a fight so I got rid of the now tv sticks and I've had no issues since. Kids now have Amazon fire sticks and there is no issues with sky. A strange outcome but a solution none the less 🤷‍♂️