Suddenly, at 9.20 the main sky Q box froze on channel 103 and all mini boxes reported “Technical Fau

[Keithb307]

Suddenly at 21.20 the main sky box froze in channel 103 and all

mini boxes reported "Texhnical Falult".  Turn off and on and the main sky box is now working but all mini boxes still reporting technical fault.  Anyone else hit with this or is this specific to me?

[oldfella]

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@Keithb307 wrote:

Suddenly at 21.20 the main sky box froze in channel 103 and all

mini boxes reported "Texhnical Falult".  Turn off and on and the main sky box is now working but all mini boxes still reporting technical fault.  Anyone else hit with this or is this specific to me?

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Hi @Keithb307 

First try rebooting the main Q box and then when this is completely back up and running reboot the minis.
To reboot press Standby on your Sky Q remote (if the box responds to the remote), and then switch off and unplug at the mains.
Wait at least 30 secs and then Plug back in and switch your Sky Q box back on at the mains.
Wait for the on screen instructions to disappear and the front led to turn Amber. Then wait for 30 secs before you press Home on your Sky Q remote or if this is not working press the standby button on the front of the Q box (Amber led)

note: some features may take up to 5 minutes to return.

Reboot the minis  as above.

[Keithb307]

Thanks @oldfella turns out I have a slightly different problem.  So we've upgraded from a 1TB box to a 2TB box.  A new mini box is now also situated in a room above another old existing mini box.  Because of its proximity, the the old box (in a room downstairs) is now "seeing" the mini box upstairs and trying to link to the Ethernet through that, rather than the booster.  Net result the "noise" by linking through a mini box rather than the booster is too high and it results in a connectivity problem.  Anyone got any ideas on how to make a mini box communicate ONLY with the booster rather than a nearby mini box???   All input welcome.

[Chodley]

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@Keithb307 wrote:

Thanks @oldfella turns out I have a slightly different problem.  So we've upgraded from a 1TB box to a 2TB box.  A new mini box is now also situated in a room above another old existing mini box.  Because of its proximity, the the old box (in a room downstairs) is now "seeing" the mini box upstairs and trying to link to the Ethernet through that, rather than the booster.  Net result the "noise" by linking through a mini box rather than the booster is too high and it results in a connectivity problem.  Anyone got any ideas on how to make a mini box communicate ONLY with the booster rather than a nearby mini box???   All input welcome.

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Turn the new mini off, get it all working with the mini, booster and Q and once stable try re-adding the new mini.

How do you know it's trying to connect via the new mini, by the way? Q's wifi networking will try to reconfigure itself so the above may not behave predictably once the new mini is back on.

and when you say "ethernet", where is that in this setup?

[oldfella]

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@Keithb307 wrote:

Thanks @oldfella turns out I have a slightly different problem.  So we've upgraded from a 1TB box to a 2TB box.  A new mini box is now also situated in a room above another old existing mini box.  Because of its proximity, the the old box (in a room downstairs) is now "seeing" the mini box upstairs and trying to link to the Ethernet through that, rather than the booster.  Net result the "noise" by linking through a mini box rather than the booster is too high and it results in a connectivity problem.  Anyone got any ideas on how to make a mini box communicate ONLY with the booster rather than a nearby mini box???   All input welcome.

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Hi @Keithb307 

Provided it is a Sky Q booster (and connected through a Sky Broadband hub) there is no such thing as noise and the connected mini and the booster are all part of the Q mesh.

If you are not on Sky broadband or the booster is not a Sky Q booster; then the problem mini will only connect to the main Q box or the already connected mini.

[Keithb307]

Hmmm, I'm on BT broadband (full fibre).  When the glitch happened again last night we ran a Network Scan with the sky help desk and determined that the db noise (their description - ie signal too weak ) on this specific box was too high - it seemed to be connecting through the mini box in the room above (which is closer than the booster) rather than to the Sky booster.    Disconnecting the mini box above and everything else  works brilliantly again).  Restart and reconnect the new upstairs mini box again once everything else is stable, and the downstairs mini box has a problem again.  

[Keithb307]

Ps the reference to Ethernet was how the sky help desk identified the mini box which was having the problem (Mac Ethernet Address) which is apparently a unique address to each mini box.  Appreciate that I may have misunderstood what that meant 🙂

[oldfella]

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@Keithb307 wrote:

Hmmm, I'm on BT broadband (full fibre).  When the glitch happened again last night we ran a Network Scan with the sky help desk and determined that the db noise (their description - ie signal too weak ) on this specific box was too high - it seemed to be connecting through the mini box in the room above (which is closer than the booster) rather than to the Sky booster.    Disconnecting the mini box above and everything else  works brilliantly again).  Restart and reconnect the new upstairs mini box again once everything else is stable, and the downstairs mini box has a problem again.  

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Hi @Keithb307 

You need to explain how the three Q boxes are connected. As @Chodley  asked where does the Ethernet go? Edit OK you have confirmed no Ethernet connections

Also how is the Sky Q booster connected?

[Chodley]

Yeah I don't know why they mentioned ethernet with respect to the MAC address of the mini. Physical ethernet sockets/adapters have MAC addresses but so do wifi tranceivers so the term ethernet isn't relevant in that context.

Ref noise, what they may have said is SNR (signal to noise ratio which is definitely a real thing in radio comms including wifi)

This might sound counter intuitive but maybe blocking the path between the two minis with something metallic might dissuade it from choosing that connection path (as long as it doesn't also block either of them from the booster or Q, whichever they are connected to). E.g. could you hide a sheet of foil in a drawer underneath the upstairs one?

Did the Sky helpdesk person not offer any possible solution when they spotted what was happening?

[oldfella]

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@Chodley wrote:

Yeah I don't know why they mentioned ethernet with respect to the MAC address of the mini. Physical ethernet sockets/adapters have MAC addresses but so do wifi tranceivers so the term ethernet isn't relevant in that context.

Ref noise, what they may have said is SNR (signal to noise ratio which is definitely a real thing in radio comms including wifi)

This might sound counter intuitive but maybe blocking the path between the two minis with something metallic might dissuade it from choosing that connection path (as long as it doesn't also block either of them from the booster or Q, whichever they are connected to). E.g. could you hide a sheet of foil in a drawer underneath the upstairs one?

Did the Sky helpdesk person not offer any possible solution when they spotted what was happening?

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Hi @Chodley 

The only thing is that the Q mini signal is not Noise.

It is the WiFi that Q boxes will connect to and doesn't want blocking.

Still trying to ascertain what his booster is and how and to what it is connected.

[Keithb307]

Interesting idea about the sheet of foil 👍.  Having done 3 scans in the last three days, Sky are sending an engineer on Friday.  Will report back big anything else exceptional/novel arises out of that.  Thanks for the help and suggestions @oldfella and @Chodley.  

[Chodley]

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@oldfella wrote:

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@Chodley wrote:

Yeah I don't know why they mentioned ethernet with respect to the MAC address of the mini. Physical ethernet sockets/adapters have MAC addresses but so do wifi tranceivers so the term ethernet isn't relevant in that context.

Ref noise, what they may have said is SNR (signal to noise ratio which is definitely a real thing in radio comms including wifi)

This might sound counter intuitive but maybe blocking the path between the two minis with something metallic might dissuade it from choosing that connection path (as long as it doesn't also block either of them from the booster or Q, whichever they are connected to). E.g. could you hide a sheet of foil in a drawer underneath the upstairs one?

Did the Sky helpdesk person not offer any possible solution when they spotted what was happening?

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Hi @Chodley 

The only thing is that the Q mini signal is not Noise.

It is the WiFi that Q boxes will connect to and doesn't want blocking.

Still trying to ascertain what his booster is and how and to what it is connected.

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I know. I was suggesting blocking mini1-mini2 not mini-Q or mini-booster.