We're having trouble reaching this service right now.

[pabow]

Since early August (or earlier) I have been unable to download on-demand content from Sky channels (eg. S1:E1 Never Mind the Buzzcocks from sky max).

Attempts end up with the error "We're having trouble reaching this service right now. Don't worry we'll keep trying".

I've multiple calls to your helplines, resulting in:

1) a new sky Q box

2) many s/w updates and reset

3) an engineer attending

The engineer mentioned that other people in the area reported the same error. He also identified that pairing the sky Q box with my mobile (rather than tge sky hub) allowed the downloads to occur. However I don't want to use my mobile data bandwidth for Sky! This temporary fix implies a fault with either the sky hub of the sky servers at the local exchange.

I'm also annoyed by the promises of callbacks by your helplines that don't occur.

I've been with Sky for many years and have started to look at your competitors.

Trusting for a quick resolution and recompense for the loss of download service.

[lettice]

This sounds like an ISP serving you a non UK based ( as it's viewed) IP address.

Who is  your ISP?
Run a what's my ip in a Google search and see what it thinks the location is.

Try restarting your broadband router and keep it off power for at least half an hour, that often resets the IP address and maybe the non UK range.

If you still have a problem, after that restart, we can escalate to Sky and see if they can look at your IP address range and possibly get it sorted for you.

[pabow]

Thanks for your suggestions.

I first checked my IP address - it was provided by Sky Boardband (London).

After more than 30mins powered off, I rechecked my IP address - this time it was SKY UK Limited (Sheffield).

Strangely my other streaming services (Netflix, Prime Video) all worked prior and post your suggested fix.

Thanks for your help. I guess this needs escalating to Sky, particularly since there seem to be many other mentions of this fault on this site but no visible solutions!

[lettice]

I've escalated this to Sky and they should be in touch with you soon about it.
Look out for a message from Sky on your email and Sky Community private messages.
Look out for the blue chat bubble within your Sky community.
More about an escalation here;

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Did-you-know/Escalating-a-post-to-a-Sky-expert/ba-p/3711147

[Mr+Flibbles+86]

Thanks for escalating this. We’ve sent an invite to @pabow to chat.

[pabow]

So disappointed in Sky.

Had a chat with an Engineer following the escalation. No fix offered but took details. All gone silent since then.

Spoke with Sky Q support today. Went through many of the previous actions in order to fix the problem and a couple of new ideas; rebooted the box and it still doesn't download the on-demand material. Another Sky engineer is now planned to attend in a few days. I asked if he/she had any knowledge of the hub/broadband - since I could download on-demand when pairing the Sky Q box with my mobile phone's hotspot (ie. not using the sky hub/exchange). Unfortunately the engineer won't be able to support broadband issues.

I'm not optimistic that the next engineer visit will be fruitful!

[pabow]

Frustrating lack of progress on this issue. Still unable to access on-demand material from Sky channels.

Two Sky engineers been to my house and unable to fix the problem.

There was a phone call from an engineer, who was going to come to my house and collect evidence that the issue was with BT Openreach equipment at the local telephone exchange. Unfortunately he rang on the day that BT had severed the internet cables for the local area, hence he postponed attendance. He didn't ring back to arrange a new date (now that broadband is working again).

Rang Sky to check progress, instead I was asked to do the same checks on my SkyQ box. He offered to send another engineer to look at the problem. I refused as this problem needed the dedicated network engineer (not the standard Sky installation engineer).

It's annoying to see the same problem reported elsewhere on this site and no resolution identified.

[pabow]

Finally after over 4 months without an On-demand service - it now works. Had a new Sky Q box; a new Sky hub; 2 engineer visits; multiple resets/software updates and wasted many minutes on phonecalls to Sky.

I was awaiting a further visit from a Sky engineer (and supervisor) to identify the problem. However I thought I'd check the service last night and was surprised to see it working correctly.

Rang Sky today to cancel the engineer visit and ask what they did. They believe a BT openreach engineer had fixed the problem (probably the exchange). Annoyed that I wasn't informed of the fix and had to discover it myself.

Now awaiting recompense for the lost service.

[James7776]

I've got exactly the same issue. Was there a resolution to this issue ?

[pabow · Accepted solution]

Hi James,

No, there was never an explanation of what/how it was fixed.

I can only guess that eventually something was done external to my house (ie. in the exchange) that finally resolved the issue. 

The fix has worked perfectly for many months, up to when I recently migrated from fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP). The on-demand service has still continued to work following this transition to full fibre.

All I can recommend is that you keep pestering Sky until a similar miraculous fix occurs! Good luck.

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@pabow wrote:

Since early August (or earlier) I have been unable to download on-demand content from Sky channels (eg. S1:E1 Never Mind the Buzzcocks from sky max).

Attempts end up with the error "We're having trouble reaching this service right now. Don't worry we'll keep trying".

I've multiple calls to your helplines, resulting in:

1) a new sky Q box

2) many s/w updates and reset

3) an engineer attending

The engineer mentioned that other people in the area reported the same error. He also identified that pairing the sky Q box with my mobile (rather than tge sky hub) allowed the downloads to occur. However I don't want to use my mobile data bandwidth for Sky! This temporary fix implies a fault with either the sky hub of the sky servers at the local exchange.

I'm also annoyed by the promises of callbacks by your helplines that don't occur.

I've been with Sky for many years and have started to look at your competitors.

Trusting for a quick resolution and recompense for the loss of download service.

---