Puck intermittent black screen briefly

[A_Blues_fan]

Hello, we're two weeks into using a new sky puck (first time sky customer) and we've been having issues everyday.

I've tried the solutions given by the virtual assistant but they haven't corrected the fault. I cannot find a phone number to ring to talk to someone about it. I think a replacement may need to be sent out.

It's wired ethernet with netflix speed showing 82.22 Mbps.

The issue is we keep getting an intermittent black screen, then it will be fine, then it happens again shortly afterwards and it detracts from the viewing experience and spoils the shows we're watching. Sometimes it then cause the speech to be out of sync with the picture and we need to exit everything, power off and then restart the show from the beginning and fast forward to where we were which is a pain.

As I'm typing this now it's happening over and over again whilst I'm in the netflix help menu. It happens with live TV. It happens with catch-up shows. It happens with BBC, channel 5, sky arts (all channels we've watched).

I've tried powering off for 30 seconds at the socket. I've tried restarting via the main home screen. I've tried a different hdmi port on the TV and a different hdmi cable.

The problem keeps reoccurring. My son has a puck at his house and says he's never had this problem, so is it just a faulty puck?

We have a smart TV with all the main apps built in and they work fine on it with no issues but we wanted to use the puck for the TV guide and playlist feature which the TV doesn't have.

What phone number can I ring to ask for a replacement? Thanks.

[Al+East+Lothian]

Bit of a long shot here, but this happened to me. Then I rembrred I had a faulty HDMI port on my tv.  I would try a different HDMI port or changing the cable.  If it still persists, at least you've eliminated these things.

[A_Blues_fan · Accepted solution]

Hi, unfortunately I already tried this without success. I thought it was the cable as it was OK for a day after swapping it but yesterday it was doing it again a lot and ruined a few shows.

I found the number to ring, it was 150 from my sky landline. A techie guided me through the hard reset (holding the power button down underneath) and we're going to see how it goes for the next few days. If that solves it, great. If not, they said they'll send a replacement puck out but they wanted to try the hard reset first this which is fair enough.

I still have until the 2nd Jan for my 31 day cooling off period before deciding whether to keep the stream service not. We'll see how things go.

[Al+East+Lothian]

Hi @A_Blues_fan, apologies, I re-read your post, and I see you had already tried what I'd seggested.

I've had Sky Stream for 3 weeks now with no issues. Good luck and hope you get it sorted.

[TracySanshoe]

I am experiencing this just now. I have just became a sky broadband customer and took the TV package as well via puck, I got an extra puck for my daughters room. 

It doesn't matter what channel I watch and there is no pattern to it, the screen will go black for a couple of seconds and then back to whatever I was watching, it happens from every few minutes to every 15 minutes but it happens every single day and very regularly. My broadband speed is 500 and I have noticed if I switch the puck off and watch TV without the puck then the picture is okay. I have tried to explain to sky several times but they don't know what I mean and cannot help, today I spoke with someone at sky on the phone and she couldn't help either but had me go through the same stuff I have already been through several times, only this time after coming off the phone to her. All of my TVs have disconnected from my broadband, it took me hours tonight to try and reconnect them all but I have worked out when I switch the TV off the internet needs reconnecting when I out the TV back on, the WPS button is not working at all now,  internet is cutting out even from my iPad and phone now (but reconnecting automatically) 

I have 3 Samsung TVs which were working absolutely fine before I spoke with the sky advisor today, now they won't connect easily and when they eventually do connect they are disconnecting when I switch the TV off, troubleshooting shows no issues with my broadband and I am at my wits end with this. My cooling off period still has a few days to go and I think I will be going back to virgin as although virgin are a nightmare at times, I really am regretting moving to sky.

[A_Blues_fan]

For the intermittent black screen, it was solved by the techie's solution:

Hard reset (as described above) and also changing the output display from UHD to HD (I wasn't paying for UHD anyway). It's never done it since.

For the pucks disconnecting when you switch them off, I had a similar problem start a few weeks ago where the sky menu would seem to hang when I switched the puck on and it was unable to stream anything. I asked my phone AI to help. This solution solved it:

Scroll all the way down the home screen to Settings (the gear icon).

Select Start up & Standby.

Look for Networked Standby Mode and make sure it is toggled to ON.

Why? If this is OFF, the puck drops its internet connection the second you turn it off. When you wake it up, it tries to reconnect while also trying to boot the UI, which often causes it to hang on a black screen or a white light.

Look for Overnight Power Saving and turn it OFF.

Why? This feature puts the puck into a "deep sleep" between 2 am and 6 am. If you try to use it shortly after this window, it often fails to wake up properly.