Technical fault with channel please wait for programme to load

[stuartkirsty]

Hiya, I'm getting pretty frustrated with sky stream and it's inability to show live TV reliably. I keep getting please wait for the programme to load and then the blue screen with the technical fault message. 

I've tried turning everything off then on again. My WiFi speed is decent, 397 mbps on my phone and netflix there showed 90mbps when I tested it on the TV.

My wife is getting really annoyed with this and with me as it was my idea to get sky stream. All the apps etc. are running fine,  just the live TV that won't play anywhere near reliably. 

Please help!

[MarkGoldsmith]

The thing to understand is that it's not just the internet speed it's the stability of the WiFi signal the stream puck is getting that tends to cause the issue. Unlike most devices that can cope with a bit of WiFi interference or drop out the sky streaming platform cannot currently as it needs a constant connection to skys Servers and is prone to crashing when it loses the connection.

as a test I'd advise connecting the puck via Ethernet, disabling the WiFi in the stream pucks settings and then rebooting the puck by unplugging it for at least 30 seconds.

[Chrisee]

@stuartkirsty it sounds like you have a full fibre connection there are issues with a few of the smaller fibre internet service providers networks where the Stream interface loads but channels dont stream.. Who provides your broadband?

[Binglejobs]

I frequently have this problem too and have put it down to a bug, as I have found a simple fix, that doesn't involve resetting your puck!

I find it happens most often when changing channel too fast and the puck can't keep up with the selection, so then has trouble reliably loading the stream you've decided on.

If I have the "Please wait for your program to load." message, I simply open one of the streaming services and stream anything entirely random. I usually opt for Netflix as it's the fastest way to streaming content without having to navigate through menus etc. Once you've streamed something on the chosen streaming service for a few seconds, return to your chosen channel and it should appear to be working again. Works every time for me, and although it's incredibly frustrating at times, I would suggest not flicking through channels rapidly, like you could on previous Sky boces.

I hope this has helped, if it doesn't, please feel free to let me know! 🙂

[KildareP]

Yep, if you channel hop it's almost guaranteed to do it.

If you turn off the overnight power saving option since the QS024 update then it starts frequently throwing that error while in the middle of watching something live too.

Have one of my pucks on ethernet to see was it WiFi related as is often suggested but it is just as bad (it is ethernet to the router as well, no powerline).

[Cliff7]

This is incredibly annoying. The only thing that seems to work is to pause live TV for about 30 seconds and then play it so you're always 30 seconds behind.

It's obviously a problem with their software. None of the catch-up services, Netflix or Prime have the issue, just live streaming!

[AM2024]

Just adding with the same frustration here too.

New sky stream, one puck.

with Toob 900/900 full fibre service and erhernet directly from the puck to the router.

During Wimbledon and the Euros frequently the live stream would fail.

Now it seems to have settled into: The was a technical fault when then trying to switch channels.

A reset of the puck seems to fix it for a bit, and the  it comes back.

Given every other streaming service in the house and various speed tests work fine.  I have to conclude the Sky Stream service is just crap.

Does Sky actually monitor these forums? 
How do we get this addressed?

[Cliff7]

They don't officially check these forums, but I'm sure they read the messages.

I think I know what the problem is though.

Sky is using the HLS protocol (HTTP Live Streaming) to distribute the live channels. The idea behind HLS is that the streams are split up into small segments and each segment is requested separately using standard TCP based HTTP requests (just like a web browser requests web pages).

The advantage is that no special support is needed from internet service providers to support the live streaming, but the downside is that HTTP was never intended to be used for live streaming. Each HTTP request involves establishing a new TCP connection, requesting the data, storing the response, and then tearing the connection down. Also each puck requires its own copy of the stream. That's an enormous overhead, both on the internet infrastructure and on Sky's servers.

Sky have attempted to get around this by delaying the streams by about 30 seconds, so that the pucks can keep a buffer of segments and hopefully present an uninterrupted stream. The key word here being "hopefully". Obviously, 30 seconds is not enough.

I've tried all the resoutions up to UHD and the problems seem to be similar regardless of the resolution, so I think it's more of an issue with Sky's servers keeping up with the continual TCP connections and HTTP requests.

Interestingly Netflix and Prime also use HLS but they also use MPEG DASH over HTTP and don't seem to have the same problems. I guess they have huge server farms and fast pipes to the internet.  Maybe Sky's infrastructure isn't sufficiently scaled to keep up with the traffic.

I'll talk to Sky when I have a chance and see what they have to say though I doubt they'll tell me anything useful. The relevant technical bods at Sky must be aware of the problem and I can only hope they'll improve the live streaming as it clearly is the future.

For the time being if you're used to your live TV being truly live, that isn't going to happen with Sky Stream - at least not at the moment.

Best to pause a channel for 30 secs and then play it with that extra buffer. That seems to work for me.

Unfortunately companies have a habit of releasing products and services before they're ready! Who'd have thought!

[HearMyMoo]

Yep... Annoyed to report that the same thing is happening for me too - Sky Stream announcing that live tv channels are unavailable due to a 'technical fault' that they are apparently trying to fix, yet on the app and website Sky claim that there are no problems with their tv service and that everything is rosy...

It appears that this may just be another case of the marketing department for Sky writing cheques that their technical department can't cash, and the poor customer gets dumped with an expensive and substandard service.

[Cliff7]

For what it's worth I've now cancelled Sky Stream and am moving over to Sky Q. I hope they can sort the issues out in the future.

[MarkGoldsmith]

---

@HearMyMoo wrote:

Yep... Annoyed to report that the same thing is happening for me too - Sky Stream announcing that live tv channels are unavailable due to a 'technical fault' that they are apparently trying to fix, yet on the app and website Sky claim that there are no problems with their tv service and that everything is rosy...

It appears that this may just be another case of the marketing department for Sky writing cheques that their technical department can't cash, and the poor customer gets dumped with an expensive and substandard service.

---

Typically that error is caused by poor internet connectivity the puck is getting and it's not an error from the Sky side.

Who is your ISP?

Do you have the puck connected via WiFi or Ethernet cable?

When is this happening? Is it straight after you turn the puck on? Is it after you have been watching on-demand content on one of the apps?

[HearMyMoo]

Hi,

My ISP is Sky.

I have a 1gb FFTP connection.

My Sky router is ten feet from my Sky Puck, with no walls or electrical devices in between.

The issue presents itself whether I use a WiFi connection or an ethernet connection.

The issue happens randomly whenever I try and watch a 'live' tv channel. When it does manifest, it tends to manifest for long enough that I become bored of trying to find a fix and use an alternative viewing method (whoch never has any issues). A few hours later I may try the live tv again to find it working.

I think that it's hard to deny the fact that Sky Stream is just a flaky product that just isn't robust enough. I cannot think of how to improve my setup to make it more 'ideal' and to be honest anything else only serves to prove the point of how weak the product really is. I would like to bin the product off if I could, but I wasn't even given the option by Sky of a satellite or anything when I signed up with them.

[Cliff7]

From my own testing, the problem is that Sky's servers can't service the huge number of HTTP requests they're receiving from all the pucks fast enough to ensure that subscribers receive an uninterrupted stream. To my mind the product simply doesn't work and Sky (or Comcast's) infrastructure isn't sufficiently scaled to cope with the demand. When Sky are the ISP as well, it does give them the opportunity to cache segments to minimise the load on their media servers but it does sound that even they can't keep up. It's pretty poor.

[P11RAR]

Had this issue today. Pucks only activated about two days ago. First couple days, no issue. Tonight we had this error. Reset at the mains and all loaded fine from there. Nervous it's going to happen again and it's going to cause issues with everyone in the house. 

Service is FTTP EE broadband, about 800mbps down. Puck hardwired via ethernent to the router. 

[nmbailey]

I've had this a few times over the last year. I find pressing the Home (green) button clears it instantly. 
(My service is Sky FTTC broadband, 70mbps down. Puck hardwired via ethernet to the router. No blips or picture break-ups in 15

months