Sky On Demand Slow Download

[LoneWanderer]

Hello,

My Sky HD box used to download HD movies at a good speed up until a couple of weeks ago. Movies used to be available to play almost instantly. I have a constant 15Mbs, yet movies now take hours to even be available to view, let alone download fully. Nothing has changed on my end. It has to be Sky servers being overloaded, probably with all the Sky Q boxes on the system now.

[Mark39]

Is your Sky box connected to your router via WiFi? Or is it a cabled connection?

[LoneWanderer]

Thanks for the reply. I have it connected by a TP Powerline. The indicators are all showing green, so the transfer between them is at least 80% of maximum, around 160 Mbps. Nothing has changed in my setup, so I can't see what could be wrong my end. Could a firmware update have caused it? It's an older Pace model.

[Anonymous]

Try unplugging the powerline from the mains for a few minutes to reboot it?

[LoneWanderer]

Thanks. That's the first thing I tried. Can TP Powerlines suddenly go defective and give no indication that they have? The LED is supposed to change colour based on the speed of maximum available, but it's still green.

[Anonymous]

I've never used one so have no idea. It was just something I thought might work as it worked for somebody else.

[LoneWanderer]

It looks like the problem is the box. I tried it on the other HD box (a newer one) in the other room, and movies are available to play in seconds. The box causing the issue is a Pace Model No: R010.070.94.13P, Version: 9f3005, Serial Number:0331413747 4.

Is there anything I can do other than getting a new box?

[Anonymous]

What happens if you actually swap the boxes over so the newer box is connected the same way the Pace box is?

Is that then slow to download as well?

[Tocknell]

Our box is awful too at downloading. Used to be really quick. 

Once again an evening ruined as we can’t watch the movie we set out to watch. The last movie took 6 hrs!!! 

Sky is useless. 

[Mark39]

What have Sky said about it? Is your Sky box connected via wifi? Or are you using a cable to connect to your router?

[Tocknell]

It’s connected via WiFi. 

They replaced the box in June as they said new internet speed had upset the last box. 

Its just one thing after another 

[Fletcher+Jones · Accepted solution]

For anybody out there who has exhausted all other suggestions on the internet to cure slow or stuck Sky+ downloads, listen to this!

For many months I have been trying any advice I can find (including full system reset after some intensive viewing sessions), with no joy. I was sure there was nothing wrong with my hardware, as occasionally performance was normal, but this has become less and less the case over the last few months.

The other day I saw a comment mentioning the manual network setup and thought I'd try it. Honestly it was like a miracle!. Suddenly downloads started instantly and were fast. I no longer received connection error messages when scrolling through search results. Access to the on demand services was fast with no lengthy loading messages, all the images appeared instantly, and so on. A box that had become almost unusable was suddenly performing like a thoroughbred.

All you have to do is go to "Network", make a note of things like "Network name" and "Security type" then press the green button. Enter the details exactly as they were shown, plus wifi password, then save. I don't know if it is significant, but DHCP is "ON" but couldn't be changed in the manual setup anyway. Good luck!

[TheLimit]

This solution worked for me, so many thanks.  After I pushed green button it didn’t automatically update but then it prompted a reconnection after which the whole system speeds up dramatically.

One point worth mentioning. When you manually type in your modem password, if you need to insert a hyphen (-) you have to keep pressing 0 (zero) on your Sky handset, quickly.  It is fiddly and it took me many attempts!

But this solution does work!

[Fletcher+Jones]

I'm glad it worked for you - shame the people at Sky don't believe it.

One thing to remember - if you have a power cut (for example), or the box gets disconnected, you will probably have to repeat the process after re-starting. Otherwise your downloads will be slow again.

[Anonymous]

Thanks

This is exactly the issue I am having - nothing will even stream - now have to wait until the entire thing has downloaded before watching. I swear I had to wait 30mins to download a 10min cartoon for my daughter (I gave up in the end and streamed from iplayer to chromecast). Will give your suggestion a go!