Sky update causes box to freeze

Srobbsuk

Hi,
i recently came home to find a message on my Sky HD+ box saying congratulations your box has been updated successfully. No problems there i thought but upon trying to click through channels nothing happened. The box had frozen and no matter what i tried i could not change anything at all. I had to unplug everything then wait 20 mins while it reset itself only to find it froze again after a few minutes. I logged into live chat on my sky account and explained the problem. After going through some troubleshooting (3 times) the box is still not working. They then advised me to phone Sky protect service as my box is out of warranty. To cut a long story short i have ended up paying £60 for an engineer to visit and repair the problem they themselves caused! I have complained to Sky as i believe this poor customer support.

[Deleted User]

Your box failure will have had nothing to do with it receiving an update, that will have been a coincidence. Everyone else has had the update without such problems.

There was no point complaining to Sky about the £60 charge as that is the going rate Sky charge for replacing faulty equipment outside of the 12 month warranty.

The Sky Protect Insurance would have cost a whole lot more over the period of your subscription and is therefore not recommended.

ziggy1888

Srobbsuk wrote: »

Hi,
i recently came home to find a message on my Sky HD+ box saying congratulations your box has been updated successfully. No problems there i thought but upon trying to click through channels nothing happened. The box had frozen and no matter what i tried i could not change anything at all. I had to unplug everything then wait 20 mins while it reset itself only to find it froze again after a few minutes. I logged into live chat on my sky account and explained the problem. After going through some troubleshooting (3 times) the box is still not working. They then advised me to phone Sky protect service as my box is out of warranty. To cut a long story short i have ended up paying £60 for an engineer to visit and repair the problem they themselves caused! I have complained to Sky as i believe this poor customer support.

If you are out of contract, just cancel your services and they will soon cancel the £60 call out charge.

[Deleted User]

ziggy1888 wrote: »

If you are out of contract, just cancel your services and they will soon cancel the £60 call out charge.

I think that option has already been discarded. The OP has already agreed to the £60 charge, although I concur that Sky might be persuaded to drop the charge if they believed the OP would otherwise cancel.

Moneymaker

Srobbsuk wrote: »

i have ended up paying £60 for an engineer to visit and repair the problem

Unfortunately, the guy who comes will not be an engineer, he'll be an installer and, therefore, will not be able to repair the Digibox. Instead he will swap it and, unless you play your cards right, you'll end up with a second-hand "refurbished" box, not a new one. This could well have a different fault.

When he walks off with your old box, he'll be taking all your recordings. I suggest you send a polite letter to Sky to explain this and ask for a credit on your account.

Best of luck. :cool:

BTW, if you had sent the box to a private repairer, such as Digifix Ltd, they might have been able to save your recordings. Always worth asking.

[Deleted User]

Moneymaker wrote: »

Instead he will swap it and, unless you play your cards right, you'll end up with a second-hand "refurbished" box, not a new one.

Sky always exchange a faulty box for a "re-furbished" one, even if the box is exchanged under the original warranty.This is not a reason for complaint and is allowed under the Sale Of Goods Act.(SOGA)

Moneymaker wrote: »

This could well have a different fault

This is very very unlikely and the exchanged box has it's own warranty in any case. Sky ensure the "refurbished" boxes are suitable to be put back in circulation, the last thing they want is for one complaint to begat yet another.

Moneymaker wrote: »

When he walks off with your old box, he'll be taking all your recordings. I suggest you send a polite letter to Sky to explain this and ask for a credit on your account.

The old recordings are lost even if a brand new box is supplied. I've never heard of anyone receiving "compensation" from Sky for lost recordings.

Moneymaker wrote: »

if you had sent the box to a private repairer, such as Digifix Ltd, they might have been able to save your recordings. Always worth asking.

How much more than £60 would that cost?
Are you Michael Dranfield, proprietor of Digifix?

makemdano

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Your box failure will have had nothing to do with it receiving an update, that will have been a coincidence. Everyone else has had the update without such problems.

There was no point complaining to Sky about the £60 charge as that is the going rate Sky charge for replacing faulty equipment outside of the 12 month warranty.

The Sky Protect Insurance would have cost a whole lot more over the period of your subscription and is therefore not recommended.

I don't believe in coincidences and having worked in IT as programmer and 2nd/3rd line support for 28 years I'd be very surprised if there was no connection, albeit the proverbial "1 legged oriental person". Companies as large as SKY say they test all upgrades to the requisite levels but they just don't do it - its much cheaper for the customers to perform the end user testing.
There is a problem with the upgrade that SKY have acknowledged.
ON DEMAND Catch Up no longer works to view programs by day. You can view programs from Tuesday and before but nothing is available from yesterday and today. If you start up ITV Player (for instance) on PC or laptop the programs are all there as expected.

makemdano

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Your box failure will have had nothing to do with it receiving an update, that will have been a coincidence. Everyone else has had the update without such problems.

There was no point complaining to Sky about the £60 charge as that is the going rate Sky charge for replacing faulty equipment outside of the 12 month warranty. :rotfl:

The Sky Protect Insurance would have cost a whole lot more over the period of your subscription and is therefore not recommended.

You must work for SKY do you? There is absolutely no way I would pay that. They did try this once and I just ignored them ("best shored" call centre), rang back after 18:00, spoke to an excellent Scottish person who arranged for a new box to be delivered FOC, still have it and have for 2 years. Faced with the choice of losing a customer and sending a new box out they will always err on the customers side, just have to be firm and polite

makemdano

ziggy1888 wrote: »

If you are out of contract, just cancel your services and they will soon cancel the £60 call out charge.

Dead right there. You have to push them. When I canceled (or said I wanted to) I was given all channels free for 6 months (Sept to Feb). I had to refuse 3 other offers first but naturally accepted the freebie. I was happy to pay for the footie for the final 2 months earlier this year. I've been with SKY since the analogue days - they say that's why they can make me a good offer. this is just tosh of course, anyone can get thes offers .... can't they?

[Deleted User]

makemdano wrote: »

You must work for SKY do you?

Of course I don't. I was responding to a post which blamed the failure of the digibox on a software update.

makemdano wrote: »

There is absolutely no way I would pay that.

Fair enough, my original point was that the box had become faulty and Sky won't repair it for free or accept liability for the fault.

makemdano wrote: »

There is a problem with the upgrade that SKY have acknowledged.
ON DEMAND Catch Up no longer works to view programs by day.

There have already been fixes to known bugs with this software. No boxes have failed altogether because of the update though.

makemdano wrote: »

Faced with the choice of losing a customer and sending a new box out they will always err on the customers side, just have to be firm and polite

Sky won't ever send a new box.
I did actually agree that Sky would likely have waived the £60 fee if the OP had threatened cancellation (in post #4). Would a Sky employee agree this was an option?

makemdano

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Of course I don't. I was responding to a post which blamed the failure of the digibox on a software update.


Fair enough, my original point was that the box had become faulty and Sky won't repair it for free or accept liability for the fault.

There have already been fixes to known bugs with this software. No boxes have failed altogether because of the update though.


Sky won't ever send a new box.

Really, you KNOW this and you DON'T work for SKY

You must work for one of SKY's installation subbies then?:D