why isn't our Sky Plus working????

[mckenzie]

I set it to record X Factor this evening and have just gone to watch it and it said it failed! DH recorded something last week and that worked fine. He watched me set it though so I am confident I did it correctly. Any ideas please?
TIA

[differentWitch]

it could be a glitch, interruption in the signal? was anything else recording?

[mckenzie]

nope. nothing else going on. tv wasn't even on.

[WendyWeber]

Too late for your X factor but have you tried the old reliable: switch it off at the mains for a couple of mins, then switch it on again at the mains, then wait a couple more mins, then turn the box back on?

Works for most problems!

[biscuitsmustbedunkedintea]

As differentwitch said. These things happen unfortunatly. We've had a few recordings fail, mainly when it's been bad weather

[WendyWeber]

Alternatively, what was your weather like today? We had "no signal" the other day during what looked like no weather at all, iyswim, but I bet if ours had been set to record then it wouldn't have.

[CantSleepWontSleep]

If you click info against where it's set in the planner, it should tell you the reason that it failed.

[mckenzie]

thanks all. I've done as you suggested CSWS and it says it failed because no signal. The weather has been quite mild thogh. Iv'e set it to record sex and the city tomorrow so I'll see what happens then. We've only just got it so this is all new to me and I was soooooooooooooo excited about watching X factor while I did the ironing

[squeaver]

We get "fail" too sometimes and it's usually when the weather's been bad and the satellite signal's failed or occasionally when there's been a power cut.

[squeaver]

Don't they repeat it on ITV2 during the week sometime?

[DraculaNeedsArteries]

If it is new I found that when we first had ours there was quite a high failure rate TBH.

I sort of assumed that there were like "bad patches" on the hard drive which it came accross periodically. One the little man inside the box knows where teh bad patches are it knows to avoid them. It is just kind of bedding in.

Thats my perception anyway. Don't know whehter there is any truth in that all all

[mckenzie]

It failed again last night and wouldn't even show the channel while the programme as supposed to be being recorded. As soon as I cancelled the Sky Plus recording, the programme appeared??????? Do dishes have different leads, one for regular progs and one for Sky plus progs perhaps???

[babyOcho]

sometimes ours fails, but i thought that was because of clashes.

sky send down updates to the sky box - check with them to make sure that you have the latest version of software on the receiver.

as far as leads are concerned, i was told that there are 2 leads that go from the dish to the box - 1 lead for watching and the other one for recording. perhaps one cable is playing up?

oh, who knows...

[mckenzie]

thanks all. As I thought, because it was DH's programme that failed last night (and not my X factor or my Sex and the City) he has today put a call out and someone is going to come and take a look

[bitofadramaqueen]

We had this just last week. There was a problem with our 'second input' which basically meant we couldn't watch one channel and record another. They replaced the cable and all was well again.

It's common for the external cables to get damaged which causes this problem. Our warrantly has long since expired so they tried to get us to sign up to an expensive warranty deal before they'd send out an engineer. I said I couldn't afford it and would have to cancel my sky and lo and behold, an engineer was dispatched!

[mckenzie]

thanks for that tit bit BOASQ. If it doesn't get sorted friday (when DH has some guys coming) then I shall do as you did and hope I get the same reaction.

[bitofadramaqueen]

Oh, if they replacing your external cable make sure they use one long piece of cable outside. If they use smaller pieces of cable outside, water can get in the join which interrupts the signal. Signal can also 'leak' from the join.

Can you tell I've had more than one or two visits from sky engineers over the years ?