New Sky UI Troubleshooting
With Sky’s recent automatic roll-out of new software, many people have been experiencing a variety of issues. We’ve seen a lot of them, so here are some suggestions for how to fix specific issues.
Issues talked about:
Unit not connected to the internet
Deactivated Analogue Outputs
Hard to read
Other UI Glitches
Freezing
Unit not connected to the internet:
This update was supposed to allow on demand streaming to MySky boxes, which requires an internet connection. Because this previously wasn’t required, many users will see an error message appear, telling them to connect the unit to the internet.
There are a few options to fix this:
Run a Wired Network Connnection
Run a wired network cable, between your router and MySky box. This is the preferred option if you use OnDemand features often, or would like to. If your router is close this is also the most stable and least expensive options.
Connect to a wireless bridge:
This allows your older MySky box to connect wirelessly to your network and the internet. This will usually take some experience to set up correctly. If you’re not tech savvy, find a friend or family member who is comfortable with this sort of thing, or get in contact with a professional. Many old routers and wireless access points can be set up to operate in this way.
Ignore the message
If you don’t use on demand features, this message doesn’t really affect you so just ignore it and go along with life as per usual.
Deactivated Analogue Outputs
Updating the software has reset a lot of peoples settings, and seems to have defaulted to HDMI output only. The fix we have found is to deactivate the other video outputs, power cycle the unit and then re-enable whichever video outputs you require.
Display Hard to Read
If your vision is usually OK this is probably due to using an analogue video connection to your TV. It seems this interface was designed primarily for newer HD TV’s. This can leave the analogue outputs looking blurry, with smaller text than in older software versions.
Make sure you are connecting using the HDMI output, or the component video outputs, not the yellow composite video cable.
If your TV only has the yellow composite video input and this is causing you a serious issue, it may be worth considering upgrading your television.
Other UI Glitches / Freezing
Some small issues such as odd fonts, colours, dropouts of specific sections of the UI etc. are probably just due to this being relatively new software, if you have the time handy, it’s probably a good idea to let Sky know of these issues, so they can iron them all out. If the issue is staying put the only real option is a “hard power cycle” which means unplugging the unit from power for at least 30 Seconds.
Sound output errors
In a few cases where the Sky box is plugged into a theatre receiver with HDMI, the recent update has caused the audio to drop from the HDMI signal. If you change the Sky audio format from PCM to Dolby, or the other way, the sound kicks back in. You can then change it back to whatever it was on originally and it continutes to work just fine. This, of course, is not a good solution, having to change settings then change them back every time you turn on your amp.
The way around this (for now) is to run an optical or coaxial cable along with the HDMI to carry the sound instead. This fix depends on the available inputs in your theatre amplifier. The current version of the Skybox firmware doesn’t let your adjust volume when using this output so you are going to lose the volume adjustment from the Sky remote.
A further update might fix this HDMI sound error as well as bring back the volume adjustment from the optical/coax outputs but for now this is the solution we have had to employ to get systems back up and running.
Let us know if you have spotted any other issues and we can suggest fixes.
Andrew
