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Is anyone else having problems with Series Link?

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    Dave-HDave-H Posts: 9,940
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    I spoke to sky helpline yesterday and they told me to,
    click on services,
    click select,
    scroll down to standby mode,
    next to select on remote, right click till it says ECO
    click green button, save settings.
    put sky+HD box on today and all series links where there
    for today and other days, worked for me !
    ECO mode effectively re-boots the box every night, that's why it helps!
    :)
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    simon194simon194 Posts: 1,888
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    My box is set to ECO mode and I've still had to re-add all the pre-Christmas series links except for two so it doesn't really help.
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    NsewellNsewell Posts: 824
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    simon194 wrote: »
    My box is set to ECO mode and I've still had to re-add all the pre-Christmas series links except for two so it doesn't really help.

    If it's just returning shows then that's a different issue relating to Smart Series Link.

    The ECO mode work around is for the TVGuide not populating and Series Links dropping off issue. As Dave says this effectively reboots the box each night which forces it to update its TVGuide listings.
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    Westy2Westy2 Posts: 14,527
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    I've got a old SD plus box that seems to have a problem with True Entertainment!

    It keeps dropping The Avengers off the planner & I keep having to add the following morning's repeat instead!

    One of the other True channels had the The Jazz Singer on.

    I know I set the Epg but it never recorded!
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    fmradiotuner1fmradiotuner1 Posts: 20,500
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    Strange Science of Stupid did not series link so had to readd the wednesday showing.
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    sherisgirlsherisgirl Posts: 2,413
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    Crisis is ok on mine, its a 2nd one in my bedroom, did notice at the weekend that Taggart on True Drama at 9pm was not recording, thats been on SL for months, but had come off, so re done it, but will keep my eye on it.
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    atannatann Posts: 231
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    What happened to series link, never miss an episode again? My box did not pick up the return of The Walking Dead or The Flash?
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    fmradiotuner1fmradiotuner1 Posts: 20,500
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    deleted its working now
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,022
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    Well I don't know what happened to our Sky box, but went to watch Fortitude episode 3 last night and found it hadn't been recorded. Checking further we found that all of our series links has disappeared. Not just Fortitude, all of them. So the box hadn't recorded anything since Monday - nearly a week ago. 5 or 6 recordings had been missed.

    I've had to re-enter all the recordings and series links, and find what we could from catch up services.

    Any idea what's gone wrong here? Our box is pretty reliable these days, but this incident has been a right pain!

    Edit: ok, googling reveals its a known problem caused by a Sky "upgrade" presumably. The 11 year old boy who is their testing department had to go home for his tea, so they just put the update out there and hoped for the best. As usual.
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3
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    Yes it is major, major issue with Pace and Samsung boxes since the last epg update in November 2014. Lots of irate customers, and sky continue to "work on a fix" but no date when as yet. Just google sky+ hd box freeze.
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    Matt35Matt35 Posts: 30,139
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    Still having EPG problems where it says searching for listings. Been told before to unplug sky box and then plug it back in and boot up. It now works but getting sick of having to keep doing it.
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    NsewellNsewell Posts: 824
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    Matt35 wrote: »
    Still having EPG problems where it says searching for listings. Been told before to unplug sky box and then plug it back in and boot up. It now works but getting sick of having to keep doing it.

    Sky has identified the problem and is currently working on fixing it.

    If your box supports this change the Standby mode to ECO at OPTIONS > SKY+ SETUP. This will effectively reboot your box each night and mitigate the issue.
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    Matt35Matt35 Posts: 30,139
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    Nsewell wrote: »
    Sky has identified the problem and is currently working on fixing it.

    If your box supports this change the Standby mode to ECO at OPTIONS > SKY+ SETUP. This will effectively reboot your box each night and mitigate the issue.

    Did it have it on eco but took that long to come on in a morning that I turned it off. Might turn it back on Because I set a programme to record and didn't record it.
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    saintadesaintade Posts: 106
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    Yep, I used 'never miss' to record the latest season of Walking Dead, and when it came back on recently it recorded EVERY single showing, so I had about 20 of the same episode!
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 683
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    I had thought "never miss" was simply not working at all after mid-series Christmas breaks. But with "The Black List", I waited a few days after getting the email warning that the series was restarting and sure enough my Sky box showed it was back and ready to record for Friday. So it seems the "never miss" is activated only 3-4 days before the restart date and does not align with the emails which are 7 days before.
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    aerofly2aerofly2 Posts: 2,435
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    I think some people might be confusing Sky's "Never Miss" email service with the "Smart Series Links" on the Sky box. They are two seperate things.
    The Never Miss service is an email reminder service that you register for, where you can ask for email reminders to be sent for programmes or films that you chose from the lists provided.
    The Smart Series Links are series links that you've input on your Sky+ box, which should be reinstalled automatically after a break in the programme schedule (season break etc).

    It's the Smart Series Links that seem to be causing the problems at the moment, which is why I'm relying on the Never Miss service at present.

    Just thought I'd point out the difference to avoid further confusion.
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 683
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    aerofly2 wrote: »
    I think some people might be confusing Sky's "Never Miss" email service with the "Smart Series Links" on the Sky box. They are two seperate things.
    The Never Miss service is an email reminder service that you register for, where you can ask for email reminders to be sent for programmes or films that you chose from the lists provided.
    The Smart Series Links are series links that you've input on your Sky+ box, which should be reinstalled automatically after a break in the programme schedule (season break etc).

    It's the Smart Series Links that seem to be causing the problems at the moment, which is why I'm relying on the Never Miss service at present.

    Just thought I'd point out the difference to avoid further confusion.

    Fair point, but what I was trying to say is that the Never Miss email comes out 7 days before, but the smart series link only activates 3-4 days before....so you may think it's not working because you are checking it after you see the email!
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    degsyhufcdegsyhufc Posts: 59,251
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    The new series of The Blacklist recorded for me earlier. Unless I set it to record when I was blink drunk and fortgot all about it then it's picked up from where it left off before the break.
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    Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    The Blacklist was indeed the first series that the smart series link returned for us. In fact they nearly lost us a recording!

    I had given up on any of these links ever returning post Christmas as none had so far out of maybe a dozen shows on different channels. So I had set The Blacklist manually on our second box to avoid a clash with other recordings on the main box at 9 pm Friday.

    The dumb series link put The Blacklist in without warning and created what would have been a clash/failure.

    I saw it just an hour or two before transmission and deleted it.

    And the damn thing came back again!!!

    This time I only got rid of it moments before something would have crashed.

    Sky Smart Series links are so far earning 0 out of 10 for me.
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3
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    Latest from Sky on the HD box issues:

    Recent problems with Sky+HD boxes | 24 February 2015

    If you have a Sky+HD box in your home, we know you may have had some problems recently and we’re sorry that you may have experienced any of the following:

    •Your TV Guide listings have been slow to update.
    •Series Links have stopped working causing problems recording future episodes of your favourite shows.
    •If you own a Pace or Samsung Sky+HD box it may have become unresponsive.

    You can temporarily fix these problems yourself by following the steps in our Problems with your TV Guide and Series Link article.

    The latest news we have is that we've been testing a fix and we've seen some positive results. We're going to trial the fix on a large number of boxes later this week. We'll give you our next update early next week.
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    aerofly2aerofly2 Posts: 2,435
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    Problems with your TV Guide and Series Link arrticle:

    http://help.sky.com/articles/fix-problems-with-series-link

    If you're going to quote an article, it's always useful to provide a link :)
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    pjexpjex Posts: 9,401
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    I fixed the problems by getting them to give me a replacement box for free, all working fine now.
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    sodafountainsodafountain Posts: 16,863
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    JonStatt wrote: »
    Fair point, but what I was trying to say is that the Never Miss email comes out 7 days before, but the smart series link only activates 3-4 days before....so you may think it's not working because you are checking it after you see the email!

    I do not believe this to be true, and maybe only happened in your situation?

    As far as I was aware, it should add it as soon as it appears on your planner, usually 7 days before.

    As there have been problems with the planner recently, some not populating properly, it won't appear until the show appears, also, in some cases, like The Walking Dead, Sky had to sent some sort of signal or fix to get the series link to re-add.

    Hopefully, when they work out what is wrong, it will all start working correctly, and they should be added at the 7 days interval.
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    Jaycee DoveJaycee Dove Posts: 18,762
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    As I noted above we had no e mail alert set up for The Blacklist. Nor have we ever had the series link problems created by unfilled listings for the week ahead making the series link ineffective.

    No other pre Christmas show has returned at all before The Blacklist. I had to set loads of them manually and had given up on the Sky links until the promised fix they are working on.

    Then The Blacklist just appeared shortly before transmission despite having two other programmes already set for that timeslot. Had I not spotted it and deleted it (twice as it was added again automatically after the first deletion!) then something would have gone amiss with my recordings.

    It definitely did not appear on our planner 7 days away as it usually would. It arrived a day or so before transmission, after I had already set it onto my Virgin box. TIVO not only set up the series link 8 days ahead but recorded that nights repeat of the last episode before Christmas and already has the next two Fridays episodes listed in the Tivo planner.

    If only Sky'as new fangled series links worked half as well as Tivo/Virgin's old fashioned one it would be a good start.

    Possibly this fix from Sky only occurred a few days before The Blacklist hence it appearing less than 7 days ahead? That makes sense as it definitely appeared much closer to transmission than the usual series link do (which is in effect as soon as the current episode a week before starts to record if your EPG is populated correctly 7 days ahead).
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    sodafountainsodafountain Posts: 16,863
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    As already stated, it is not working properly, thus not appearing in people's planners the correct 7 days before transmission, and in some cases, Sky have sent a fix (like they did with The Walking Dead), so may have done the same with The Blacklist (once hey have spotted it not appearing), but once they have ironed out the problems, series links for returning shows "should" appear in your planner when they appear in the EPG, i.e.. 7 days before transmission.
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