Just had sky HD installed :(

jonislost · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:05

Just had Sky HD "installed" and its not working... Here's the full tale of events:

I previously had a standard Sky box and another standard Sky box (multiroom). I phoned sky to upgrade my host box to Sky+HD and the other box to Sky+. So skip foward to today and the engineer came out and installed the dual coax cables and setup the multiroom Sky+ (non HD box). All worked well, all features were availible immediately, but the host box (Sky HD) is a different story all together...

He went though the usual setup process and proceeded to try the call back which failed numerous times. In the end he said my phone line must have a fault as it won't do a call back. He said Sky could do nothing and BT need to look at the fault. I asked how this was possible because the other box went into the same phone line and worked fine! :S He waffled on a bit and left just advising to "call BT".

When he left I decided to go for a bit of trouble shooting. I plugged the phone line which was going from the HD box directly into an ADSL filter and into the main phone point and test using a standard phone - it worked fine. I plugged this into the HD box and went thorugh the setup process and the call back failed twice so I called Sky. The girl on the other end of the line said she would activate it, and after a slight delay she said "It should be fine in 4 hours". Well its been over 4 hours and nothing....

Anybody had this issue before? Or been blown off by the engineers like this before? Any advice would be awesome

citycm · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:19

Have you tried calling BT as advised? what did they say?

jonislost · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:25

I'm with TalkTalk who obviosly rent the bt lines so called their support who said there's no problem with the line. I'm reluctant to get BT involved due to the cost of something that should work (as proven, i guess, by the other box activating a call back successfully)

citycm · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:33

Do the boxes only activate a callback when it's installed or do they do it regularly? If it's only when it's only when they're installed, I guess sky could argue that they fault may have developed the fault between your original installation and now.

Spinal2k2 · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:40

have you tried putting the sky hd box where the sky + box is and connecting it up, to see if it calls back.

also double check the back of the skyhd box just to make sure the phone cable is fully plugged in

citycm · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:50

Spinal2k2 said:
have you tried putting the sky hd box where the sky + box is and connecting it up, to see if it calls back.

also double check the back of the skyhd box just to make sure the phone cable is fully plugged in

It might also be worth trying a different phone cable (or if they left the old one, try that).

Tesla · 7 Nov 2009 at 08:35

Both boxes need to be able to call back otherwise you will be charged full rate for each box subscription. Not subscription + £10 for the second box.

As the phone line clearly works it's either the modem cable between the HD box and the socket, or the HD box itself.

dandos23 · 7 Nov 2009 at 17:43

The sky boxes do a call back once a month, this is to prove that they are still at your address. If both the boxes can’t call back then if they want they can charge you full price for every box you have (this would usually take a few months to register on their systems though).

Sky has always had trouble with talk talk and it can take a long time to get a call back through.

If you could answer some questions I may be able to help some more.

Do you have an answer phone (this could also be the free one with BT)?

Are you ex-directory?

Chong Warrior · 7 Nov 2009 at 17:49

The Sky HD box has nothing to do with your phone line, I've had one for 12 months without a phone line being connected to it because my phone is with Virgin, always has been as there's no live BT line to my house.

I've just cancelled my Sky before I got tied into a new contract.... those boxes are awful. Virgin's HD box is far superior.

dandos23 · 7 Nov 2009 at 17:56

The Sky HD box has nothing to do with your phone line, I've had one for 12 months without a phone line being connected to it because my phone is with Virgin, always has been as there's no live BT line to my house.

If you only have one box then sky will not care if it is not conected. If you have more than one then that is a different matter altogether.

By the way, a sky box can still conect through a virgin line.

da_mic_1530 · 7 Nov 2009 at 18:04

removed

zetec452 · 7 Nov 2009 at 18:06

Tell sky you will send all the kit back and cancel unless they sort it. That'll make something happen.

Chong Warrior · 7 Nov 2009 at 18:35

dandos23 said:
If you only have one box then sky will not care if it is not conected. If you have more than one then that is a different matter altogether.

By the way, a sky box can still conect through a virgin line.

Well the Sky engineer didn't connect the phone line to the box. Also why all the fuss about needing a BT line with Sky if it will work properly with a Virgin line?

bob055 · 7 Nov 2009 at 18:46

do the normal channels work ?

i had to wait a day or two for the HD channels to work, with the phone line plugged in

.Lethal · 7 Nov 2009 at 19:06

Just for the sake of ruling things out, have you tried connecting the HD box to the phone master socket's "test socket" and leaving it plugged in there over night?

If it hasn't worked by then I would say it is safe to rule out being a BT problem. If it does work though it could be an extension issue from the master socket.

dandos23 · 7 Nov 2009 at 19:43

Well the Sky engineer didn't connect the phone line to the box. Also why all the fuss about needing a BT line with Sky if it will work properly with a Virgin line?

If the engineer thinks he can get away with not conecting to the phone line then he wont as he will get paid the same regardless, it will also save him some time with an easy excuse of "you need a bt phone". The fuss is all about profit, sky will not let you know that it will work with a virgin line because you cant get sky broadband on virgin or a sky phone, thats why they will tell you that you have to have a bt line.

Just for the sake of ruling things out, have you tried connecting the HD box to the phone master socket's "test socket" and leaving it plugged in there over night?

This should make no difference, talk talk does not like skys systems and will fail a call back 8/10 times. It may just be a case of forcing a call back till one goes through. As soon as one does then sky will pick it up, they will not activate anything on the second box (the box to call back second) till they have both call backs from both boxes.

.Lethal · 7 Nov 2009 at 19:47

dandos23 said:
This should make no difference, talk talk does not like skys systems and will fail a call back 8/10 times. It may just be a case of forcing a call back till one goes through. As soon as one does then sky will pick it up, they will not activate anything on the second box (the box to call back second) till they have both call backs from both boxes.

I'm not talking about the Sky HD box here I am talking about ruling out an issue with the phone line. The master socket will not have any problems where as the extensions are much more likely to have some sort of issues.

It is a case of trial and error in ruling out problems.

Just because you have personal problems with sky doesn't mean the OP's problem is automatically a HD box issue.

dandos23 · 7 Nov 2009 at 20:14

I'm not talking about the Sky HD box here I am talking about ruling out an issue with the phone line. The master socket will not have any problems where as the extensions are much more likely to have some sort of issues.

It is a case of trial and error in ruling out problems.

Just because you have personal problems with sky doesn't mean the OP's problem is automatically a HD box issue.

I dont have any problems with sky, quite the opposite in fact. I have all their products and cant speak highly enough of them.

But if you read the first post then you will see that both the boxes are pluged into the same point and one went through while the other (HD) did not.

I am only pointing out that sky does have issues with talk talk as I install sky for a living and it is not uncommon to spend half an hour trying to get a call back to go through on the second box when the customer is on talk talk.

Chong Warrior · 7 Nov 2009 at 20:19

dandos23 said:
If the engineer thinks he can get away with not conecting to the phone line then he wont as he will get paid the same regardless, it will also save him some time with an easy excuse of "you need a bt phone". The fuss is all about profit, sky will not let you know that it will work with a virgin line because you cant get sky broadband on virgin or a sky phone, thats why they will tell you that you have to have a bt line.

My point is I had a Sky HD box working perfectly without any phone line connected at all. There were no features I couldn't use, so what has the OP's phone line got to do with any problems with his HD box?

dandos23 · 7 Nov 2009 at 20:30

My point is I had a Sky HD box working perfectly without any phone line connected at all. There were no features I couldn't use, so what has the OP's phone line got to do with any problems with his HD box?

If you only have one box then the engineer can "MI" the card over the phone to head office to activate everything when the system first goes in.

If you have more than one box then head office won’t let the engineer do that. They have to receive a call back from both boxes to activate everything on a new install. Once this has been done then if you want to take the phone line out, it is up to you but the consequences have been posted. That said, the box will still work fine without a phone line connected. The only thing that you won’t be able to do is order pay per view movies without you having to call them up.

Basically because it is mulitroom the op needs to get both call backs to go through to activate everything initially.