topic Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems in TV

Fed up with EE TV recording problems

PL1957 — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 13:34:26 GMT

We have 3 recurring problems with recorded programs that are making my wife and I regret changing to EE from Sky. It has reached a stage where my wife is reluctant to record anything because it either fails altogether or we don't get all of the program. We would be grateful if there are solutions to these problems otherwise it will be getting cancelled as soon as we are out of contract!

1/. Failed to record - this happens frequently and usually with programs set to record a series.

2/. Only records part of the programme - sometimes it only records half of the program, other times misses the last 5 minutes or so. Displays a message that "This recording has ended".

3/. Fast forward freezes and returns to the beginning of the program - happens extremely frequently.

Thanks in anticipation for any help

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 22:17:38 GMT

I'm here because my wife - who is the football fan - has exactly those problems and has done ever since we moved from BT to EE. Except that she attempts to record individual matches. Several matches she set up on Friday night failed to record. She is very unhappy with the box.

She's set a match to record at 13.00 tomorrow - Newcastle vs Villa. Let's see if that works.

Dave

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 14:19:11 GMT

Well that recording worked. It was on Sky. The ones that failed were on TNT. She tells me that recording the Saturday lunchtime football on BT/TNT was a problem back on the old BT box too. If we were home she set an alarm to check it was recording because she couldn't rely on it.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Lesley_W — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 15:35:58 GMT

Hi @PL1957

Welcome to our community.

I'm sorry you are having trouble with your new services. There's some troubleshooting steps here Fix a Problem with EE TV that are worth trying.

If that doesn't improve things, our technical support team will be able to help further.

Lesley

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

LucyfromEE — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:57:23 GMT

Hi @PL1957 @Dave_Ro

I'm happy to look in to these issues for you. I'll message you both privately to get further details.

Thanks

Lucy

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Jaggymick — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:45:38 GMT

I have had a similar problem. When I got fast broadband from BT my box was upgraded from a BT box to an EE TV Box Pro. I discovered it would not record on standby. When I reported it I was sent a replacement box but it had exactly the same problem. If the box is on and I press to record, then put it on standby it does so for 13 minutes (!) then stops. If I schedule a recording on standby it either doesn't record it at all or records a few seconds and stops. I have had several phone conversations with EE about it, to no avail. They claim they haven't come across the problem, but that's obviously untrue. It only seems to apply to programmes via the aerial, not internet channels. After my latest phone call they have switched me to Internet mode, and the problem doesn't seem to apply then. They are trying to claim it is a problem with my aerial signal, but that doesn't make sense as it records perfectly when the box is left switched on. Internet mode has fewer channels and does not record live but rather uses on demand services which don't allow fast forwarding through adverts. My suspicion is that this isn't a fault but a deliberate feature to stop fast forwarding through adverts, which apparently the industry is keen to stop.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

DarrenDev — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:55:45 GMT

@Jaggymick if the fault were deliberate, we'd be seeing many thousands of complaints about it. Yours is the first time I've ever seen this fault reported.

Where does your TV aerial feed come from? Does it pass through any devices before it reaches your TV Box? It sounds like something else is switching into standby when your TV Box does.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Jaggymick — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:47:01 GMT

No, the aerial feeds directly into the box. The same problem was raised at the top of this thread, which is what I was replying to.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

DarrenDev — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:07:23 GMT

There are 2 known issues with incomplete recordings, that are currently being worked on:

TV Guide data isn't 100% accurate, meaning some programmes aren't recording correctly.
The TV Box firmware has a bug that causes recordings to fail in some circumstances.

These failures occur regardless of whether the box is in standby or left turned on, and never specifically 13 minutes after the box goes into standby.

Looking at the logs for your TV Box, there have been 13 failed recordings. 10 of them were due to the TV aerial signal being lost.

Is the TV aerial yours? i.e. an aerial on your home, feeding only your devices? Or is it a shared aerial? Is there a signal booster connected to it? Is the aerial also connected to any other devices? e.g. the TV? Would it be possible to disconnect any other use of the aerial, and test whether the issue still occurs?

I'm struggling to think what could possible be causing this signal loss, tied to the state of the TV Box.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Jaggymick — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:53:46 GMT

Thank you for your advice and comments Darren. You have provided the solution, albeit by a circuitous route.

I could not work out why the box would record perfectly when on but not in standby, so I had disregarded a problem with the aerial. However, your questions about the aerial led, eventually, to the the lightbulb moment, or more accurately the "DOH" moment!

The aerial is powered, and I was powering it by plugging it into a USB socket on the TV. Of course, when I put the box into standby I also put the TV off, so no more power. I still don't understand how the box would continue to record for 13 minutes, but maybe some residual power remained for that long. That doesn't matter now.

I thought the solution was to plug the aerial into the USB socket on the box, and I think that would work as it seems to give out power that way in standby, but instead I've used an adapter to plug it into the mains which should be more reliable. I've successfully recorded a programme in standby.

Although you didn't suggest this solution your other suggestions led to me working it out eventually, so thank you. Your help here was more useful than all the various phone calls I had with EE. However, I withdraw my comments about a deliberate fault and apologize to you and EE for suggesting it.

Thanks again

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:00:20 GMT

Neat!

For anyone following this thread, I'm still having problems but I took up @LucyfromEE's offer to send her the details by PM. I'll post if a solution emerges.

Interesting, and encouraging, that EE can read the logs on the box.

I wonder if the OP is still having problems?

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

DarrenDev — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:12:48 GMT

@Dave_Ro YouView provide us with access to some logs from the TV Box, but a lot of the data is redacted for privacy reasons. For recordings, we can tell if it failed or partially succeeded, and it usually gives us a reason why (not always). It doesn't tell us what you were recording, or how much of it succeeded.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:33:56 GMT

Thanks. I'll continue to monitor the recordings and provide Lucy with screenshots of failures.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

PL1957 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:01:01 GMT

Hi, this is the OP

Current situation is as follows.

After contacting customer service by phone I was asked to do a full factory reset of the box, it is important to note that this deletes all recordings. After doing so it seemed better for a few days but then began to behave exactly as before.

The most frustrating problem is part recordings - these may be for example that 45 minutes of an hour programme is recorded or on some occasions just missing the last 5 minutes etc.

At this point my wife was completely fed up with EE TV and I phoned customer services again, this time they sent a replacement TV Box Pro. The replacement box has been installed for 6 days and so far has been recording complete programmes (he says with fingers tightly crossed).

However, we have had a couple of failed recordings on TNT Sports already. It also has the same problem as the previous box that when fast forwarding through adverts on a recording it freezes and returns to the start of the programme. You then have to fast forward through everything you have just watched which is rather frustrating!

Time will tell if this box is more reliable but all in all my confidence is not high. I will say that customer service by phone have been helpful.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 20:06:18 GMT

I did a factory reset too - having read that it might help with EPG-related problems. I took the option to keep existing recordings. In fact it kept the recording schedule too, so I deleted that and set it up anew. It hasn't solved the problems but they might have changed. Time will tell.

@DarrenDev said above that they were working on 2 problems. The more data we give them the better.

Why is this thread marked as solved BTW? Can it be unsolved?

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

johnbhoy1979 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 11:21:51 GMT

Yeah it's just the worst service. Don't know how it's actually allowed. Had countless problems with Ee tv.

So much so now I've just disconnected the box pro and stuck it under my bed. It's pointless.

I'm just going through the motions to finish the contract now that still has a year left. Anyone I know that wanted to change to Ee I have put them off.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:36:19 GMT

@JoHOK, you're **bleep**ed off. I understand. But posting that it doesn't help much. I looked at your posts and it seems you have problems with series record. Is that right? My wife doesn't use series record - at least not for TNT/Sky Sport.

I notice a post by @zulu17 from 3/11/25 quoting @DarrrenDev: "Unfortunately, for now, the recommendation is to schedule programmes individually instead of series record."

What's you current experience recording single events?

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

Dave_Ro — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:46:31 GMT

BTW, EE, why do I have to sign in and provide a mobile phone 2FA code every time? I posted only yesterday! Can't you remember me for week or so on the same device? I'm not refusing cookies.

Firefox on Android.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

robh661 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:18:08 GMT

I think one idea that EE could pinch from Sky is set your own recording window, instead of relying solely on the EPG.
That way you could set the box to start recording say 5mins before the scheduled start and end say 10mins after to catch any over runs. As a lot of the times unlike Sky. The box won’t record after the EPG programme window.

Re: Fed up with EE TV recording problems

graybag — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:20:06 GMT

Just in case you are unaware @PL1957 - If a Recording returns to the Start the easiest way to return to where you were is to press a Number on your Remote,these will take you quicker to about where you were as 1 goes direct to One Tenth through,2 to Two Tenths through etc. (so 5 takes you to Halfway through and so on).