Fed up with EE TV recording problems

[PL1957]

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

[Dave_Ro]

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

[Dave_Ro]

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.

[Lesley_W · Accepted solution]

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

[LucyfromEE]

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 

[Jaggymick]

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.

[DarrenDev]

@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.

[Jaggymick]

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.

[DarrenDev]

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

1. TV Guide data isn't 100% accurate, meaning some programmes aren't recording correctly.
2. 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.

[Jaggymick]

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