My tech geekery loses

[chrisvenus]

I had a problem with my Sky that started about a week ago. It was saying "No satellite signal being received". I phone up sky and they said they'd get back to me. They never did. So this morning I phoned them again.

The nice lady took me through some complex config options and then after that said "Can you check the cable connecting into the back". Would you believe I hadn't actually done this yet? I lose. Luckily the cables were connected fine.

Then she told me to unplug it and plug it back in again. Again, why had I not thought to try this myself? She even had to tell me not to accidentally unplug my phone... Embarrassingly enough this cured the problem. I lose.

So I've been without sky for a week all because I hadn't thought to reboot the satellite box.

I lose.

ON the plus side though my Tivo is now set to record the repeats of monday nights heroes. Unfortuantely no repeats for Supernatural (sorry quisalan).

Comments

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Woe. All you people who have proper TV... I have French terrestrial at best, the satellite subscription (though what French satellite gives you I don't know) being expired downstairs.

[chrisvenus]

Proper TV comes with having money from a job. Its one of the perks. :)

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the downside being, when I finally get to my job (please let the forms be good enough) I won't be home to watch the fancy TV. Oh, the irony... :p

This is what comes of deciding to sell one's soul.

[chrisvenus]

It is a problem. But at soem point you'll be able to spend all the money - once you've built up enough to be able to just quit. :)

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Oooh, it's a nice idea. Some day.... *is wistful*

[chrisvenus]

You can live vicariously through my TV watching until then if you want. I'm away for the weekend but Sunday night I intend to catch up on Heroes and Doctor Who. :)

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Who is my biggest problem - now the LJ community has cleared everyone out, and YouTube are taking them all down, I have no way of watching new episodes :s

[chrisvenus]

Do you have somebody who can record them for when you get back to the UK? I can keep them on my tivo and show you them at some point but that is of course some point when you are back in the UK with the time free...

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Sadly not... that'd require my family remembering to do this, which isn't going to happen. I'll just have to lurk on the internet and try to see things before they get taken down, I think.

[chrisvenus]

Well, I'll keep them on my tivo so that if you do have trouble I can be a backup for you.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Cable boxes do this too.

While you are clearly not t3h winn4r, I can't help but wonder why they don't design these systems to reboot themselves when required. Seriously - how hard can it be ?!

[chrisvenus]

Yeah. A simple "if (signal not received for 24hours) then {reboot}" wouldn't seem beyond the realms of possibility. It needn't even be good at catching it. But given the cable box clearly new there was a problem and that it was one that was preventing viewing then yeah, what you said.

Still, as you say cable boxes do it too and whenever we had NTL issues at our old place I always used to do that. I think the trouble is that when it said "No satellite signal is being received" I assumed it meant the dish not receiving a signal rather than the box ignoring it.

I did also lose though because I have the tivo between the tv and the sky box and it was initially about 5 seconds back in time so I had great confusion as to why the sky remote was doing nothing. There was also a moment of panic when she asked me to check channels and I realised that I'd never changed channels with the sky remote. :)

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

The newest sky+ boxes switch themselves into stand-by overnight, so it seems like a really silly feature to have been overlooked.

Still - is their advice line premium rate? Maybe its just a way to squeeze a little extra income out of customers.

[chrisvenus]

I hope with some warning so that if you are actually watching it overnight they don't just switch off on you...

And the number I phoned was 0870 type so not premium enough for them to be trying to squeeze the juice.