Sky boxes turning themselves off

[Tom Bancroft]

Has anyone found that their Sky boxes have been going onto standby automatically after a couple of hours of inactivity?



In the last few weeks both our (standard) boxes - one in the lounge, one in the bedroom, have been mysteriously doing this after the TV has been switched off for a while.



Has Sky tweaked the system in an energy saving exercise?



I disconnected the telephone line from the boxes because Sky access your box this way, but that made no difference - it still happens.



Whether the box is active (green light) or inactive (red light), I presume this makes no difference to the power consumption.



This not a big problem - a press of the remote brings the box back to life - but it's puzzling. Anyone know what's happening?

[Mark O]

Strangely enough this started happening to us just a few weeks ago, the Video was set for the Saturday omnibus of Coronation Street, watching the tape and after approx two hours up pops 'about to go into standy mode' which it did and missed part of Corrie, phoned Sky and a very helpful advisor took us throught the procedure of deleting the 'automatic standby' mode via the handset (although it wasn't set to standby!) and had no problems since (I didn't speak to Sky myself, Sis did, I think this standy option is on the Services button)

[Tom Bancroft]

Thanks for that Mark - I'll have a play with the remote and the 'service' facility.



Like I said, it's not the biggest problem I've ever had, but it's annoying turning the TV on to be faced with 'white noise' and having to swith the Sky box back on!



At first our boxes came back on tuned to the 'customer information' channel simliar to when you swith off at the mains, but now they at least come back on at the channel they were on before standby. These are the bog standard boxes, not Sky+ ones.

[DB7]

Yeah mine started doing it a few months ago - mainly after 11pm. As I'm an insomniac and often watch tv late it was a pain. I switched it off via the menu.

[Tom Bancroft]

There seems to be no particular time for ours to go on standby. For instance, I was watching TV this morning and turned the TV off around noon. At 2-0 p.m. I noticed that the box was back on standby. Neither box has gone off whilst we're actually watching TV though, and we too sometimes watch TV into the early hours.

I am just puzzled as to how the boxes have changed to this function after four years without us making any changes to them ourselves!

[rbrooks2008]

I found out from an email sent from Sky that this was the result of a software upgrade. I've erased the email but it was something like "go into features then switch off auto-standby feature."

[mallee59]

Sky.com - Home>Article

Article mentions Sky+ and Sky HD but not the older std boxes

Mallee

[thatllbetheday]

I switched off the auto-standby but the box still goes off occasionally. I don't think it's a major problem. Certainly not compared to accessing channels with BT Vision!!!! I believe it's part of the "you shall go green" movement.

[DB7]

name='thatllbetheday']I switched off the auto-standby but the box still goes off occasionally .

Mine too. It was going off after about 2hrs but having turned the energy saving option on and off a few times it now lasts a tad longer.

[rbrooks2008]

name='mallee59']Sky.com - Home>Article

Article mentions Sky+ and Sky HD but not the older std boxes

Mallee

It'd be great if they added a time zone feature so that the box doesn't guess and get it wildly wrong by switching off in the morning and afternoon!



I know it's a bit obvious but I'll put this here. So much better than waiting 40 minutes before hanging up as I did.



Sky Repair Services UK Ltd

[mrs_emma_peel]

name='DB7']Yeah mine started doing it a few months ago - mainly after 11pm. As I'm an insomniac and often watch tv late it was a pain. I switched it off via the menu.

The Auto Standby feature for standard Sky boxes was downloaded in the last software update a few weeks back ...

I checked it via the menu - mine was already set to off - I watch late night tv too - so I left it set to off

[wellpip]

Don’t know about the Sky boxes but I read yesterday that cable had released some new encrypted code to try and thwart those using illegal boxes. It backfired and caused problems for thousands of their genuine customers.

[Tom Bancroft]

Since starting this thread I have explored the (awful) Sky help pages. It seems that they tweaked the Sky+ and Sky+HD boxes recently so that if they are not activated for 4 hours after 11 pm, they go into standby. They say standard boxes are not affected.



My standard box put up an on screen message during the second footy match on Sky Sports 1 on Sunday afternoon saying it was going into standby unless I pressed 'back up' - this was during the second match. Good job I wasn't recording it! I presume that as I had been watching both games on Sunday (Liverpool then Man. City) the four hour limit had been passed as I had not changed channels in that time. Obviously this was not in the four hours after 11 p.m.



On pressing the 'Services' button on the remote I see 'Auto Standby' on the list - scrolling to this shows that it is set to on - a press of the right toggle button changes this to off, so hopefully the problem is solved - time will tell. However, I can't fathom why Sky should say the feature doesn't apply to standard boxes when it obviously does.



Mind you as a Man. City fan I wish I had set the VCR and only got a blank tape recording!!

[Tom Bancroft]

I can report partial success with the above measures.



The box in the lounge stayed on all night and has stayed on all day without being used at all - so success there.



However, the box in the bedroom turned itself off again - I noticed the red light status when I woke up momentarily around 5-30 a.m. On checking later, the auto standby menu showed the facility had reverted to the 'ON' mode. I selected the 'OFF' mode yet again and so far today it has stayed on (that's around 7 hours) although it has been unused. So hopefully the OFF setting will remain overnight.



Sky's site says boxes will now go into standby mode if no button on the box or the remote is pressed for 4 hours. I can see this being a problem if someone wants to record an afternoon film while they are at work, to watch in the evening. Presumably, because no buttons are pressed the box will go into standby mode around lunchtime and you will end up with a blank tape!

[Tom Bancroft]

Final word on the Bancroft boxes! After going into 'services' again and setting the 'auto standby' mode to OFF on box number two, I can report that both our boxes now stay on permanently unless we switch them to standby ourselves.



I read a post on an electronics site from a TV engineer which claimed that the energy saving between leaving the box switched on or on standby is virtually nil anyway. Apparently unplugging the box is the only way to save a worthwhile amount of energy.

[mysteriesofedgarwallace]

I'd noticed this too.

It either switches off late night/early morning or in the afternoon.



I had assumed it was to counter the fact that neither of my Sky boxes are connected to a landline (firkem), evidently not.

I assumed it was dialling and then, upon not finding a telephone line connected switching to standby. occasionally it sometimes comes up with a message something like 'to enjoy the full range of Sky's rip-off services, a valid tele-line should be connected'.

[image45]

At my house we would call that a rubbish filter!!!!!!