Sky Sports Desktop Player for PC not Loading

[Harveypotter]

Hi, to watch Sky Sports on my laptop nowadays Sky make you download and install a Desktop Player onto your PC. 

After downloading and installing, I can’t get the software to load up. After installing the cursor spins for a few seconds and then just goes dead.

Have tried all sorts: downloading from all the different browsers, re-installing, turning virus software (Windows Defender) off, turning firewalls off. It just won’t load up.

Anyone had any similar problems and got a fix? I need to watch sky sports on my laptop through my account with Virgin.

Running Windows 10 Home.

thanks , HP

[Natalie_L]

Hi Harveypotter, 

Thanks for getting in touch with us here on the Community. 

I have been having a look around in regards to what could be causing the problems and came across one of our forums. The members on the thread were able to resolve the issue so thought it would be a good idea to share this with you. 

You can access the thread by clicking here

Let us know how you get on 🙂 

Thanks 

[Harveypotter]

Thanks Nat.

I've tried all those recommendations in the link, and none of them solve it.

Closest i can get to anything working is in Mozilla Firefox. And the screen I get on the Sky Sports website says: 

"The address wasn’t understood

Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (skysports) isn’t associated with any program or is not allowed in this context.

You might need to install other software to open this address."

I'm at a lost end.

I find it hard to understand why Virgin and Sky don't make this easier for clients to watch on a PC.

[Chris_W1]

Hi Harveypotter

It sounds like a problem installing the player, you will need to try uninstalling and reinstalling the player, you won’t be able to access content through a web browser.

We don’t support installing the player as it’s Sky’s software, please see the below links:

Video Player download instructions:

Here

Sky FAQ for Virgin Media customers accessing the service:

Here

^Chris

[Harveypotter]

Thanks Chris.

I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling countless times to no avail.

Sadly none of the Sky instructions help either.

[Chris_W1]

Hi Harveypotter

Are you trying to access the content through the player?

Chris. 

[Harveypotter]

Hi, yes I’m trying to watch sky sports on my pc using my virgin log in via the sky sports desktop player. 

[arrgee1991]

My experience is the desktop player doesn’t work on all Windows 10 PCs.  I have had 4 laptops i have tried it on, worked perfectly on three of them, but no matter what I tried on the 4th, nothing worked.  One significant difference was it had an AMD processor rather than an Intel processor, but every other application I ever threw at it worked.  

[Steven_L]

Have you tried to download from the windows store itself, to see if that makes any difference, if you completely uninstall the app and then reboot your PC and then download the app again. This can work with the issues that you've been having.

Alternatively have you tried to access the Sky Sports player via any web browsers on the Sky Sports site? 

Regards

Steven_L

[Harveypotter]

Steven, thanks.

yes, I’ve tried all those things.

you can’t actually download the sky sports desktop player from the Microsoft App Store, it doesn’t exist as far as I can see.

and yes, I’ve tried using all the other browsers to download and install the file.

very frustrating