Virgin Media Community

[Timbo78]

A while back we had an area fault that caused this issue. It was frequent and went on for a long time, was widespread and acknowledged as an area fault and eventually just about fixed.

It's back again. In the last week we've had lots of pixellation, picture freezing and then a loss of the channel with the error message about the channel being unavailable. This afternoon it has been particularly bad all afternoon.

Bearing in mind the recent past issues in the area, I know it is highly unlikely to be my box and far more likely to be the same fault as last time, returned.

Please could someone get this looked into again? I don't need any posts telling me what causes pixellation on live tv, they're not at all helpful. Thanks.

[Timbo78]

Small update - I spoke to someone on the phone and was informed that there's a company in the area digging up roads (there isn't) and that their work is disrupting the tv service, which I very much doubt even if there was a company digging up the road. I then asked why, if this is a known issue that would affect the tv service, there's no mention of it on the Virgin Media service status online and was told that only reports on broadband issues, which is nonsense. Guy on the phone was surprised when I told him the status page has a section for tv, one for the phone and one for broadband. Then I was told if it's not clear by Monday to ring back and they'd send an engineer out.

In other words, I wasted a phone call and got a story!

[japitts]

You can check for known area faults using 0800 5610061 - this is often more reliable for local issues than the online facility.

If nothing's reported on there, it's safe to assume that your fault isn't known about - and to act accordingly.

[Timbo78]

Rang the number, "no issues". Not even the one that I knew was made up anyway, regarding roadworks.

[japitts]

---

@Timbo78 wrote:

Rang the number, "no issues". Not even the one that I knew was made up anyway, regarding roadworks.

---

In which case, best assume that whatever is causing your fault, VM don't know about it.

Treat it the same way you would any unreported fault.

[Paul_DN]

Hi Timbo78,

Thank you for reaching out to us in our community and welcome back, sorry to hear you have been facing issues with your TV service, I was able to find you on our system with the details we have for you and cannot see any current issues, there was a TV fault with now appears to have been resolved, how are thing your end now?

Regards

Paul.

[Timbo78]

A bit dodgy. I'm not watching a lot of tv at the moment, and there hasn't been any heavy pixellation like there was on Saturday but there are odd times when things break up. Another thing I've noticed on top of the pixellation is that sometimes when switching from one channel to another, the black screen and 'this channel is unavailable' message appears. I'm not convinced the work that was done in the area a while ago has fixed everything, as the same issues are slowly creeping back in.

[Tom_W1]

Hi @Timbo78 thanks a lot for your message once again - even though things have improved slightly, apologies the issue isn't fully resolved.

The TV outage has definitely been resolved, so you shouldn't be experiencing anymore problems going forwards.

Any further issues may demonstrate the box or a signal issue - I've ran diagnostics however and all tests are coming up perfect for both things.

Can you please confirm if all cables are secure in the back of your box and also wall socket? Is this also occurring on all channels, or just HD ones, or just a selection (like all ITV, all Sky Sports etc)?

Many thanks

[Timbo78]

All cables are secure. I can't tell you if it's all channels, as I have loads I never watch and don't want because of bundling but what I can tell you is that the same issues we had in the area before, where the channel would just freeze and then drop out to the 'this channel is unavailable' message has happened on BBC 4 a couple of times in the last week to ten days. This was when watching live tv.

The issue where switching between channels causes that message to appear usually happens when I'm watching sports (this is the majority of my viewing 'live') and the heavy pixellation I was having on Saturday, also when watching sport has apparently settled down. On that day it was very bad on Sky Sports Football in both HD and SD before I lost patience and switched the tv off completely (I checked if it was happening on the SD version of the channel that day and it was).

I'll see how it goes, thank you.

[Kain_W]

Thanks for the response Timbo78,

Welcome back to the community.

From checking here everything seems to be in spec, how is the service now?

Let us know,