TV Pixellation Worse Than Ever

[StevieBee]

We were notified that Virgin were carrying out maintenance work in the area on Monday 7th, so disruption was expected on the day. It cannot be a coincidence that on Monday evening after the work had allegedly been successfully completed that the picture pixellation, that has been ongoing to some degree for years, is now worse than it has ever been.

The picture on channels 101, 102, 103, 104, 113, 114, 536 (there may be others) are now obliterated. Most other channels pixellated to some degree. 

Diagnostics checks do not detect any faults. Several technician visits and at least 4 box changes have have failed to solve the problem.

[japitts]

Sounds like you clearly have an underlying fault here, and I'd find it hard to believe 4 boxes are faulty. So - without any knowledge of what's been done - I'd lean towards there being an external fault somewhere, possibly multiple ones.

You're paying VM for a fault-free service, and repairs/servicing are part of that, so you should keep reporting these problems.. and keep getting tech visits... until it's fixed. I'm not sure what these diagnostic checks are that you're doing, but there's a strong chance they could only be testing your equipment as far as the street cab or local network segment. However - if you have ongoing issues, that speaks for itself.

If you wait here for a couple of days, the staff team should pick this up.. or you can call in when you're having issues, and the remote checks might get you a tech visit arranged immediatelly.

[Natalie_L]

Hi StevieBee,

Thank you for reaching out to us here on the Community. 

I am sorry to hear of the issues you have been experiencing with the service, I appreciate this must be frustrating. 

I have ran a check on the account and can see that there is currently a know issue in your area impacting all three services. 

We are currently on site working to resolve the issue and the estimated repair date is the 16th February 13:15pm.

Thank you for your patience whilst we work to resolve this issue. 

[StevieBee]

Hi Nat, 

Thanks for the info. I called to report the fault this morning and was told the same thing.

I did suspect this was the result of the "upgrade" work Virgin notified us was taking place on Monday 7th.  The notification the following day that it was now "All Sorted" was obviously an auto email, as something had clearly gone wrong the previous day.

The annoying pixellation issues returned well before last week, but nothing as bad as this.

I am hoping that when the area issue is resolved, it may improve our TV picture issues that have been ongoing for years.

However, there may still be an underlying signal strength issue as the box in the bedroom, which is usually fine, is affected to a lesser degree. The TV picture from the box in the living room is much worse, but runs from a splitter with the hub. This would suggest, to me at least, that there is a signal strength issue with the box in the living room.

When picture break up is evident in the living room, 99% of the time the picture from the box in the bedroom is perfect and it has a seperate line into the property. Maybe that's what I need for the Tivo box in the living room.

[Molly_T]

Hi @StevieBee, thank you for getting back to us!

Sadly I can see the outage has been extended until this evening (17th Feb at 5:30pm). 

If you wouldn't mind coming back to us again following the end of the outage if you are still experiencing issues so we can look into this further for you and get things resolved. 

Apologies for the poor experience and the delay in getting things fixed. Thank you for your patience!

All the best. 

[StevieBee]

Not sure if the area issue has been resolved, but calling 150 doesn't now get an automated acknowledgement of the fault.

The pixellation has not improved.

Looking at the diagnostics through the Tivo box in the living room, whichever channel happens to be tuned to "Tuner 0" seems to be ok.  Every other channel seems to have pixellation to some degree.

[Beth_G]

Hi StevieBee,

Thank you for the update, I'm really sorry to hear this issue has not been resolved yet.

After checking on our end, there doesn't seem to be anymore ongoing outages which could be affecting your TV service, so we will need to arrange an engineer visit. They will be able to check the connections at the cabinet outside of your home too, if they find the issue is not with the box.

I'll pop you over a PM now so I can get this arranged with you

[Beth_G]

Hi StevieBee,

Thanks for providing your details and chatting with me via PM.

Please do let us know how your visit goes and if you need anything else from us 🙂

Kind regards

[StevieBee]

Engineer visited today, clearly an experienced guy who knows his stuff.

After explaining the fault and the fact that it was always the living room box that had the issue, he quickly established that it wasn't a signal strength issue. Swapping the box with the one in the bedroom also proved it wasn't the box.

As suspected, I had two cables running from the street cabinet. Running both boxes from the second cable only, immediately cleared the fault. This confirmed the problem was the original cable running from the street cabinet to the connection on the outside of the property.

After years of frustration, I'm really hoping this has solved the problem for good.

Thanks to all involved in sorting this out.

[Zach_R]

Hi @StevieBee,

Thank you for the update. I am really glad to hear that we've been able to get to the bottom of this and resolve it for you.

Please let us know if there's anything more that we can assist you with.

Thanks,