No point in chasing Freesat as this problem is present on Humax Freeview boxes as well. Barry, an admin here, has mentioned on several occasions (post 306 for example) that Humax have been made aware of this problem, so it is down to them and YouTube (or, I suppose, Google who I believe own YT).

Edit: Post number changed – I got it wrong

Stop button has been working for me for several days now. Back button still not functioning. Search still not functioning.

Trying hard:

Despite a number of minor irritations the 5000T is probably worth sticking with for now. Presumably you have some kind of warranty with it, so there should be no urgent reason to send it back just because of the YouTube issue, which is not specific to this box anyway. It still has all its other features like the three tuners.

The last issue with YouTube only lasted a few weeks and was sorted, hopefully it will be similar this time.

I hope this helps everyone having YouTube problems. My chosen workaround (if you can call it that) is to create playlists on my PC and then watch them on TV. That much does work well.

I spoke to a very helpful chap at Humax yesterday (Tue 1st Dec) and he told me there were two main issues:

1 – in the search screen all the letters of the alphabet vanish when you move the cursor right to type in search criteria.

2 – some navigation keys e.g. Stop, FF, Back on the remote control don’t do anything.

This echoes the situation with my Humax HB1000s.

Furthermore, this whole sorry tale is down to Google having changed the YouTube app and neglecting to mention it to people that needed to know at Humax. Humax are being swamped with support calls and keep badgering Google to clear up their mess.

I pointed out that I think Humax did themselves no favours by not putting good clear information on their website and on their helpline message. I’ve found out more information from the Freesat site than from Humax. The guy I spoke to acknowledged I had a valid point.

Finally, I gave them my email address and offered to act as a tester for future builds in the hope I can help speed up the process of fixing this hugely frustrating issue.

Jonjo,

Sorry your friend paid out for a remote he didn’t need – that is frustrating. I like your corporate ping-pong term and you are right, of course. The fact that it’s over 2 months since the iPlayer fault appeared is beyond belief. I check every day to see if the YouTube issue is fixed but no luck so far. It is apparent they are releasing new versions of the app but it’s still not right.

The YouTube Search facility is very unstable. Letters on the on-screen keyboard just disappear so you have no idea where the input cursor is currently positioned.

This has been the case for several weeks and renders the app almost useless for my requirements.

Any comment appreciated.

Thanks.

Jonjo – 1 week ago  » 

Thanks for that evilmrb. A friend of mine has these issues and (wrongly of course) assumed that it was his remote that was faulty and so shelled out £30+ for a replacement! Corporate blame ping-pong is all very well, but we, the loyal users have to put up with a sub-standard service no matter who is at fault.

One way to test a ‘suspect’ remote control in cases like this is to try a smiler function in a different app, such as iPlayer for example. If iPlayer searching works, but the YouTube search does weird things, it is highly probable that the remote control is fine and the YouTube app is broken.

Jonjo – no information, emails not answered, no on-screen information as there was previously. They don’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to resolve it to me. Maybe they’re hoping we’ll all go away and forget about it. Shocking customer service.