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I bought a DTR1000 in Febrary 2014, and for several months it worked fine, although I did not use the On Demand functions very much at first.
Since August, I have had an intermittent problem with the BBC iPlayer, in that it “freezes” part way through streaming, and appears to be buffering. It sometimes came back on, after a delay, but has now ceased even to do this. I do not have a similar problem with any of the other players, although the BBC is the one I (try to) use most. My box is hard-wired to my router, and my average download speed is 17Mbps. My isp reports no temporary breaks in service at the times when iPlayer is buffering. I have perfect reception when running iPlayer on my laptop at the same time as it freezes on YouView.
On the advice of my retailer, I have done a hard reset and manual player updates, all without curing the problem.
I have spoken today to Humax, who are adamant that the problem is either with my internet connection or the BBC. They also tell me that the iPlayer on the BBC website is different to theirs.
A request for help via the BBC web-page has not elicited a reply after 3 days.
Has anyone had a similar problem related to the BBC iPlayer, and is there a fix available?
Has the introduction of the “Connecter red button” caused this problem?
Hi alands
Just to clarify, when you say your connection is hardwired, does that mean Ethernet from router to box, or does it connect via Powerline?
Connected Red Button is unlikely to be the cause of the buffering, as it just acts as an interface allowing you to call the iPlayer and other functions such as BBC Sport, BBC News, etc. The current iPlayer version is new to YouView, and could well have a few problems to be ironed out. Having said that, there don’t seem to be widespread complaints about buffering. It might be worth resetting both your router and the YouView box (router first) to see if that helps.
Thanks, James, for your reply; at least I now know that there is somebody out there who I can “talk” to.
The YV box is connected to the router via TP-Link (a version of Powerline).
I have done a YV reset, as well as manually updating all players. I will try a reset of the router as well, although I did this a few days ago for another reason, and did not reset YV at the same time. I’ll let you know…
Quote:Thanks, James, for your reply; at least I now know that there is somebody out there who I can “talk” to.Disclaimer: I don’t have any expert knowledge, I’m just speaking from my own past experience as a (former) YouView user.
I’d suggest turning everything off and then resetting everything in order: router first, then the TP Link adapters, then the YouView box.
If that doesn’t help, you might try YouView Support (0333 313 2278). Although this could turn out to be the BBC’s problem, YouView are the people who have the ability to get the BBC’s attention, if they conclude that that’s what’s needed.
Hi alands,
I have the same problem with my DTR1000 which has started freezing for long periods during playback of iplayer content.
Barney (in the UK)
Thanks, JamesB for your helpful post, and for the contact number. I have spoken to YouView Support, and received some useful tips on resetting.
I have done some analysis on when the “freezing” problem occurs, and it is usually, though not exclusively, during the evening. I now wonder if the problem might be overload of the BBC iPlayer server. If this is the case, I hope The BBC can and will do something about it very soon.
YV Support also suggested that implementation of new soft- and firm-ware on the BBC system might be under way. If this is so, let’s hope it goes well and quickly.
Finally, thanks to Barney_UK for his post, which raises the question of how many other iPlayer users are having similar problems. Let’s hear from you, everybody!
I don’t have a DTR1000; however the Humaxes I have buffer iplayer, no idea whether the DTR1000 does or not, but if it does, what I used to have to do is decide whatI wanted to watch, pause it for 5-10 mins, make a cup of tea etc and then watched it with normally no problems at all.
the new bbc iplayer menu/gui is significantly slower on my Humax, if I don’t wait between button-presses/screen-refreshes it can lock-up so I now navigate somewhat slower, this is purely down to bbc’s recent changes, not Humax and also first time I used the new iplayer my box crashed.
Not too sure if anybody can confirm whether the DTR1000 buffers or not, but it’s well worth pausing for a few minutes at the start of a programme if it does until YV/bbc sort out their end
alands – very interesting, YouView Support’s suggestion that further BBC updates may be underway. That would seem to fit with the possibility that the buffering could just be teething troubles with the new YouView player.
Regarding the time of use – I can only say that I frequently use the new iPlayer on my Freetime box and so far it’s always run very smoothly. I would think the BBC will keep tinkering (if that’s what’s happening) until it’s equally smooth on YouView. Might take a while, I suppose.
alands, I seem to have sorted my freezing iplayer issue by doing a factory reset of my Humax You View Box. Either that or it’s a coincidence that it hasn’t frozen on me since
Have you tried a full factory reset?
Barney
Hi, Barney
Thanks for your post, and here is an update to where I am now:
I have tried a Factory reset from the settings menu several times. It might have made a small difference, but I was still getting “freeze-ups”. I was also able to swap out my box with a brand new one from my retailer, with no improvement. It was becoming clearer that the problem mainly occurs on the BBC iPlayer, and almost exclusively during the early evening, presumably when traffic is heaviest.
I spoke to YouView Support again, and they suggested trying a different reset, by pressing the Power on light, on the far left (as you look at it) on the front of the YV box, and holding for about 8 seconds (apparently this is also a touch sensitive switch). This resets the box and downloads any software and firmware upgrades from the various websites.
The result of this, for me, has been a great improvement, though not yet a complete cure, and I am getting fewer freezes. It looks to me as if the BBC has a bandwidth type of problem, but my conversations with YV Support and others suggest that improvements are in the pipeline, and may already be in beta test. I plan to do this reset every week or so, in the hope that eventually a complete cure will arrive
have you tried pausing iplayer for a few minutes during the evening or when you notice the internet connection is slow?
In the past this always worked for me on other Humax boxes when the iplayer/internet connection was slow. There’s nothing worse than trying to watch something where it keeps on freezing, pausing it for a short while allowed it to catch up, buffer data and then be watched stutter free.
I’ve read conflicting reports of whether the dtr1000 buffers or not, some reviews state that a portion of the hard drive is reserved for buffering, other reports state that it doesn’t buffer which would explain one of the problems if there’s high contention on iplayer
#Barry? if you’re around and have time at some point, any chance of you confirming with Humax conclusively whether the dtr1000 buffers or not. I can understand the temptation to return a perfectly good and working dtr1000 to a retailer if it doesn’t buffer as you can guarantee iplayer and other services will have problems from time to time if it doesn’t. Thanks.
YouView has a most peculiar comment on this question on its support site:
Quote:When you watch an On Demand or catch up programme, your YouView box downloads some of the programme in advance so that it plays smoothly. Depending on how fast your broadband is this may cause a delay, which we call buffering, typically you will see a spinning icon in the centre of the screen when one of the on-demand players is buffering.This doesn’t make sense to me. What’s the point of pre-downloading if you just play the downloaded chunk and then stop to download the next chunk? Should surely be acquiring Chunk 2 while Chunk 1 is being played, so that the stream is seen by the viewer as seamless.
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