Sky Q connection witch craft

[michael_JCWS]

Hi There,

I have some connection challenges with Sky Q and Sky Q mini ( and have been ever since getting rid of sky broadband 5 years ago).

I have Sky Q downstairs and a Sky Q mini upstairs. Initially I used TPlink powerline adapters to create a network between the sky boxes, this worked fine for the last few years, but one of the plugs has died.

I know Sky Q systems seem to work peachy with Sky broadband, I don’t have sky broadband and could never understand why this made a difference?

I have a UDM router and an additional AP (wired) upstairs. 1GB fibre broadband

The Sky Q connects wirelessly with no issues.

The min connected once and gave me a live picture that stuttered at about 2 frames per second, then just drops the connection. Every other device I have in the house has no issues connecting to WIFI, it’s just the Sky Q mini.

I’ve been in IT for 20 years and really struggle with Sky Q, it seems some sort of witch craft to get a stable connection between Sky Q and Sky Q mini, unless you are using a Sky router

Any ideas?

Many thanks

[DoctorX]

I’ve given up with my minibox. Virgin broadband and a BT mesh system. No issues at all. Switched to an Orbi mesh and never maintained a connection since. I just use Sky Go on a device or a Firestick now.

[skeeterm5]

Use the Sky Go app and cast it to your upstairs TV and do away with the mini box altogether.

[DoctorX]

skeeterm5 said:

Use the Sky Go app and cast it to your upstairs TV and do away with the mini box altogether.

You can’t. (can you?)

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

If at all possible, connect the Sky Q Mini and the main Sky Q boxes to your router by wired ethernet. Both of mine are hard-wired, via switches, to a LinkSys router (provided by my broadband provider Toob). No Sky router involved. Works faultlessly.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Wednesday 26th February 13:54

[michael_JCWS]

Powerline adapters is the only way I can mimic hard wired, I’m just at a loss why the two boxes won’t talk over WiFi and have to connect directly to each other

[mikef]

I have my Sky Q mini box upstairs, connected to my Asus wifi 6 router wirelessly and it works flawlessly (but only HD, the Sky Q Mini doesn't do 4K afaik)

I also have a TV in my summer house, which is connected to the main router by 100m of ethernet cable. I was told by my Sky Engineer that I could only use the Sky Q Mini box there with Sky's own internet, whereas I am happy with PlusNet. So I run Sky Go there on Apple TV (again, only HD, not 4K)

Edited to add: I just checked the Sky Mini advanced network settings, and it's set to a manual IP address, it may only work if both the main and mini Sky Q boxes have fixed addresses

Edited by mikef on Wednesday 26th February 14:18

[michael_JCWS]

I think the mini upstairs would communicate directly with the main box and not via your WiFi, that certainly seems to be the general consensus from what I can find. Your mini will still contect to WiFi ( no idea why) but connects directly to the main box at 5 GHz, at least that’s why Sky seem to me telling me

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

michael_JCWS said:

Powerline adapters is the only way I can mimic hard wired

Then that’s the way I’d do it. Replace your failed powerline adapter, or buy a new set, and you’ll have this working in 15 minutes. You could grow old and grey trying to get the boxes running on wifi reliably.

Edited to add: I assume you know about the engineer’s menu. Scroll down to Settings but do NOT go into the menu. Press 0 0 1 Select, then find the option to switch off both 2.4 and 5 GHz wifi, confirm changes.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Wednesday 26th February 14:02

[mikef]

I'm looking at the settings on the Sky Q Mini box now. It's connected to the home Wifi network (Asus router), and has checkmarks against both Connection to Broadband Router and Connection to Internet.

Then under Advanced Settings is has IP Settings Manual, an IP address in the router range (192.168.0.79) and the router address set to the Asus box's address (192.168.0.1), so it's definitely routing through the home network

Under Settings, Status has checkmarks against both Connection to Sky Q Box and Network Connection

Edited by mikef on Wednesday 26th February 14:03

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

mikef said:

Then under Advanced Settings is has IP Settings Manual, an IP address in the router range (192.168.0.79) and the router address set to the Asus box's address (192.168.0.1)

Any reason for using a fixed IP address?

Both my Sky Q and Mini are set to Automatic (DHCP) and it works fine.

[mikef]

I have everything on fixed addresses, so I can tell if anything unexpected connects to my home network

If you have the Sky Q mini running on wireless with automatic addresses, then I guess that works too

[-Cappo-]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

You could grow old and grey trying to get the boxes running on wifi reliably.

I am that person. It worked when first installed, but once it stopped working, it never has since. I've lost count of the number of times I've run up and down the stairs responding to on-screen instructions.

Have completely given up now but the only bonus is that I know my (very random) wifi password off by heart now.

[Actual]

I am not an expert on getting Sky Q to work but I am an expert on getting Sky Q to NOT work.

At a previous property we had Sky Broadband and Sky Q with 4 Mini boxes worked great with the Sky Router.

At this property we have a different broadband supplier and the same Sky Q hardware was st.

The Sky Q does use your home Wi-Fi and it also creates its own private Sky Wi-Fi backhaul channel and this seems to be the weak link if you don't have a Sky Router to glue it all together.

I sacked off Sky Q and changed to Sky Stream but the playback function on Sky Stream is rubbish compared to Sky Q.

I have also noticed that we no longer watch traditional TV and 98% of all viewing is using the Samsung TV Apps directly and Sky is not used much.

[mikef]

Actual said:

The Sky Q does use your home Wi-Fi and it also creates its own private Sky Wi-Fi backhaul channel and this seems to be the weak link if you don't have a Sky Router to glue it all together.

That could be it then - OP, you say that all your other wireless devices work, so it may be that your whole property is within transmission distance of your router, but your Sky Q box and Q mini box may not be within transmission distance of each other, or there could be an obstacle that disrupts the inter-device signal

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

mikef said:

If you have the Sky Q mini running on wireless with automatic addresses, then I guess that works too

I used to have them on WiFi, with a Sky booster box reflecting the signal between the two, and both on Automatic IP. That’s how the engineer installed it. But I decided I wanted to get rid of the booster box and clean up the WiFi channels in my house, so I put the two boxes onto ethernet (still Automatic IP).

As mentioned, the Sky boxes use their own private WiFi to stream between themselves, but also use your WiFi for pulling down the Sky dynamic content. The private WiFi uses a wide frequency channel that probably restricts the channels available for your own WiFi. It’s far better to switch it all off (see my post above) and use wired ethernet. The boxes only have 10/100 ethernet ports, so speed isn’t important but the reliability is far better.

[mikef]

I notice that the "hidden menu" Network settings include the ability to speedy the 5G channel, presumably for that inter-device communication (?). It may be work checking that there isn't anything interfering on that channel, like wifi at other nearby properties. Various bits of software can check that

[119]

Sky WiFi implementation on the Q boxes has been utter st from the day it was launched imo.

All ours are hard wired and never have an issue,

[michael_JCWS]

Managed to get a spare TP LINK device up and configured.

Went into the engineering menu on the main box, disabled 2.4 and 5, then set up as wired

Went to mini disabled 2.4 and 5, did nothing else and it connected with out configuration of the network???

I dare not touch anything now.

someone in the sky Q engineering department really needs to be fired for a shoddy implementation

[Dashnine]

I had a similar problem years ago in the early years of SkyQ but have moved a couple of times since and thought they’d fixed it as haven’t had to do it since!

They way I resolved the issue - I think (bear with me, it was a long time ago) was to go into the Engineers Menu (go to Settings and press 001 Enter) and turn off the 5GHz wireless network on the Mini boxes (or maybe all of them, i.e. the master box too) so the ‘private’ Sky network just uses the 2.4GHz network.

As you probably know 5GHz is faster but can’t cope with distance / walls which 2.4GHz can, but if it has a sniff of a 5GHz connection it will try to use it.

You can also change the channels used by the Sky system, and move it away from your routers or neighbours channels.

ETA: And I’ve never had Sky Broadband\WiFi, it’s always worked with BT and now Plusnet broadband and routers, you don’t need Skys own.

Edited by Dashnine on Wednesday 26th February 23:26