Faulty products

What can I do when the system locks up?

From time to time whatever button you press on the remote or front panel, nothing happens. There's an easy solution. Simply unplug your box from the mains supply at the wall socket, wait for about 30 seconds, plug it back in and switch on. Once it has sorted itself out everything should return to normal. This problem should occur only very occasionally, if at all. If it happens regularly it may be faulty or there may be a software upgrade that is needed. In these cases you should return it to a service department or see if the manufacturer has any information on their web site.

My set top box / TV/ recorder doesn’t work properly / has stopped working what should I do?
First refer to the instruction manual to see if your problem is covered by any trouble shooting section. Check also that you have connected and set up the product as described in the instructions. For additional information see our section on connecting up. It is worth re-booting the system – switch off, unplug everything, then reconnect and switch back on and go through its set up and re-tuning process, including re-programming the remote control. If that fails, if there is a customer helpline listed in the manual, contact them for assistance. If you still can’t get the product to work satisfactorily, you need to return it to the shop you bought it from and ask for a replacement or refund. Whether or not you are sucessful will depend on a number of issues such as the length of time you have had it, any warranty and whether any subsequent examination by the shop reveals a fault. For more information see Ricability's main consumer website report consumer rights - faulty goods.

I frequently get ‘no information’ or the wrong information on my TV guide. Why is this?
This is unusual but there are a number of possible reasons. Some set top boxes can be quite slow in building up the full on-screen TV guide. Most can do it within a few minutes but others can take an hour or more and some never seem to manage it at all. In our tests we highlight those which have this problem. In these cases it is usually the programmes several days ahead that are affected most and so they may display ‘no information’ message.

Another reason for a message such as “no information” appearing on a particular channel could simply be because that broadcaster has not supplied the information to the producers of the programme guide. Also some channels are not ‘on the air’ all day so they will not have any programme information for these times. However, they usually still show a message on the guide saying ‘closedown’ or simply showing the channel name.

A TV guide can show ‘wrong’ information very occasionally. We noted one guide where the channels and programme details got ‘out of step’ if you scrolled round the whole guide back to the start. A simple ‘exit EPG’ and ‘back’ solved this. Others may show wrong time information for some days at around the time when the clocks go forward or back.