OTish. LG TV, iPlayer "crash"

[Jethro_uk]

We are quite happy with our 5 year old 47" LG "smart" TV. Mainly using Amazon/iPlayer and YouTube smart features.

Started watching "Frankie Boyles New World Order" on iPlayer last night. Got a couple if minutes in, the screen froze then the TV did a hard reset and for about 5 minutes, trying to access iPlayer (eventually) bought up a "This service cannot be accessed at this time" message.

After testing YouTube (worked fine) went back and this time iPlayer did fire up. However, it had lost all viewing history, and insisted on the "I have a TV licence" prompt to.

So the question is whether this is a TV failure, or whether the BBC iPlayer feed/app borked somehow and decided to lose it's settings.

On the basis it's happened once before (iPlayer again) and YouTube and Amazon have been rock solid since 2013, I'm inclined to a BBC issue.

I wonder if it's because - unlike Amazon/YouTube - the iPlayer app doesn't need a login as such ?

[John Rumm]

Its likely just an issue with the iPlayer app on that platform...

I have seen similar things happen on different TV. On my LG I have had the Amazon app crash, and just hang at a blank screen, or alternatively behave like it has no internet access. It normally recovers ok when you can persuade it to restart it from scratch properly, rather than attempting to return to the running but broken instance.

On our bedroom TV (Hisense) it will sometimes refuse to run iplayer or youtube with a certificate error. Closer inspection suggests that this results when it fails to get the correct internet time at startup, and hence things the security certificate is out of date (or more likely dated in the future). In that case a cold reboot with the switch on the TV, or a rummage through the menus to reset the time will normally fix that.

Amazon needs a login, and so does youtube if you want it to be able to access the users saved channels etc.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Jethro_uk explained on 07/04/2019 :

My (last years model LG), has never had a problem like that with BBCi. I have sometimes have the program just stop, with the loading data symbol. It then either continues or stops completely, I assume due to server overload.

It also regularly misslays 81 Talking Pictures, always after being switched on and requesting my location information (I have good access to YTV and TTTV). I then need to do a retune to get it back, with another setup of my location info.

[Jethro_uk]

Exactly my point. A local crash is a niggle, as everything you have built up is saved elsewhere under the login. Personally I tend to stack up a load of "watch later" videos from my PC for more comfortable viewing later.

But because iPlayer lacks that feature, a local crash seems to be able to wipe out history/preferences etc.

[Brian Gaff]

All I can say is that the app has been through about three updates in the last three weeks. Not knowing how tvs cope with this, but I'm guessing they have tto download an android version of the new code every time. Could well be that not enough stress testing has been carried out. I was with a developer of the blind versions of soft/hardwre for watching TV accessibly a couple of weeks ago and he said the bbc are a nightmare at the moment as they can't leave anything alone for more than a couple of weeks before it needing a new version. Bah humbug. Brian

[Jethro_uk]

I have get_iPlayer as a backup ...

[Roger Hayter]

Yes, that's an interesting programme. Using it to get something obscure for one of the participants I discovered they put quite a few programmes on the server and index them by name even though they have no intention of ever releasing them on iPlayer or acknowledging their existence on the website.

[Rob Morley]

I have to get a new Virgin Media cable TV box because BBC iPlayer no longer works with the old one (apparently - I rarely use catch-up). So something has definitely changed.