BT Box not working

[Yasmin1231]

Hello, I am wondering if anyone can help, at home we have a G4 box, we've had it for quite a few years, and we've had problems since last night. Last night the box was showing the blue light that it was on, but there was no picture and the TV was saying "no signal". I turned it off and then on again twice, and after about five minutes, the light on the box went from blue to purple, and then I could turn it on with the remote, and the picture came back as normal.

This morning, I came down to the box and it had the red light on. I've tried turning it off and on several times, but what worked last night is no longer working. Every time I turn it off and on, the box starts with a red light and then progresses to the blue light which usually means the box is on, there's just no picture on the TV, and the TV says "no signal".

A bit of background, I live with my father who has dementia, and he is very reliant on the box as he is housebound, he enjoys watching BT sport all day, and over the years we've built up a series of recordings which I put on for him every evening, watching these not only keeps him calm and stops him from becoming distressed, it also the only thing that stops him leaving the house and going wandering.

This box is so crucial to his everyday life, and I have no idea what to do now.
Today has been so difficult because he's been constantly getting distressed, and has tried to leave the house several times, which is so scary because he will just walk into the road and he can also never find his way home. I am staying in with him until I can work out what to do, but I am desperate for a solution, if anyone has any ideas of what could help I would be so grateful.

I also want to explain that we are trapped in quite a difficult position with BT.
Our 24 month contract ran out on 1 November, and I tried to renew it online but was only given the option to upgrade. The reason I needed to renew and keep all the same equipment, is because my father hoards a lot and now there are piles of stuff all over the downstairs room of the house, and I physically cannot reach the router, I can just about reach the TV box and thats it. My father lives, eats and sleeps in that room, so he's always there and won't let me touch of move anything. He also has a scary temper and I live with him, so I don't have anywhere else to go when he gets angry.
I tried calling the phoneline for vulnerable customers a few weeks ago when our contract was about to run out, and they said that when our contract runs out it will turn into a monthly rolling contract, which would have started on 1 November. But there's no way for me to upgrade to get a new BT box, because I was told I would need to upgrade the router as well, and also have an engineer come and do something to our phoneline sockets. I can only get near the TV box, and I cannot get anywhere near our current router or the internet sockets.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Yasmin1231 

Welcome to the community.

I completely understand your need to get this sorted as soon as possible.

Could you try and follow these steps to try and get it working?

1. Switch the box off and then back on again. A red light should appear on the front panel.
2. Press and hold the down arrow button on top of your box for five seconds until you see 'Enter Maintenance Mode Y/N' at the bottom of the screen. When you see this, press the standby/power button.
3. After a few seconds you'll see the 'Maintenance Mode' menu. Choose and select Factory reset, keep recordings using the arrow buttons. This option will allow you to keep your recordings, scheduled recordings and any personal settings you've made to favourites and playlists.

If it still isn't working, it may be worth calling that vulnerable number so that everything can be checked from our side to make sure it's still set up correctly.

Chris

[Yasmin1231]

@Christopher_G 

Hi Christopher, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I followed your instructions and found that every time I got to the screen which said 'Enter Maintenance Mode Y/N', the box would freeze and I wouldn't be able to select it, or go any further. I will call the vulnerable customer number again and see if they can do anything, thanks again, I really appreciate your help.

[Katie_B]

Hello @Yasmin1231. 

Thanks so much for getting back to us. 

Please keep us updated following your call. 

Katie

[chrisjp]

If BT won't just replace your faulty box, then you could buy an independent non-BT box such as the Manhatten T-4R (if you can afford it (about £170 and up)). This will connect to the WiFi from your existing router without any need for modifications. Of course this won't recover the recordings on your existing BT box and, if this box has failed, they may unfortunately be lost.

[Yasmin1231]

@Katie_B @Christopher_G @chrisjp 

Thanks again for your help and suggestions, I had a call with BT on Friday, and I explained the difficulties of my situation with them. They couldn't communicate or send commands to the box from their computers, so their suggestion was to send us a new box, but the same box that we currently have, to avoid the problem of needing to upgrade the router if we got a newer box.
The service was so efficient as the box was posted out on Friday night and it arrived this afternoon. I had throught we were getting a replacement of the same box but it has arrived and the back of the box is different to ours, it has no scart socket, which our current box has, and is how we connect our current box to the television. It only has a HDMI socket, which our television does not have. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions of how we could connect it to our television, thank you again in advance!

[Midnight_Voice]

@Yasmin1231 

Yes, they have sent you the excellent DTR-T4000, but only the earlier, and now rather underpowered, DTR-T2xxxs had SCART.

But do you know the make and model of your TV?

It would have to be incredibly old not to have HDMI sockets, though they weren’t always called that on the early ones.

Maybe we can find one on it for you….

[Yasmin1231]

@Midnight_Voice 

Hello, thank you so much for your reply and explaining the differences between the old and new box, I really appreciate it.
We have a Sony television that's about 25 years old, I'm sorry that I don't know the exact model. We've kept it for so long as my father can still remember how to operate it, he is confident turning it on and using the remote, which is a huge plus given his dementia. It gives him a degree of independence as he doesn't need to rely on anyone else to help him watch television. However, it only has a scart connection on the back, and I am not sure if there's any way to connect a HDMI box to a scart television, I would be so grateful for any suggestions, thank you in advance.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Yasmin1231 

Amazon have HDMI to SCART converters, about £7- £12, which shouldn’t break the bank.

I can’t recommend any particular one, as I have no experience of them, but one without a separate power cable, which some of them have, would be more convenient.

Unforgivably, Amazon just mix up HDMI to SCART and SCART to HDMI solutions there, and as most are not bidirectional, and you don’t need to pay for bidirectional, make doubly sure you order a 

HDMI to SCART 

cable, and not the other way round!

Also, make sure in Settings (the little gear wheel top right)/Picture & Sound, that HDMI Display is set to 1080p and not either of the UHD settings. There’s little enough UHD out there, but if there is any, your old TV won’t be able to cope; setting 1080p means that even if you get any UHD programmes, the box will bust them down to 1080p so it can cope.

The converter cable should bust 1080p down even further if the TV needs it; but if it doesn’t, you can drop to 1080i or 720p in the YouView box Settings. But don’t worry about that unless you get issues, in which case we are here to help further.

[edbostan]

You can buy scart to hdmi converter leads of amazon