BT Sport on Firestick Champions League Final failure

[VaughanD]

I moved house a few weeks ago and it took a while to get set up with broadband etc. and I haven't had much of a chance to watch BT Sport on my new Sky Glass TV.

Tonight I sat down to watch the UCL final on BT via my Amazon Firestick with my BT Sport Monthly Pass subscription. I watched a preview program from last night then at 7:00 I switched on the live broadcast.  After about 1 second the screen went black but sound continued.  Nothing I tried changed that. 

Eventually I called the support line and waited for about 25 minutes before I got to speak to a support tech.  When I said I was trying to watch on a Firestick he immediately started on the "that's not our issue, you need to contact Amazon" line  but I stopped him and explained that the stick was working and BT Sport was working  just not in the live UCL final broadcast. Then he said he needed to get some advice,  put me on hold for another 10 minutes, before hanging up without speaking to me again. 

So what is the situation?  Was it a technical issue?  Was it because I was trying to watch via a Firestick? Are they contraband? I've watched loads of stuff on BT Sport with the Firestick, so I doubt it?

In the end I watched the cup final by casting to a Chromecast device from my phone with no issues so it can't have been a contractual problem. I'm really stumped. 

If be grateful for any thoughts on this.

[Carlusha]

All 3 footie finals were made available by BT for free! Given you appear to have a Smart TV, you could have watched the whole match and the build-up on YouTube.

[DarrenDev]

That's not an issue I've heard anyone raise so far @VaughanD 

There is a known issue where the screen will flash black for a fraction of a second when video quality changes - this is a bug that was introduced by Amazon in an OS update a few months ago that we're still waiting for them to fix. I've not heard anyone say that it stays black though.

Amazon Fire is our most popular platform, so I would have expected to hear more complaints if others were affected.

Was it only the main event that failed? Did you try watching any other videos or channels?

[VaughanD]

I tried a few other streams. Only Main Event went black and it then stayed that way.

So it sounds like you think that would probably have been a technical issue. The TV is a 55 inch Sky Glass. Maybe something to do with the resolution? 

[DarrenDev]

Yes, that was my next suggestion - so it was only the 4k feed that your TV was struggling with, and only after it jumped up to the 4k resolution. I don't know what could cause that unfortunately.
When you had the black screen, do you remember whether any of the controls appeared over the top of it, e.g. the seek bar or programme name? Or was it completely black until you stopped the video?

[VaughanD]

It was completely black. The BT "Compatibility Checker" has a red X under 4k for devices.  Does this suggest I can't watch BT Sport in 4k on my Sky TV? That would be fine,  but it's there a way of just manually switching it to HD?

[DarrenDev]

Ahh in which case, can you please send me a DM with the BT ID you're logged in with. It shouldn't have even tried showing 4k, so that may not be the issue. I'll check the logs.

[VaughanD]

DM sent thanks Darren