I have had the same, and now three sets of engineer visits. After the second visit they upgraded me to the newest (I think it is called "pro" ) box. This does seem to have fixed the cracking noise. However the hanging and lack of focus for the first few seconds of each program/advert change is still there. This, as others say, does not happen on firestick or smart tv so seems to be isolated to the bt hub. This also did not happen until about last Autumn. I have had bt box for many years prior to this with no problems (when did the EE alliance begin?). The last (third) bt engineer tells me it is normal and I should not expect better. With the high precision high pixel, new led (and other) tech TVs, I assume most customers expectations are very high. I can't believe bt aspire to "just be a bit fuzzy" for a few seconds, but it seems to be so. If I wasn't tied in I would cancel.
