Sony Bravia smart TV won't stream iPlayer video

[StewartR]

My mum has a new Sony Bravia smart TV. It works fine except that it won't stream video through the BBC iPlayer app.

It's not a problem with the TV firmware. I've checked and it's up to date.

It's not a problem with the TV's connectivity. It connects to her Wi-Fi quite happily and it will stream video from Demand Five, Amazon Video, etc.

It's not a problem with her Internet connection generally. Speed test shows >10Mb/s download speed and iPlayer works quite happily on her desktop PC and on my phone connected to her Wi-Fi.

It's not that the BBC iplayer app doesn't work at all. It mostly works fine, allowing her to browse and search for programmes. It's just that, when she actually tries to watch something, the app thinks about it for a while - 20-30 seconds typically - and then comes up with an error message:

"Something went wrong loading this programme.
This is usually a temporary problem. You can try this programme again or try a different programme."

Always the same result with the same error message, regardless of which programme is selected. The error code is 02001. I've tried searching for this error code online and I can't work out a definitive diagnosis. I'm seeing hints that suggest it might be something to do with geofencing - as if the iPlayer app thinks this TV isn't in the UK, or something like that. But I can't be sure, and I haven't found any solutions or workarounds.

Any ideas?

 

[StewartR]

PS I know there is an issue whereby some older Sony Bravia models incorporated an old version of the iPlayer app which is no longer supported. That's not the issue here. It's a brand new TV, I've checked the model number on the iPlayer website, and it is definitely supported.

 

[Chappers]

Stuart

Have you tried browsing some of the on line forums: I recently purchased a new 4K TV and did some research which put me off the Sony. According to one review site ( can't remember which one now) They praised the Sony TV quality but were very critical of the Android operating system that worked the " Smart" part of the TV. They said it was a bit "Buggy" . This put me off the Sony and I opted for another Samsung which used the Tizen OS.

Just a thought, does the Soy have an Ethernet connection ?Could you try connecting to the internet that way, jst to rule out the wifi speed being an issue.

Does the Sony have an internet browser? If so try going to the BBC web site and connect to the iPlayer that way. If it works then I would suspect the app

 

[srichards]

Is there somewhere to set her postcode or location within the TV?

 

[StewartR]

Have you tried browsing some of the on line forums

Yes. I've spent about an hour online looking for information about this problem, with no joy.

Just a thought, does the Soy have an Ethernet connection ?Could you try connecting to the internet that way, jst to rule out the wifi speed being an issue.

It's not a Wi-Fi speed issue. Other streaming services work fine on the TV, and my phone is measuring >10Mb/s download speed via the Wi-Fi.

Does the Sony have an internet browser? If so try going to the BBC web site and connect to the iPlayer that way. If it works then I would suspect the app

No it doesn't.

 

[StewartR]

Is there somewhere to set her postcode or location within the TV?

There doesn't seem to be. Within the iPlayer app you can select your BBC region, and I've done that so she can browse through the programmes that were on BBC Wales rather than, say, BBC London. But the TV itself doesn't have any such setting.

*If* this is a geofencing issue, which I suspect but cannot prove, then it's a bit ironic: the TV knows that it is picking up FreeView programmes from the Cardiff transmitter at 881MHz or whatever, but doesn't seem to be able to make use of that information.

 

[srichards]

Or it is something to do with the new thing in iplayer asking about whether you have a tv licence? My humax box asked this when it was first implemented. It's a very recent change so if sony are crap and slow at updates then it may still be missing from their iplayer version so when she tries to play anything it needs to have that question answered before it will work.

 

[StewartR]

Or it is something to do with the new thing in iplayer asking about whether you have a tv licence? My humax box asked this when it was first implemented. It's a very recent change so if sony are crap and slow at updates then it may still be missing from their iplayer version so when she tries to play anything it needs to have that question answered before it will work.

Mmm. Plausible. It's easy to imagine a scenario where the iPlayer server won't stream a programme because it hasn't received confirmation that the user has a TV licence, but the app in the TV doesn't even know that it's supposed to ask.

The error message isn't very helpful, but then I don't know where the text of the error message is generated. If the server sends an error code which the app doesn't recognise, I guess it could easily fall back to displaying a generic "I don't know what went wrong, try again later" message.

The thing is, if this is the reason, it will be affecting *every* Sony smart TV in the UK. You'd think that would spur them into fixing it.

 

[StewartR]

Well, for anyone who's interested, it's sorted. But I'm not really sure how.

My brother spent half an hour on the phone to Sony technical support the other day. The tech guy got him to try various things including pulling out the mains plug while the TV was on (twice!), holding down various buttons whilst switching the set on, and doing a reset to factory settings. And at the end of all that, it just worked. Started up iPlayer, it asked whether he had a TV licence - it hadn't done that before - and it was fine.

The procedure he followed does not seem to have updated or reinstalled the firmware.

So it's a bit frustrating not knowing what the problem actually was, but at least it works now.

Thanks to everyone who tried to help!