Sorry, Now TV is currently unavailable

[Anonymous User]

Hi, it’s saying on my tv screen “ Sorry, Now TV is currently unavailable, please try again later” it’s been like this for a couple of days, tried unplugging both tv and stick but still nothing, I can get it on my iPad, can anyone help please ?

[gavs82008]

@Doesnotwork 

Ditch the stick and get an Amazon fire stick. That’s what I would do. 

Alternatively report it to staff using one of the methods from my signature below.

[Anonymous User]

ive had the same problem now for 1 week on a new smart stick. ive spoken to support live chat and they used a "sorry its happened, well look into it" usual line.  ive tried a normal factory reset both button and settings menu and ive tried the installer menu force download of update and nothing sorts it.  i do have another device i can watch now tv on and they recommend i do that until a solution is found.  I DO HAVE A WORK AROUND FOR MY SCENARIO that may help others.  my nowtv app is missing, tv guide and the home page is also missing so , click back button, this takes you to the app list. click on sky sports news. this start it playing. click back then back again and itll take you to the tv guide. its messy but it works. hopefully they sort it soon.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks, I'll have another look at it, currently using the xbox to watch it.
I emailed them too but again, not much use.

[Tigerlily1]

Was sent a free stick to replace my soon to be out of date box.Great I thought , set it all up and was fine for two days.Now getting the Sorry Now TV is unavailable message every time I try to use.Have done the press reset on the stick and eventually it comes back up.The really infuriating thing is it keeps disconnecting me from all my apps such as BBC I Player and ITV Hub etc so I have to keep going through the whole process of signing in again and entering the activation code.Not happy at all.Have cancelled my Amazon Prime to replace it with the Now TV stick but if if carries on like this may just resubscribe as never had any problems with their stuck which has always worked perfectly.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve had this problem and realised it was down to me using the PiHole ad-blocker. If you use PiHole,  you need to whitelist pubads.g.doubleclick.net

I hope someone finds this useful.

Paul.

[smithbill17]

@Anonymous User  You're a genius sir! I too use Pi-hole on my LAN to block ads and for weeks I've been getting the "NowTV currently unavailable" issue. Their technical support people are idiots.

I whitelisted  pubads.g.doubleclick.net  in Pi-hole and although it didn't seem to work at first, after a couple of reboots everything seems good.

It *really* annoys me that NowTV require end users to allow advertisements or the device simply doesn't work properly! Especially given that the NowTV stick costs £25 and most of the content is paid for too.

UPDATE: actually, after another reboot, it stopped working again.  It looks like you have to whitelist  dpm.demdex.net

[Anonymous User]

I was directed here by @schnapps from a different thread

I can't see why I must disable my Pi-Hole or whitelist some DNS servers to get this app to work on my Roku (Streambar).

1. I don't get the option to opt-out of tracking, regardless if it's for "legitimate purposes" or to "improve the app" (this is a potential GDPR [UK] compliance issue).
   I don't even know what kind of information they are collecting, it is personally identifiable (IP, MAC, Location, etc), need some transparency?
2. Why do I need to get served advertising in the first place, I am paying for the Now (TV) service.

If I don't get an option to opt-out I will just cancel my services with Now, this is unreasonable.

[ABCD]

Omg bro this was it. Randomly selected some ad blocker setting in my Asus router app the other day... Did not join the dots together.

As soon as I read this comment the penny dropped. Fixed. Cheers 

[Anonymous User]

Yep - my Amazon Fire Stick works perfectly too. Trouble is, I can't watch F1 Grand Prix on the Fire Stick - so I am stuck with the wretched NOW TV stick problems.

Did you hear me cursing when I was unable to start the NOW TV system when I switched it on a few mins before the start of one of the recent races?  I don't subscribe to Sky Sports to spend my time getting stressed and trying to get a faulty product to work. I subscribe to watch races and chill out doing that.  I wonder if Trading Standards would be interested to learn that Sky is still selling broken systems ?

Fortunately, I think that NOW TV is still working properly on my mobile phone - but I really don't want to watch motor racing on a six inch screen, when I have NOW TV sticks plugged into large TVs in the lounge and bedroom. #

Sky - are you listening to us all ?

[Anonymous User]

I had this issue...tried software update, factory reset, numerous live chats etc and nothing worked. Eventually worked it out by trial and error. My BT parental controls were blocking the NOW TV app. In my case it was the ‘file sharing’ box I needed to uncheck...i.e unblock for it to work.

Now given this seems to be a common issue, and BT are a widely used ISP you would have thought NOW TV would have identified this as a potential issue following a firmware update...still, hope that helps some of you!