cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Anonymous User
Not applicable

NowTV worked fine a few months ago but now it's unwatchable, example inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMPrIazV7ug

I am experiencing a strange bug where the stream runs at super speed before catching up to live TV and buffering for a few seconds, to then repeat over and over. Link above.

NowTV official support were completely useless.

Has anyone experienced this? I couldn't find anyone with the same problem by searching myself.

  • PC
9 REPLIES 9
gavs82008
Legend 5
Legend 5

@Anonymous User 

A few things can be causing the issue

  1. What device are you using?
  2. What is your internet speed?
  3. Is the device connected by cable or WiFi?

One thing I have noticed, even though Netflix/Amazon/iPlayer works fine on "slow" broadband, to get an uninterrupted performance it is best to have at least Fibre speed. 

Have to say I have never used a PC/Laptop to watch Now TV, but I have found that Roku Stick or better yet Samsung/LG TV with the app works without too many issues. 

 

 

FYI that I do not work for NOW, just a NOW customer trying to help
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I use a Roku stick in one room and a NowTV stick in another and both of those work almost flawlessly.

My issue is on PC, as said above it originally worked fine until about 2 months ago where this weird bug appeared and it gives no performance options for me to try change anything.

I do not believe this to be a network problem.
To answer your questions though:

1. NowTV Player executable on Windows 10.
2. My internet speed is around 50Mb/s, basic Fibre.
3. It is connected direct via cable.

gavs82008
Legend 5
Legend 5

Thanks for the info. 

 

That is a strange one as I would always recommend connection via cable and having Fibre if possible. 

Might sound daft, but have you tried to uninstall and reinstall the app/player?

Sorry not in the know how of the PC side as I don't own one. 

 

My assumption would now be an issue with the app on PC. I know its a pain, but always worth going onto Live Chat, they might be able to either confirm or raise it as a fault to get the app/player updated.

https://help.nowtv.com/get-in-touch

 

1. NOW TV account & payments

2. Cancelling or renewing NOW TV Passes

3. Drop down 'How to get in touch'

4. Live Chat

FYI that I do not work for NOW, just a NOW customer trying to help
Anonymous User
Not applicable

Thanks for taking the time to answer, but I've already tried all that.

I spent 45 minutes on the live chat yesterday until they basically gave up and said uninstall it again and restart your computer (Thus ending the live chat, as they had nowhere to go next it seems).

The strangest part is that I can find no-one else with the same issue.

gavs82008
Legend 5
Legend 5

@Anonymous User 

Not a problem, sorry I couldn't be much more help.

 

@RoyB Not sure if this is something you are familiar with or maybe able to help out?

FYI that I do not work for NOW, just a NOW customer trying to help
RoyB
Legend

@gavs82008 @Anonymous User 

 

Excellent video capture Mark, shows the issue very clearly.

 

I’ve never seen this; I’ve seen buffering on the BBC iPlayer (this was not on my NowTV Stick), but when the buffering was over, it carried on at normal speed, albeit getting further and further behind time now as it went.

 

This at least does not do that, and would be a good strategy for the odd buffering, but this never recovers.

 

So I’d tend to separate it into the high speed catch up (good) and the buffering (bad).

 

So the next thing to know is what your computer thinks the internet speed is, by measuring it with an app on there.

 

It would also be useful to know if any other streaming services do this; try the BBC iPlayer, on Best quality, to see how that looks.

 

Also a few details of the computer; CPU speed, RAM, disc speed and capacity, OS version, and so on. The free Speccy app will tell you all this.

 

There are two separate NowTV approaches on Windows 10, though, the Browser/Player combination, and the Now TV app from the Microsoft Store.

 

In general, for anyone with problems with the one, Windows debugging being a black art, I suggest they try the other, and see if that is better 😛

 

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable
Thanks for your input.

Results:

PING: 13ms
DOWNLOAD: 34.59Mbps
UPLOAD: 29.94Mbps

BBC iPlayer streams perfectly with no buffering on highest settings, tested for 10 minutes.

Copy and pasted from Speccy:

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU: Intel Core i5 4690K @ 3.50GHz 28 °C (Haswell 22nm Technology)

RAM: 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (9-10-9-26)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. H81M-S2H (SOCKET 0) 32 °C

Graphics:
ZOWIE XL LCD (1920x1080@144Hz)
BenQ RL2455 (1920x1080@60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Gigabyte)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (ASUStek Computer Inc) 54 °C
ForceWare version: 430.64
SLI Disabled
 
Storage:
1397GB SAMSUNG HD154UI (SATA ) 21 °C
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA ) 27 °C
 
Optical Drives: No optical disk drives detected
 
Audio: High Definition Audio Device

On a final note, I downloaded the NowTV App from the Windows App Store but for some reason I can not even log in on there, it just gives me the error 'Something's Not Right, Give it a moment, or check NowTV.com/status for updates'.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I've come with a small update on this problem as I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction of what could be causing it.

I got bogged down with work and kicked it aside for a month and accepted it wasn't going to work on my PC anymore. However in the past week I have been using it and it worked perfectly.

Although why it worked wasn't explainable, here comes the even stranger part;

My PC cut out (crashed or lost power) and restarted twice within a 15 minute period yesterday and since then the same exact problem is back. Does anyone have an idea what might have changed during those reboots?

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Another update:

With no other user seemingly reporting a similar problem I have been investigating this solo and have made a breakthrough, I believe.

I saw in the 'wait chain' via Task Manager that NowTV Player was waiting on svchost.exe, specifically 'Audiosrv' (Windows Audio) for some reason.
A few seconds after disabling 'NVIDIA High Definition Audio' in Device Manager, the player started playing audio, and about 20 seconds later the stream latency stabilised. Enabling it again straight after this made no difference and the stream remained fully functioning.

It seems the app is trying to use an audio device which is not actually in use by the PC, and the no doubt over complicated security built-in to NowTV interfered to prevent the stream working.

Again I'm not 100% on the specific cause, but at least I've found a work-around.
I will still be looking for an even simpler work-around and possibly even a full solution. 

Hopefully this thread can help another user out in the future!

Thanks everyone.