BBC iplayer on Sony BD player

[DavidRoylance]

Hi all

I have a Sony blu ray player. BBC iplayer sits on it as one of the apps. I am unable to add any apps to the player.

As of 2 nights ago the iplayer is "offline" and unable to play. All other streaming apps work just fine and the internet settings are all fine.

I can delete it but I wouldn't be able to add it again.

Any thoughts how I can rescue iplayer?

I have turned it off and on again. No change.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

First off, what player do you have? Is it a recent or older model. I understand you're in the UK since BBC iPlayer is only offered there and the American Sony units don't have it.

I suspect that your player is part of an old model range that had apps like PV and such discontinued and no longer function on it. Also, AFAIK you can't add apps on the BD and UHD players unlike ATV and Rokus.

Best bet would be to purchase a dedicated streaming device which lets you add apps and gets updates. If you must have them on a BD player (like I do with Prime Video on my Sony UBP-X800) I'd suggest getting the latest Sony one and they don't run very much nowadays.

[Poptique]

I have a BDP S6700 - so a nearly 10 year old model that seems to more or less mirror a PS3 in terms of menus and navigation.

We also have the same issue - for about a week now the player was saying 'application offline, please try again later' - so I went to the app menus and iPlayer was still among the options, so I thought it was worth trying a reinstall.

Sure enough, the app button has now disappeared completely, so it looks like there's zero chance of iPlayer being workable on the player again....

Being that the BBC discontinued iPlayer on the PS3 a few years back, and although the app on this system was recently working, but VERY laggy, I wonder if it's simply reached end-of-life support.

Clearly, deleting the app with the intention of reinstalling it was a bad move - since there's no option to bring it back now....

But - any ray of light anyone can offer would be good!

[ashropshirelad]

I posted on this yesterday but I've since discovered (through looking at other newbies' posts) that an undocumented feature of this forum is that newbie posts with links in get referred automatically for moderation and the latter can take days. Hence, I'm trying again without links to the BBC's website in the hope that people see this sooner rather than later (I guess my original post might pop up at some future point).

iPlayer was working fine on the BDP until 1st October when I started getting the message referred to above. Other services (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime) are all still working OK. Nothing had changed from my perspective, but I restarted the device and also rebooted my broadband router, neither of which made any difference. I can still access iPlayer through this router via my M$ laptop (although I daresay it connects to a different iPlayer version/port when it reaches the backend servers) so the router seems an unlikely source of the problem. Service updates to the BDP device are few and far between, and the last one was many weeks ago (it's not as though there are many services remaining on it).

More likely to my mind is that the BBC has made a change to iPlayer that has inadvertently caused the BDP to stop 'seeing' the service, one would guess in the realm of the initial handshake, so perhaps a timing/timeout or (logical) port issue. I don't think this is deliberate: the BBC's site is clear that this device is still officially supported (although it does state that some other contemporaneous Sony BDPs are not, e.g. UBP-X700/800).

I've logged a problem report through the BBC iPlayer Support webform a few days ago (I haven't heard back). However, if only I do this, it risks being dismissed as a 'dumb user' issue, so I would encourage all others affected to do likewise. If you want to cross-reference my report, so that the linkage is more explicit, feel free to cite the reference I was given: CAS-7936349-M8C2K5.

IIRC, the iPlayer service disappeared from this device a few years ago for about a week. A service update on the device reinstated it on that occasion, which suggested it was a Sony issue rather than a BBC one (I haven't attempted to contact Sony thus far, because I don't think it is the source of the problem, but it might be able to bring pressure to bear on the Beeb so worth considering in due course). If and when the problem gets fixed, I would expect the service to reappear on the device at some point, even if you've caused it to appear 'deleted' in the meantime.

I trust this helps...

[Hal18ut]

I lost iPlayer on my BDP-S6700 at the beginning of October. I contacted Sony, they were as helpful as they could be, but told me it was down to the App provider (BBC) and to contact them. I contacted the BBC and still haven't heard anything back.

However... I had an App Update pop up on the player Home page tonight, and the iPlayer app is back. Check your player and hopefully yours will be too.

[ashropshirelad]

The Update Services option has appeared (it wasn't there a couple of hours ago) and has restored iPlayer. Yay.

For the record, the initial response from the BBC was 'it's a supported device but it's not our problem; contact Sony'. I pointed out that it was almost certainly the BBC that caused the problem so that, even if the BBC's arrangement with Sony meant the latter was required to make compensatory adjustments, it would need to know what the BBC engineers had changed on or immediately before October 1st in order to do so. No further intelligent response was received, but I guess it might have prompted someone at the BBC to do a bit more homework and perhaps have a conversation with Sony.

In the interim, with guests coming to stay who would likely want to watch iPlayer, I purchased a FireTV stick from Amazon for £17, using the last remaining HDMI port on my ancient Panasonic TV and introducing a most unwelcome fourth remote control into matters, so at least that can be retired for the time being (impressive as it is).