FreeviewWe reminded you to retune your Freeview box yesterday but it turns out the process was not as simple or as seamless as it should have been for some people. Freeview’s phonelines are in meltdown with complaints from cheesed-off consumers.

The great Freeview retune was to allow more homes to get Five and push the system a little closer to Freeview HD roll out.

However, the change seems to have led to over 460,000 households losing access to ITV3 and ITV4 instead.

Now, you could argue that losing ITV3 and ITV4 is hardly the worst thing that could happen to you but it turns out many people are furious.

A Freeview spokesperson told the BBC that viewers with problems should “try again”. Hmmm…very helpful.

Don’t waste time trying to call Freeview for at least a couple of days. The organisation says it’s been receiving around 200 calls per minute and has stopped accepting calls due to “high call volumes”. You don’t say.

Did the great Freeview retune mean you lost ITV3 and ITV4? Let us know what problems you’ve had  (if any) and whether you’re that fussed about getting Five in the first place.

Out now | £free | Freeview (via BBC)

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  • David

    I live in Hertfordshire and until yesterday could get the full range of digital channels, including 5 and ITV 3 and 4. Now I have lost ITV 3 and 4. What a shambles!

  • Mike Perkins

    We have lost the EPG feature of our Pace freeview box!!! Another farce.

  • CJ84

    The first time I tried re-tuning my HUMAX PVR-9300T it got very confused! A second attempt sorted everything out. What kind of problems is the digital switchover going to generate!?

    • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

      I share the same fear… all the old legacy boxes are going to go haywire!

  • Nick B

    I’ve lost ITV3 and 4 … Am in Kingston upon Thames and have had no problems until today,

    These ITV channels are used heavily for football matches, therefore I’m quite peeved to have lost them. I am running a Humax digital recorder.

  • adam

    Our freeview box now has channel 5 listed as channel 800 with no way of changing it.

  • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Joe Minihane

    I don’t have freeview, but I’m tempted to dig out my old box and see what’s what. It sounds like there’s been a colossal failure here. Keep us posted on any other developments and we’ll try and get some questions to the right people. Plus if I lost ITV3, how would I watch Quincy?!

  • Stuart Hay

    Lost ITV4. I wouldn’t mind – but I already had Five.
    ITV4 is mostly crap – but it does have the Tour De France, which I watch.

  • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

    I’ve got Freeview, but I’ve only just stepped in the door so I’ve not turned the tellie on yet. All of this confusion and mucking up for QUEST! Well, and Freeview HD longer down the line. I’ll let you know what happens.

  • pointless retune

    The more they tinker the more they break it :<.

    I already had Five and now the retune has caused a loss of ITV4… stupid halfarsed tech…. still waiting to get Film4, never had it :<

  • Chris Wyeth

    I live in Weymouth and have lost ITV3 and ITV4. This is the latest fiasco involving the great digital changeover in this area. We do not receive the full range of programs ( about 21) because of the transmitter capability. This also means that we cannot get any top-up-tv programs especially espn sports because the channel numbers are out of sync with the rest of the country! we should have a reduced licence fee.

  • Nick B

    I did a factory reset on my Humax and then rescanned. All seems fine with ITV3 & ITV4 returning.

    • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

      Good thinking Nick! My telly went a bit barmy after the re-tune, but a “restore default settings” fixed it completely.

      • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

        Does a factory reset on some options wipe hard disk Freeview boxes? Has anyone’s library been affected by the retune? I’m unscathed but wouldn’t be surprised if one manufacturer’s software forced this. Let us know if you’ve been hit.

        • Miles

          I had Five, ITV3&4 before the retune, but then lost ITV3&4 after retuning my box – I live in Newcastle. I’ll did a factory reset and retune today on my HUMAX PVR and the channels came back. This will not wipe your recorded programmes, but will reset the “soft” settings (e.g default volume level etc.) It may also clean your recording schedule, so you’ll have to set-up your favourite programmes to record again.

          • JC

            Thanks for this Miles. I was browsing various forums, as I had lost ITV3 (despite retuning several times), but the factory reset (which I was nervous of doing before reading your post) worked a treat. Just need to set up my schedule of programmes to record now (as you suggested might need to be done), but everythnig on my hard drive is still there.

            Thanks again.

  • sasha

    Had Channel 5 anyway but have now lost ITV3 and 4. Not too happy with the usual shambles. An apology would have been nice but of course this is broken Britain and their attitiude is they simply do not care.

    • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

      I’ve just retuned one of mine now with absolutely no problems luckily, but it’s clear it’s affecting certain brands and boxes so keep the feedback coming, we’re looking into how widespread it is.

  • Mandy

    Retuned OK but lost ITV3 and ITV4. As we don’t watch Five anyway but use ITV4 for the British Touring Car coverage (the last races are this Sunday to decide the Championship, an 50 min catch up programme on ITV doesn’t do it for us) we are extemely annoyed. Another farce.

  • Kate Preston

    I retuned mu UMC L22 tv and it appeared to work ok. Later, after it had been switched off for a while, all I get is a blue screen with a “no signal” message.

  • Mike

    We are in West Northumberland, the area went completely digital during June and July. We then got Channel 5, and ITV3 and 4, among others, now we have no ITV3 or 4 on any of our TV’s, not at all happy with this. What we have got now is ITV2+1. BBC still freezes up. Freeview top boxes are Phillips, Grundig and Digihome, (whatever we could lay our hands on) new Digi TV is a Technika, all bought since May this year.

  • Vic Lanser

    Yes, lost ITV3 and 4, in central London. Wife furious. Will try restore to default, but scared to lose everything else!

  • wendy

    Lost 5, so retuned as instructed and now lost everything! No it’s not my box, it’s their fiddling with stuff and not caring about the consequences on us. I agree with Sasha – an apology would be nice but it will never be anyone’s fault.

  • Steven

    I live in the Glasgow South area and have lost ITV4, which is a bit annoying as they usually show some of the Champions League games on that channel which meant I could not see the Chelsea game on Wednesday.

  • colin cooper

    have just found itv3 & itv4 on channels 317 & 318.

  • Julia Cleverley

    Hello, We’ve retuned our telly with built in Freeview and all is well with ITV3 and ITV4 however we have now lost Five. We keep trying to retune and we are doing this with and without the Humax being retuned. Any ideas?
    Julia

  • Caroline Freeman-Harte

    I have a Digihome PVR-80 freeview recorder box. I retuned yesterday evening and all appeare fine, but this morning I still had the message come up saying I had to retune, so I retuned it again, and since then, the 7-day EPG won’t update for around half the channels, including ITV3 and ITV4, which worked perfectly OK previously, but it looks like they’ve broken it now as I can’t schedule recordings on half my channels anymore. Didn’t anyone tell them not to fix something that isn’t broken ?

  • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

    Keep the comments pouring in guys. We’re chasing up Freeview for an answer now, as their official website says problems should only affect 0.1% of Freeview boxes. Clearly, someone’s maths is a bit wonky.

  • Dionne

    As advised I tried to retune my TV and ended up losing loads of channels, ITV2, FIVE, FIVER, FIVE USA just to mentione a few. What a shambles, they should have left it alone!

  • Richard Lockwood

    I retuned my elderly, bottom of the range Goodmans box twice in a desperate attempt to lose ITV3 and ITV4 but to no avail. Could someone who’s managed it perhaps tell me how it’s done, or if there’s anyone out there who for some reason wants ITV3 and 4, I’m more than willing to swap boxes.

    • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

      Genius.

  • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

    Has anyone here who lost ITV/5 regained it by defaulting settings? We’re looking into it now but this may be a signal issue as well as a set top box problem. Let us know!

  • Mark

    Since the retune I have found that I can watch channel 5 on 800 but only if the guides up if i click to full page after a few seconds it changes to itv 4,
    Should have left well alone!
    Mark leicestershire

  • Barry

    Wife in uproar, retuned our Goodmans recordable box as required but now have lost QVC plus another couple of channels.
    At least it’s saving me money until we get it back.

  • Jack McDowall

    Have now lost ITV3 and ITV4. If the middle of London is does not have a strong enough signal where does?

  • Adrian

    Oh deep joy! Maybe we should all abandon this nonsense and migrate to freesat. This latest re-tune is a joke, the only channel worth watching these days ITV3 (showing stuff that that was made when we had the ability to make drama programmes)is now unwatchable on all the devices in our house, no proper EPG on the Humax and back to poor quality again on many other channels. Extra channels? Why the hell do we need ‘Gay Rabbit’ when the reception of the important channels has been compromised?. They really thought this one through didn’t they!

  • Rosy March

    Freeview box Thomson DTI 1000 completely dead. Couldn’t get any response from it after 30 Sept, even to retune. No sound, no picture, checked all connections and aerial is OK. Box just fried with the download I suppose. (I know was old and I’d had it some years, but it worked OK before!)

  • David

    Before the retune the box could find about 86 channels, now there are 101. All of the additional ones appear to be of no interest whatsover. Worse, to my great annoyance IT4 has disappeared, not the greatest of channels perhaps but I liked parts of it anyway.

    Channel 5 was already available (in SW Cambs, Sandy Heath transmitter ) and I never watch it. I’m amazed that anyone who’s ever seen the schedules would genuinely want to receive it.

    To sum up: to me, the retune has meant some hassle, some loss and no benefits.

  • Christian Mahvi

    I not only have lost 60 channels of radio and TV, but have to move my aerial to pick up some channels, then move it again to pick up others! And re-tune every time! And even then the slightest movement and the channels are disrupted.

    Are SKY involved? They must be making a mint from this.

    • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

      I’m sure Sky are rubbing their hands with glee. Incidentally, Freesat made a point of highlighting that the re-tune wasn’t needed, and wouldn’t affect their services. It simply seems to be a mishandling or at least a miscommunication on Freeview’s part.

  • Adrian Johnstone

    Same old story I’m afraid, spent hours now resetting & retuning all of our household devices, reception is poor once again and ITV3 amongst others is now unwatchable on the Humax with freezing and pixelation of the image and none or incomplete epg. I think it’s time for us to give up on this stupid idea and migrate to freesat. Recieving signal from Mendip transmitter, with all the required support – rooftop antenna & wall to wall boosters etc. What more do these cretins want us to do?

    • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

      The bottom line is though that there needs to be a base line, easy to use/set up TV standard for the people out there who can’t not just be bothered to install a satellite, but actually don’t know what they are. Everybody loses if you make that difficult, as Freeview has done with this retune, as audiences are lower, advertising is worth less and people have less to do in OAP homes!

  • Ron Scurr

    Having initially lost ITV3 like many people I now find that I can get ITV3 after a subsequent re-tune….but this has led to me losing BBC1,2,3 – and a manual rescan of the correct frequencies on winter Hill transmitter to restore them results in “0 Channels Found” on my Humax 8000T. The help facilities don’t seem to cater for this but nevertheless, I have lost them and I do need help…..anyone with ideas please post them on a forum somewhere?

  • Sean

    To anyone who received five before the 30th , who has lost itv 3 and 4 now, you need to do a RESET of your box and not simply a rescan. This is because some boxes gets ‘confused’ when channels move around in this way.

    Also, to people with issues of signal strength/channels breaking up since the retune, this retune has NOTHING to do with transmission strength at all, it has just moved channels around.
    The issues you are likely to be suffering from is the result of several major transmitters going through engineering works at the moment. ( see http://www.ukfree.tv/txlisteng.php)

  • Sean

    And also, because channels have ‘moved around’ channels that you used to receive with poor signal strength may have swapped with channels that were previously acceptable.

    This issue can only be solved on your part by installing a suitable aerial, or waiting untill switchover.

  • Mary

    I am in London and have an old Philips freeview box. I tried to retune it, even though the headings that came up when I pressed’Menu’ on the remote control were quite different to the ones on the retune guide. Most of the channels seemed OK, but I can’t get ITV3, ITV4 and ITV News, all of which I could get before. The last two I wouldn’t bother with anyway, but sometimes ITV3 has the only decent programme on, especially late at night, so I would really miss it.

  • Glen

    Not a problem at all! . . Retuned all THREE receivers. Apart from a couple of ‘odd’ channel indentifications like ITV being ITV2+1 and 800 with a message saying that five has move no drama at all. Renamed and deleted as appropriate and all fixed.

    I suspect those on low power relays have lost ITV3 & 4 and now have five which is a shame.

    The odd channel named News, with nothing on, is a bit of a strange one though. Perhaps i was just lucky?

    Otherwise I not certain what all the fuss is about?

  • Mark L

    The name “Humax” seems to occur a lot among the complaints.

    No probz here in Hastings with my ageing Goodmans box (which I restored to action a couple of months back after the demise of Setanta, when the Sagem box-with-a-slot demanded to be re-tuned but couldn’t find a signal to re-tune to …)

  • Anne Haigh

    Mendip transmitter, Humax box, loss of ITV3/4 since retuning on downstairs tv. All OK on upstairs tv: Sony with built in freeview, purchased recently. Should I buy a new box to replace the Humax? Admittedly all I ever watched on ITV 4 was the Tour de France.

  • David

    Slight modification to my earlier grumble: I can get ITV4 but it’s now called Yà. I wonder how many other channels are missnamed. What a cock up.

    In any case, I won’t have to miss out on the nth repeat of UFO after all…

    • Tara, Newton Abbot

      We have lost all the BBC channels TV & Radio, More 4, ITV3 & 4, Fiver & Fiver…..and loads more is suspect I can’t remember, but whoopy do we do now have Gayrabbit!!

      I called Freeview to be told it a issue they are aware of, they don’t know what the problem is but if I would like to try and retune again in a couple of days and let them know how I get on??? very blooming rubbish

  • Will

    I have 2 set top boxes. I re-installed them on Thursday. Everything was fine. On Friday however, both sets lost BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC News 24 and CBBC. All other channels work fine, and even other BBC channels (including BBC4 and BBC Red Button) are OK.. I have re-installed both boxes many times since without improvement. I live in North Oxfordshire

  • Tim Fields

    We live on Merseyside and have retuned and now get a very poor S4C on channel 4 and an equally poor CH4 on channel 8

  • Ian W

    Don’t buy a cheap freeview box they said. Pay the extra and get a Grundig. So four years on I find that buttons 1 to 8 don’t get any freeview channels and BBC1 is somewhere in the 800′s.

    Grundig say ‘It’s not our fault it don’t work’. We’re the new Grundig people – only taken over 4 years ago. How good is your German ? . . . Grundig future proof ? ? Don’t think so. What a total Mess . . BBC listen !

  • Neville

    First time install corrected some DigiHome problems. It does not erase recordings but most other settings get lost including future recording details.

    However Five and ITV2+1 (incorrectly named ITV) from Oxford get lost most days and have to be reinstated by an automatic rescan. I have not yet found a way to do this without trashing favorites.

  • chris

    I live in weymouth and lost itv4,i was very much looking forward to the touring car championship finale, so was livid that i didnt get to see it, to make matters worse there was no warning or explaination,will it return? why is there no info?

  • knorrie

    I have also lost ITV4 and like many others here am extremely annoyed about missing the BTCC finale this weekend. It’s the same with all my Freeview TVs hooked up to the main aerial – a Philips IDTV, Philips PVR and the CTX card in my PC. I live in Livingston, tuned to the Blackhill transmitter and get excellent analogue reception and a strong digital signal too. However the portable TV in the kitchen, with a Bush freeview plug-in and a separate amplified aerial, just isn’t working at all now, no matter how I retune it.

    What a farce. I will be both be calling Freeview and sending them a complaint in writing, demanding that they apologise and commit to fixing these issues.

  • Joanne Baker

    We already received channel 5 from Anglia but now lost 10 (ITV) from the London aerial. One almighty cock-up

  • Ian

    Since retuning (haha) my BBC1 disappears every single night and I am fed up to the back teeth with having to run automatic tune daily

  • Mark Budden

    I live in the west country tv area and lost favourite channels ITV 3 and 4 when retuning. I have only gained the pointless ITV2 plus 1 and not the promised quest channel presumably because I am on a relay transmitter. When I went on the Freeview website after retuning it did say that relay customers would lose the channels indicated above, but how many customers would bother looking at that website after switchover. The point I am trying to make is that NO mention was made at the time leading up to switchover that some channels would be lost when retuning at a later date. So basically this amounts to a con by Freeview. What can we do about it? How can we set about putting pressure on freeview to re think?

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