I have a freeview box, like one of those psi boxes. This make and model is infosat zimple box4 vip.

 

The first channel to go missing was pptv a few months ago however i was able to watch pptv hd on a different channel. Next to go was mcot and all other mcot channels e.g. mcot family. Then this week all the world cup channels have disappeared - tv5, amarin and true4u, along with pptv hd. At first there was just a blank screen, ive messed with the settings a lot and thats now changed to an 'encrypted channel' screen. Im fairly sure that they are not paid-for channels?

 

Ive taken the box apart, checked the connections, spent a long time adding PIDs and trying other satellites to no avail. Anybody had any similar issues? Any ideas how to fix before i give up and buy a new box?

 

Im fairly sure (but not 100%) that its a settings issue not a problem with the dish or cables. Having said that, i've also tried my friend's box which is identical, they live in the same building as me. The same channels are missing...

 

I thougt a hard reset might do the trick but there is no obvious reset button on the box or restore to factory settings option on the menu.

Channel assignments on Sat change over time and require on-line updating, such as supplied by PSI/True/GMMZ.  Perhaps they have stopped providing such updates?  Sometimes you have to turn unit off and start again for an update to be performed.  Or they may have just stopped update service (as believe CTH did when they went bust).

I have the same problem with 2 PSI boxes, strange it happens to the channels that is showing the football. Fortunately I have another source.

I think the channels are encoded with BISS encryption...you can find the codes online and try manually updating...but some boxes just have no way to manually update..they are locked to an over the air "auto update" which expires after a set period then all you can do is buy a new box. [emoji30]

Need to ensure your OTA update is working.  Periodically the OTA frequency changes and this change doesn't get updated properly in your boxes settings which results in OTA channel updates not occurring which means you channels reception settings get outdated and you can't receive certain channels. 

 

When the OTA frequency doesn't automatically get updated properly then then you need to manually go in an change/update the OTA settingss....and then run an OTA to download/install channel setting update.  After that you should be good to go again for automatic updates.  Of course I'm assuming your box has OTA capability.

 

Since you mentioned Ch 9/MCOT disappear take a look at this Infosat video on how to update your box OTA settings.

https://www.infosats.com/content/7937/วิธีแก้ความถี่เก่า-รับชมช่อง-9-ไม่ได้

 

And here's a PDF showing the various OTA setting for various manufacturers/boxes.

OTA Update Frequencies.pdf

So, is your problem fixed now?  That is receiving the channels you couldn't before.