Warning for Future UK Broadband TV Services as Freely Suffers Big Outage UPDATE2
The UK government’s proposed plan to switch-off Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) signals in either 2034 or 2044 as part of a wider change to move toward broadband-based TV streaming (here), such as via the new Freely service, arguably suffered a bit of a reality check last week after that very same service experienced a major outage.
Broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely, which is backed by the major UK broadcasters, is currently said to be an evolution – not yet a replacement – for the existing Freeview platform (inc. Freeview Play and Freesat). But many people do expect this platform, which already has 1 million users, to ultimately play a key role in taking over from DTT signals. The new platform is forecast to be in 10.5 million UK households by 2034, which would overtake Freeview (here).
However, if you were using Freely last week, specifically between Thursday afternoon and Friday evening, then you might have been left a bit confused by what happened and could even still be struggling to recover today. The service appeared to suffer a major outage, which for some users knocked out access to almost all of its channels, except those of the BBC (we don’t know why).
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Users experiencing this issue found themselves being faced with black screens on the impacted channels and an ETV6056 error code, which was followed by a rather generic message.
Freely’s Initial Status Update (Thursday 13th Aug 2026)
We are aware that some viewers are currently experiencing disruption to their viewing and may be seeing the ETV6056 error code. Our team is continuing to actively investigate the issue and working with our partners to restore service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Anybody who went Googling that error code may well have found themselves on the relevant Service Status Announcement (note to Freely: it would be helpful to have a general Service Status page for all such issues), which went through a few changes – initially telling everybody to sit tight. But it was later updated to recommend that those “still experiencing the problem … may need to carry out a factory reset on your device” in order to recover the channels (i.e. the underlying problem was fixed, but not for everyone).
The same page warned that “carrying out a factory reset will delete all data from your TV or Streaming Device. This will include any recordings, login info, and any settings you had saved“, which is of course what usually happens when you do a factory reset on any device. But this is a distinctly more complex, annoying and undesirable approach, especially for pensioners and those with key disabilities, than Freeview’s relative linear simplicity. We can easily imagine some people being stuck with Freely kit and never knowing how to get the lost channels back.
Ideally nobody should have to do a factory reset just to be able to recover the channels that went offline in an outage, they should just come back once that problem is resolved. Clearly Freely has some work to do on either the software or hardware design front in order to avoid this kind of situation reoccurring again in the future.
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Just to add to all this “fun“. The fix that Freely applied is not yet said to be permanent, with the company warning that the “problem may occur again” after the factory reset if you either press ‘Restart‘ on a channel or use a player app (ITVX, My5 and so on). So watching live channels from the TV guide should work normally, but leave those apps you love well alone.. for now. Again, not ideal.
At the time of writing, it’s not known if all Freely supported devices were impacted or only certain kit, although we know that both Netgem’s PLEIO and Manhattan’s Aero 4K TV boxes were both impacted as they confirmed as much. Lest we forget that a lot of other Freely supporting TV’s and some boxes do have aerial / Freeview connectivity as a fallback (until it’s switched off), but neither of those two boxes above do as they’re broadband-only.
In fairness, even digital terrestrial TV services do sometimes suffer partial outages too, most of which occur due to changes in the atmosphere / weather. But there can also be more localised outages too at specific sites from time to time. Suffice to say, no system is perfect, but Freely does need to consider reliability with greater priority if this is to become the nation’s default in the future.
UPDATE 2:03pm
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Freely has informed ISPreview that the problem appears to stem from a “specific third-party software issue” impacting a “limited” number of Freely TV models and devices (so it’s not only streaming boxes). Freely also confirmed that it’s not a broadband or internet reliability problem. “We are currently further investigating the issue with more information for viewers impacted available here: https://www.freely.co.uk/help,” said the provider.
UPDATE 18th Aug 2026 @ 6:50am
Manhattan, which builds the Freely supporting Aero 4K TV box, has now said the “problem that caused some channels to fail on Freely devices from Thursday 13 August has been resolved. The cause was identified and fixed on Monday afternoon, and the problem has not reappeared in our testing since. It was never a fault with your individual Aero: no repair or replacement is needed.”
The company also states that owners of their kit no longer need to avoid ITVX, other player apps, or the Restart button – something Freely initially advised. Despite this, they do still state that anybody who is still seeing the error ETV6056 or black screens on missing channels should perform a factory reset.
Freely has yet to directly confirm that the underlying problem is now fixed.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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In my opinion switching off Freeview completely by 2034 is hopelessly optimistic. It is more likely to be reduced to a single multiplex of the basic channels for a intermediate period.
Why would you say it’s hopelessly optimistic? Since using Freely I’ve found it much more reliable than Freeview, especially in times when they would do maintenance to the transmitters, which could take a month or more.
The difference here is that Freely has been out for the entire country. I’ve never known all of UK TV broadcasting to be knocked out for such an extensive period.
@MrWeebles. I have not used Freeview for a fair few years now, I don’t watch live TV, so no licence. But when I did, I don’t remember having a reliability problem with it. Maybe the signal strength here is better than where you live. There are other issues with Freeview, but here reliability is not one of them or was not one of them.
Freely have to rely on a lot of third party services and devices, the main one being broadband from different companies, then internally, we have routers and other network devices. But if Freely can’t even keep their own service up and running then the whole point of it is Screwed
@Big Dave and those channels will likely be the SD highly compressed ones to force people over…..
The outage seems to be very inconsistent – not affecting all devices in the same way and not even the same over time (But this may be due to fixes being employed.) but the fact that BBC services still functioned may be a good hint as to what did go wrong – and We all deserve a full explanation with timeline.
As for after 2034 – how many can afford the emission or its reception equipment for one Mux (Almost the existing PSB3?) Although Linear TV is dying – all new channel launches are on line – C5 has more FAST than emitted channel by a factor of 2 – and 26% of BBC viewing is on line …… so that a lot has changed and will continue to do so. – over 60% homes PAY for three VOD services and then there is YouTube!
Asking people to do a full factory reset on end user devices kind of says they have had problems with their Data Centre equipment and have had to make major changes to their network configuration to restore service.
It also seems that their “network” isn’t currently built with the required level of resilience people would expect of a service that is ultimately intended to replace Freeview.
I think people need to track down the company that owns Freely and start complaining bitterly.
Looking on Companies House, and I probably should have known this, the company is called Everyone TV Limited, and a 25% share in that company is held by of each of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
I think they all need to put their hands in their pockets immediately to ensure that Freely has the required level of resilience.
There will be also many people would not have a clue how to do that. Some people have their TV installed by who ever delivers it.
Although I do not (yet) stream live TV, an outage like that described makes me think of the 1950’s when broadcasters, at times of failure, put up a pottery wheel and a screen caption about ‘Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible’. At least there was analogue radio to fall back on – usually!
If. This. Will contune. With. Freely. I shall. Be. Moving .to. sky. Tv.
SDo you are moving from a free service to a paid service, just go back to Freeview, reset the TV for Freeview only if you have a Freely TV. Freeview will be around for a fair few years yet.
I think it’s something to do with encryption or DRM (digital rights (mis)mangement) of the streams. Some channels don’t have this and some use thier own system. It is interesting that the BBC was still on, as was Talking Pictures, and many of the minority channels.
Having to factory reset the devices is grossly unacceptable. I have four, and they all went off over the weekend.This morning my wife used the Freely catch up system to watch Emmerdale on ITVx. It broke the device again. So it’s not properly fixed yet.
ETV6056 – oh what a wonderfully useful error code. I presume it’s their “We don’t know what f’ed up” error code because its solutions range from “Check your Internet connection”, to “factory reset your device”, and everything in-between!
https://www.freely.co.uk/help/error-codes/error-code-etv6056
And this is why we need a proper DVB-IP standard.
It’s why we need to keep Freeview and let the people that want to stream carry on. Too many variables with streaming for it to be as consistent as Freeview.
there is one, “DVB-I”, and it is undergoing trials in some other countries, but in the UK they decided to yet again reinvent the wheel on this and go for another proprietary mess. Freeview Play was supposed to be the result of merging Freeview and streaming but none of that equipment supports Freely.
Even more inexplicable is the fact that they don’t have an app for Roku, Apple TV and Android TV or the games consoles that can do video streaming. Why do I need to buy yet another puck for this?
TBH when digital TV was new any outages were pretty slow to be fixed as analogue was the main service..
This is likely the same.
For Freely to work its feeds go through a third‑party middleware layer for a range of things to be done such as ad-insertion – except for BBC feeds. When that third‑party software delivered corrupt data to Freely TVs and streaming devices, this data was rejected or stored in either volatile RAM or persistent flash. Once the middleware bug was fixed and correct data downloaded, a simple reboot of devices which stores in volatile RAM sorted it out but devices using persistent flash stayed broken, remaining locked in the ETV6056 error loop until the factory reset forced a clean slate.
Although the choice of persistent storage is ultimately a device manufacturer’s implementation decision, Everyone TV’s certification process for Freely should ensure that corrupt data is never written to persistent flash and so get stuck there until the user does a factory reset.
What about the Restart and App issues which apparently persisted after a factory reset?
To be fair, its not like TV stations didn’t used to suffer VTR and satellite breakdowns, and transmitter masts collapsing or catching fire…
A failure somewhere is inevitable, but probably shouldn’t happen much. I’ve been using YouTube regularly since 2011, and used it on and off since it started. It was hopelessly unreliable at the start. Nowadays I use it all the time and I am amazed at how reliably it works.
Is there any kind of standardisation with Freely? Or is it all weird proprietary stuff? (I don’t know as I’ve never used it)
Yes their used to be transmission breaks on the old non-IP emitted system but I don’t see Ariqiva asking you to switch off your TV on and off again.
Freely is still in it’s early stages but instead of constant PR puff maybe the focus should be a solid platform that can handle an outage instead the complete collapse of the system.
Transmission as we know is here to stay for now and as much as I use Freesat and Freeview and all the benefits in brings to me for my usage case (before all the picture quality and IP supporters jump
on me) I have to say this is where we are going!
We have a Panasonic w90 43 hard wired by ethernet cable, and no aerial attached. As pensioners we watch a large amount of TV during the day and evening. On the dates quoted I cannot recall any problem with Freely.
We do have a problem with channel 4 nightly between 9 :50 and 10:15 where we lose the broadcast a flick to a neighbouring channel and back again and problem solved
A few months ago my BT broadband suddenly failed while I was using it. I found that my BT landline was also dead (the same copper wire). I was able to call BT on a mobile. They said there was a major national outage and to wait until it was fixed. There was no major media report of this and I still don’t know what happened. It was down for almost two whole days. Freeview, FM radio and DAB were fine. It seems that depending on the internet for everything is putting all your eggs in one basket. Freeview, FM, DAB are three more independent systems as far as I’m aware. It seems incredibly stupid to even think about getting rid of all independent backup systems and relying on a single point of failure. If I got all TV and radio via the internet then I’d have been cut off from all communication – including emergency information – for almost 2 days.
That just leaves mobile. But most 3G and some 2G has already been killed, so you’d better have 4G or 5G devices or else.
Freeview or Freely it matters not to me when the content is so lacking.
the Apps are horrible for live TV delayed and inserting adverts. DVB over IP, multicast, or SRT, broadcasts should replace freeview or freesat.
This is why Freeview and Freesat should be kept on the air even for a basic service with just PSB channels.
I’ve just had this problem after the new software update. Can’t access any channels but BBC 1 and 2. Done a factory reset, but still no channels on my Manhattan aero box. Now thinking of sending it back. Bloody nightmare.