UKTV Play not working – This is why

UKTV Play is a popular video on demand service in the United Kingdom that gives users the ability to catch up on TV programmes from channels such as Dave, Drama and Yesterday.

While these channels perhaps aren’t big enough on their own to have their own streaming/on demand app, together they provide quite a handy service for anyone who enjoys shows on these channels.

The UKTV Play app is available on both iOS and Android devices, and smart televisions. While the app is usually reliable, it does some times encounter issues which can leave users frustrated and annoyed.

In this article we are going to look at the most common problems that mobile users face and and discuss how you can get around them to get the app back up and running.

UKTV Play not working – The most common cause

The most common issue that users face when it comes to the UKTV Play app is the app getting ‘stuck’ on the loading screen.

To get around this problem, you have to effectively ‘reset’ the app to rid it of any bugs that are causing it to glitch. There are a few different ways in which you can do this:

1. Force close down the app. To do this on an iOS device, you need to navigate to your home screen and swipe up from the bottom to bring up a catalogue of every app that you current have running on your phone (get ready to be amazed). You need to find the UKTV Play option and then swipe up on it to force the app to close down. Now go and find the app again and open it up – hopefully it will now be working as normal.
2. Delete the app and reinstall it. If method 1 doesn’t work then you’ll unfortunately have to delete the app and reinstall it. Don’t worry, all your saved data is saved to your UKTV Play account rather than your phone so you won’t lose anything (other than a little bit of time). To delete the app on an iOS device, hold down on the UKTV Play icon on your home screen and then select ‘remove app’. Once you’ve done this, head to the app store and get it reinstalled.
3. Restart your phone. If the first two methods don’t work, then one last roll of the dice would be to restart your phone – this will not only act as a reset of the app but also of your phone just in case there’s any bugs within the operating system causing the app to crash. To restart an iOS device hold down the button on top right hand side of your phone along with one of the volume buttons. Once it’s off, wait 30 seconds and then press the same two buttons again to turn it back on.

In the majority of cases, if you do all three of these things, you’ll be able to get the UKTV Play app working again. This will usually work for the majority of other apps out there too.

Unfortunately in some cases, you may find that none of these three methods gets the job done. The good news is that by updating your phone and app, this is usually enough to get it working again.

Let’s take a look at some other reasons why the app might falter and how to work around them.

Phone updates

Whether it be your phone running on an old operating system or the app running an old version, a lack of updates can be a killer for UKTV Play.

To check that your iOS device is running on the latest operating system head to the settings app on your phone and select ‘General’.

From here, select ‘Software Update’ which will allow you to see if there are any operating system updates that need completing.

You may need to clear some storage from your iPhone to make room for any pending updates and you can also set automatic updates to ‘on’ to ensure these happen automatically in the future.

App updates

If your phone is all up to date then you’ll need to check if the UKTV Play app has any pending updates.

To do this, you need to head to the app store and select your profile icon on the top right hand side of the screen.

Scroll down on your profile and if you have any pending app updates then you will see them here.

Otherwise, this part of the screen will just show you which apps have recently been updated.

To make all app updates automatic, head to the settings app on your phone and select ‘App Store’.

From here you will be able to turn automatic updates on for all your apps with one click of a button.

Again, please ensure you have enough storage space available to deal with these automatic updates.

Conclusion

UKTV Play is a solid enough app that provides its audience with a good service, and is one of the best Freeview apps you can use.

When it goes down, it’s usually easily fixed and we hope that by following our advice above that you can find a way to do just that.

You can also try using Freeview Play is the app is temporarily not working, as Freeview Play has access to UKTV (along with other major TV channel catch up services).

If this article has proven to be useful then feel free to check out our catalogue of other app related articles, from troubleshooting tips and to in-depth reviews.