Sky baffled by app outage

Rieko Ioane of New Zealand scores during the 2016 Wellington Sevens match between New Zealand and South Africa. Many Sky Go users missed the game on their app due to an outage. Photo / Getty

Sky Television still doesn't know why the technology behind its app failed, preventing thousands of customers from watching three big sporting events yesterday.

Customers complained on social media on Sunday of being unable to use the SkyGo app - during a time when the Black Caps were playing Pakistan, the rugby Sevens was on in Wellington and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was being screened.

The app allows customers to stream some Sky channels on their phone or tablets when away from their televisions.

Sky CEO John Fellet said more people watched sport on SkyGo on weekdays when at work rather than weekends and around 3000 customers were likely affected by yesterday's outage.

The majority of customers would still have been able to watch sport yesterday's on their computers via Sky's website, Fellet said.

However, the Herald is aware of some customers who could not log onto the website either.

Yesterday's fault is the second big failure within a year for SkyGo, the other being its outage during July's historic All Blacks test against Samoa in Apia.

Fellet said the technology which checks that someone logging into the app was a subscriber failed yesterday.

The company which provides the technology for the SkyGo service was still unable to say why the fault happened, he said.

Problems with the app were resolved around 11 o'clock last night.

Asked if he was confident SkyGo was robust, Fellet said: "I'm never confident, trust me, dealing with technology, but always optimistic."