TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

[Inspector Sands]

This is going to be one of the threads I'll miss the most (although not the posts that are just descriptions of when something went black for a few seconds, or when the graphics were missing on a music channel!)

And in all this time one massive breakdown that I caused once hasn't materialised.... I don't know if I am glad or not about that 

[Markymark]

If it's confession time, yours truly blacked out This Morning for 45 seconds in the 90s, caused the failure of commentary circuits at the 1993 Winter Olympics for 6 European broadcasters, and caused the entire terrestrial analogue transmitter network of a European PSB to shut down (fortunately in the middle of the night). Only the last one was during the internet forum age, and I've never found any mention on line of it. Next day I did notice on my hotel room telly that the Teletext clock was still frozen at the presise moment I'd broken the outgoing line connection. Ooops.

[Larry the Loafer]

Nobody taking this opportunity to admit to watching porn during Richard Littlejohn's show on LWT in 1995?

[BBC TV Centre]

I wonder if this ever happens these days in the CTA of any station? This image has floated around the internet for years...

[Mateus Honrado]

Sky 1 technical fault from May 24, 2010.
https://youtu.be/ns7t97IBwt0

[Markymark]

I wonder if this ever happens these days in the CTA of any station? This image has floated around the internet for years...

Some fans failing to cool some kit in a Cable & Wireless switching centre in Leicestershire triggered this chain reaction of catastrophe for BBC Radio in 2007

https://www.lamont.me.uk/broadcast/

[bbctvtechop]

While (to my knowledge) I haven't caused any breakdowns personally, the faulty computer which took out the whole of the BBC's BNCS (circuit switching) system in October 2018 was in the gallery I was working in.

That incident caused many problems for all the news TV and radio networks getting up outside sources, as well as locked all national and global TV and radio channels into the studios they were in at the moment of the fault with no way to transfer output to a different studio or come off air. Also triggered the infamous "police escort" for Fiona Bruce to do the News at 6 from Millbank.

I don't know if the cause was ever made public so I won't reveal just in case, but it was a very, very minor issue inside one PC (which happened to be inside the gallery I was working in, but could have been anywhere) which bought down the entire network, and the only resolution was to power down that PC and replace something in it.

[Inspector Sands]

I remember that. Thankfully it was just one of the BBCs BNCS systems albeit one of the most important ones. The others didn't have the same issue

I've taken a few things off air, but have got stuff back a lot more often. There's been a few times I've taken a delighted interest in a breakdown slide I've spotted on a monitor stack.... and then realised that it was one of the programmes I was looking after 

[Nathan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqXiaSVpLQo
What on earth is going on here?

[BBC TV Centre]

I wonder if this ever happens these days in the CTA of any station? This image has floated around the internet for years...

Some fans failing to cool some kit in a Cable & Wireless switching centre in Leicestershire triggered this chain reaction of catastrophe for BBC Radio in 2007

https://www.lamont.me.uk/broadcast/

Ah yes, I remember that incident! I'm also curious to know if there were any such incidents during the recent heatwave, I did notice some occasional audio dropouts on Radio 2 but I'm not sure if it was the ropey radio in my car.

[Inspector Sands]

Not as far as I know. The BBC put in a restriction on non essential work going in in their main equipment rooms during the really hot days just to make sure there was no extra pressure on the cooling systems.

Cooling is the unsung hero of broadcast and IT in general.... and something that has caused many am issue/outage

[Transmission]

I believe something did happen during the recent heatwave with ITV, but AFAIK it didn't impact much air. Of course ITN also had issues.

[Lewis]

I’ve not had chance to browse TVLF over the past few months, and have only just found out about the closure. I’m glad you’ve all enjoyed this topic as much as I do.

[commseng]

OK, I will confess to something many years ago, when fortunately the internet did not exist, so I doubt anyone would be aware of this.
I removed the U Link feeding BBC 2 to the Rowridge transmitter and therefore the south coast area of England (for good reasons due to engineering works) but forgot to restore it before I left for the night.

The next scheduled transmission was the Open University which was before the early shift the following day arrived in London Switching Centre.

It did require the OU programmes to be repeated, and/or VHS cassettes sent out.

I suspect that would have been around 1989.

Not my finest hour.

[Aplus1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqXiaSVpLQo
What on earth is going on here?

At a guess, incorrect time codes for the media segments, causing playout to restart from 0 each time there would otherwise have been a segment break.