Foxtel Interrupts Prime Time

Foxtel customers around the country had their service interrupted for up to 30 minutes during prime time last night because the company chose an inopportune time to push through a software update.

The pay TV operator confirmed that it sent a software update to subscribers set-top boxes around 9:12pm last night, which users reported interrupted viewing for between 15 minutes and half an hour.

Foxtel said the interruption last only five to eight minutes.

Customers complained of missing large portions of their prime time shows and Foxtel iQ subscribers who had scheduled recordings during that time lost them completely. Users were either greeted with a message saying the service was updating or a blank screen.

Some Foxtel iQ users said they lost their settings to automatically record a series whenever new episodes aired.

"Due to a system issue last night subscribers service was temporarily affected by a software update," a Foxtel spokeswoman said.

"This meant subscribers may have needed to come out of standby mode on their set-top unit once the update finished to restore service. We apologise for any inconvenience."

IT worker Gavin Adams was watching Dexter with his wife last night when the show suddenly cut out about two-thirds of the way through.

"Foxtel do system updates on the set-top box devices, but the expectation is that theyre normally done between two or four in the morning or the wee hours where youre not really affecting the majority of customers," Adams said.

"The main thing is that it certainly wasnt advertised or anything like that as being an urgent update required, and then to do it nationwide at a quarter past nine when everyone is watching their shows in prime time, I think thats what irked a lot of people."

Meanwhile, Foxtel is preparing to launch its high-definition channels and new iQ2 HD set-top box, which will have 320GB of storage, by the middle of this year.

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