@nickewi Thanks heaps for your top advice. It now works fine after 3+months. So good not to have to wade thru adds. 
and thanks to @pshanew and others, if I ever do upgrade PMS, I won’t lose the commercials fn.
Only problem now is I am not game to ever upgrade PMS for fear of losing the commercials skip fn. I wonder if they know it’s broken after 1.18.5.2309.
