Thousands of owners of high-end Samsung TVs have complained after a software update left their recently acquired $1,800 sets with blank, unusable screens. From a report: The Guardian has been contacted by a number of owners complaining that the TVs they bought -- in some cases just two weeks ago --. Others have been posting furious messages on the company's community boards complaining that their new TVs are no longer working. The company has told customers it is working to fix the problem but so far, seven days on, nothing has been forthcoming. The problem appears to affect the latest models as owners of older Samsung TVs are not reporting the issue. The report doesn't identify the models that have been affected.

Aug 24, 2017. We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused to our customers.' ] The curse of TV software updates has struck again. Unlike most recent update problems, though, this time it's owners of Samsung rather than LG televisions who have been affected. As initially reported by The Guardian, it appears. Samsung’s Gear Fit2 allows users to ‘sweat smarter’ by accurately tracking a wide range of exercises and providing insights to help you take charge of your.

But we scanned the forums and found that at least UE49MU7070, UE49MU7070TXXU, and MU6409 models are affected. What's bizarre is that these devices are all running 'stock' software from the factory. If they test the update at all, it ought to work the same on all of them, no? Then again, you're always hearing about how some iOS or Android update is causing problems for owners of some specific model of phone. Again, if these things are all on stock, shouldn't the update work on all of them?

Maybe for phones it's a matter of various bits of their hardware or firmware only getting exercised if you're on a particular. I own a Samsung smart tv. At first I connected via wifi but then wanted a faster more reliable connection in my apartment sometimes ran a cable and switched to Ethernet. I realized that I wasn't using the smart tv functions so I ditched the Ethernet cable.

Wifi off Ethernet unplugged no big deal. Except I noticed random connections from an unknown MAC address to my wifi router during a router upgrade. So I watched it. It would connect for a day and then disconnect for weeks.

I got curious and enables wifi on my tv again and guess the MAC address that was used. So even in it's wifi off but tv on state it would attempt to connect to wifi. That's when I banned the MAC address on the router. No misc packets for you sneaky tv. Personally I prefer using a roku and hardwiring it to the router. Easy to disconnect, faster speeds for streaming.

What's cool is the crap some older Vizio smart TV's pull. If you allow outbound DNS and NTP but block everything else (so that your TV clock works but it otherwise can't connect anywhere) then the TV assumes you have a full internet connection and proceeds to try to initiate contact with relevant servers. You'd expect this to fail since (since you are blocking these packets) and for it to periodically try again on some reasonable schedule.

Only Vizio in their infinite wisdom decided the appropriate retry was. For my last TV, the 'Smart' TVs were priced far cheaper for the same quality/features than any dumb monitor I could find when on sale. I bought the 'Smart' TV, and tried using it. Blew me away that in 2017 when I can pinch zoom, swipe words, etc., that I was stuck arrowing around with a remote to type anything in any of the apps. What the hell? And once I realized that my TV was also going to start trying to show me ads while using some of the apps, it got disconnected and I picked up a che. There's also another relatively recent trend that plays into this: the idea that updates are always good and should be applied automatically.

It was never the case that this was a safe practice. Updates need to be carefully evaluated before applying them.

The problem is most people don't have the time/inclination/skill to evaluate updates. So the realistic possibilities for most end user devices are either updates get applied automatically or updates never get applied. The former leads to stuff breaking from time to time, the latter leads to unpatched vulnerabilities, incompatibility with updated versions of online services etc. You're putting yourself at the mercy of third parties with your tv. If hulu and pandora decide to change their api and your manufacturer doesn't push an update, because it's more then a year old, then I'll see you back crying about how unfair it is.

Yep, I just had to replace my otherwise fully functional BD player, because Hulu had changed their API, and Sony no longer provided updates for this model. The really sucky thing is that a new shiny 4k BD player lacks a lot of functionality that the cheaper old one had, like analog audio/video out, storing authentication on USB (so when re-playing an already played BD, there's no delay while it contacts the mothership) and an information display. Heck, they've even skimped on the power cable, which can no longer be disconnected/replaced. And I'm sure that after 2 years, firmware/software updates will cease. Consumerism and planned obsolescence at its worst. I'm not sure the saving a port thing flies with any recent TVs. Just how many HDMI ports do you need?

Cable/Satellite, DVD/BD, and Roku/Chromecast/Amazon Stick/AppleTV, and.? I haven't seen a TV in a long while with fewer than three HDMI ports, with an additional DVI if you need it, and a suite of analog (Component, VGA, and RCA) ports. And that's assuming you use the TV's audio. If you have a modern receiver, you'll probably plug everything into the receiver instead, which usually has far more than th. I like my electronic toys. Have a lot of fun playing with them, but why all this integration?

Why have televisions, something that should be nothing but a passive interface for signals to be made visible with, get turned into weird hybrids that have operating systems, computer parts, and memory? Is it a matter of people not understanding what they're getting anymore? Is it a matter of perceived value? Oh, my TV is three hundred dollars more expensive than yours! That must mean it's better.

I like my electronic toys. Have a lot of fun playing with them, but why all this integration?

Why have televisions, something that should be nothing but a passive interface for signals to be made visible with, get turned into weird hybrids that have operating systems, computer parts, and memory? Is it a matter of people not understanding what they're getting anymore? Is it a matter of perceived value? Oh, my TV is three hundred dollars more expensive than yours!

That must mean it's better. I learned long ago you should just stop fucking asking why. Trust me on this. If you do start asking, you stand a very high risk of frying your common sense circuit. 'Why have televisions, something that should be nothing but a passive interface for signals to be made visible with' So, do you limit those signals to baseband video (e.g. Because those are called monitors, not TVs.

Or do you include OTA DTV signals? If you include DTV signals, why would you exclude digital signals received via WiFi or Ethernet?I suspect that more people stream content than get it OTA. Oh, and TVs have had 'operating systems, computer parts, and memory' ever since the switch to DTV. I know we're all nerds here, but most of the market doesn't like having multiple devices & wires to configure. Given a choice between a TV that 'has Netflix on it,' versus attaching and configuring a separate Roku, AppleTV, or Chrome-ish stick, the vast majority of consumers will plug the TV into power, connect to their WiFi, and be much happier than if they'd had to deal with yet another box with yet another remote and more wires. Offering (and choosing to purchase) the integrated model is a rational choice. *Not* offering a plain dumb screen option is annoying to us nerds, but we're kind of a purchasing minority for this stuff.

Inadequate QA on updates and bricking TV's is lousy business, but again it's a minority of customers who are capable of recognizing that the smart TV caused a greater problem than a separate device. Even that is debatable given the number of users who just use streaming at this point. If an update bricked their Roku and left their TV functional but with no available signal to watch. I guess mailing the bricked Roku back for service is easier, and it's cheaper to replace outright, but that's about it. I get that product convergence is a thing and that it can be useful when it happens well.

Maybe it's this time we're living through. I don't remember what it was like when VCRs were first coming out, if there were similar difficulties with their connecting to televisions. I can remember the need to switch to channel 3 before you could watch a tape and flipping the selector box for Ataris before you could play. However, those became a thing.

People learned how to make it work in short order. It wasn't wrapped up in this pseudo-mystical 'only the nerds' can make it work bullshit I continually see being spouted. Was it decided that the public couldn't be counted on to learn to work the TV? Or was it the Boomers again with their constant whine about the pace of life? A lack of other features. At the core of it, there's almost no functional difference for the casual consumer between a Samsung 60' 4K TV and an LG, Sony or (fill in manufacturer here) 60' 4K TV.

There are styling differences and a few other differences that most non-videophiles don't care about all that much, and a few things like HDR that only click for people when they see it for themselves, but for the most part a TV is a TV these days. Pick the size and 1080p or 4K, pick the cheapest price and off yo. I like my electronic toys. Have a lot of fun playing with them, but why all this integration? Why have televisions, something that should be nothing but a passive interface for signals to be made visible with, get turned into weird hybrids that have operating systems, computer parts, and memory?

Bella Kitchen The Grill Griddle Manual. Is it a matter of people not understanding what they're getting anymore? Is it a matter of perceived value? Oh, my TV is three hundred dollars more expensive than yours! That must mean it's better.

TVs have always had tuners in them, they were never pure display devices. In the mid 2000s governments started switching off traditional analog TV in favour of complex compressed digital systems to support more channels and/or free up bandwidth for other uses (TV used a LOT of prime radio spectrum). In the run up to this there was understandably a push to implement digital TV reception in TV sets. That basically meant a computer system with a digital tuner and a MPEG2 decoder. Newer broadcast HDTV standards. The 'right' way to do it (if it must be done) is to have an internal HDMI connection to which you connect an android stick, or whatever, for televisions which have the smart TV option.

There is no need to even use a real HDMI port, you can use something much cheaper like a simple header connector. And then hide that behind a trap door, or at least make it easy to get far enough into the case to replace it.

I know you save a few pence per TV set by putting it all on one PCB, but odds are good that they're going to have to take back these sets and reflash them at service centers via JTAG or similar because they didn't take that route. The guys that had their TV's for 2 weeks or so are in a good position. Just take it back to the retailer. I used to have a special T-shirt I called my 'watching other people work' shirt. It's also useful for watching other people 'just' hump their giant TVs back to the box store way out at the box store urban fringe.

Of course, those who deliberately situate themselves smack dab in the middle of boxurbia have nothing else planned for Saturday in any case. For this class of people, random 'undo' errands are app. To watch Netflix? The idea of a network connected TV doesn't seem that crazy in a world where we have literally hundreds of streaming services to choose from. Updating it is unfortunately necessary if you do this, services change over time.

Building the functionality into the display cuts down on clutter, cables, power plugs, and remotes too. Of course the downside is that even with updates, the hardware eventually goes out of date, probably faster than the display does. The best solution would be some.