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Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

us.community.samsung.com

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Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#121

Post by onemoresoop »

gruturo wrote: post #80
grishka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a speaker system. It plays sound. Why could it possibly have AI, tracking, or ad delivery?

> It's a speaker system. It plays sound. Why could it possibly have AI, tracking, or ad delivery? To recognize what you listen to, build a profile, feed it back to Samsung, which will use it in deciding what crap to display on your Samsung TV (and any other devices) associated to the same profile. For all we know it's even listening to your conversation in the room, I mean, it's Samsung - they literally do this: http…

How much benefit could that bring versus burning reputation and losing it all? These companies are so big and powerful but time and time again they keep on forgetting that they can't exist without the users and when users start leaving it's hard to reverse that trend.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#122

Post by gavinsyancey »

bmicraft wrote: post #100
ymyms wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points! As an addendum to this, if #2 becomes untenable for whatever reason (such as a vulnerability in the factory firmware image), then this #3 would be good to strive for as well: 3. have a set of conditions to mark the running firmware image as "safe" and have it become the new fallback firmware image for this scenario. That way you can have a recently up-to-date firmware version constantly trailing the new…

Unfortunate you'd need to weave that all the way through the whole product stack in order not to end up in a state that looks like it's working at first glance but actually isn't doing what it is supposed to - like everything running but not showing an image, or everything running except networking is dead (-> also no further updates possible), or (remote) input devices, etc etc

From the manufacturer's point of view, a sufficient "safe" state is "can receive and apply a firmware update" -- worst case scenario you can always push out a new re-signed and renumbered version of the older working version.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#123

Post by MaxikCZ »

napolux wrote: post #59
eYrKEC2 wrote: post #39

My Samsung TV got more and more unusable with every update. Over the years, saved apps, like Youtube, started to disappear every time it woke up. Then it would default to their Samsung TV app, rather than your last app. Samsung TV app happened to be on the Baywatch channel every time my young children started the stupid thing. Finally, after it took 2 minutes to load the youtube app, I factory-reset the device, disco…

I have a similar experience with my high-end Samsung TV from 2013. The TV itself still works perfectly so I'm not replacing it soon (still 1080p, not 4K, but...), but over time, Samsung has steadily removed key features with each update. When I first bought it, it supported Skype video calls (and now the integrated webcam can't be used at all), IPTV streaming, and various third-party apps — all of which are now gone.…

My experience with LG wasnt any better. Thorough about a year the tv became increasingly unresponsive. You start it, after 30 seconds the sound andpicture appeared, and for about 2 full minutes it would not react to inputs what so ever (except turning off). So if you happen to turn the tv off with higher volume, you could not launch it in the evening without it blasting for 2+ minutes at night. Abhorent

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#124

Post by z3c0 »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #97

Do you guys miss owning things and they were just...yours? Like, you paid money for them and then you had them and you had full control over them and someone half a world away wasn't able to reach into your house and break them or make them do evil things?

A couple days ago, I was thrown by one of my Windows devices pitching an ad for a video game to me in the notifications. I immediately disabled the related setting, which was of course enabled by default. Every device you buy is rigged by default to encourage you to buy more things.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#126

Post by onemoresoop »

ethbr1 wrote: post #52
jakeydus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few things over the past few years have infuriated me as much as tracking and advertising being introduced at the OS level, especially on TVs. I'm looking at you, LG! I will gladly pay more for a TV that doesn't try to advertise Roku's streaming service to me or track my kids' watch history. Seems like they are few and far between, though. The best thing we have been able to come up with is leaving the TV itself disc…

Anyone who uses smart tv features and connects one directly to the internet is insane.

Id extend that to all smart TVs and all 'smart' devices as such.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#127

Post by jerf »

eYrKEC2 wrote: post #39

My Samsung TV got more and more unusable with every update. Over the years, saved apps, like Youtube, started to disappear every time it woke up. Then it would default to their Samsung TV app, rather than your last app. Samsung TV app happened to be on the Baywatch channel every time my young children started the stupid thing. Finally, after it took 2 minutes to load the youtube app, I factory-reset the device, disco…

I pulled my Samsung Smart TV off the network a while ago, precisely because it was getting slower and slower over time. The allegations of spying pushed me over, but the apparent belief that they own my TV would also have done it.

I want a separation between my display device and the thing serving it anyhow, but that's just me in my techie world. The fact that performance got worse with each update, though, that's just over the line for everyone. I mean, if you're going to babble about how you're upgrading my experience, shouldn't you, you know, upgrade my experience instead of constantly downgrading it? My experience gets downgraded, but gee golly, it sure seems like yours is getting upgraded.

Well. It's really not that hard to not plug in the ethernet cable.

My Roku boxes have also had the same trajectory over the years. As time rolls on, they just get slower and slower with each update. Slowly, but surely. How exactly this is accomplished I'm not even sure, it's not like they're overflowing with new features or doing bold new computations for my benefit. They just get a little bit slower every effing time. But at least replacing my Roku boxes is $20-40 now. Hey, sure, OK, a $40 thing probably can't be expected to work 5 years from now. If nothing else, video codecs do march on and specs may exceed what the hardware decoders can handle. OK. My $1000+ TV does not get that grace. It damned well better be able to turn on in less than 30 seconds, even 10 years, 20 years from now. No excuses.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#128

Post by throwawayk7h »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #94
tomstokes wrote: post #18

Two important features I insist on for products I develop: 1. Staged rollout of firmware updates. It’s common practice for apps and software but for some reason it’s less common with firmware. Rolling out to 1% (or less, depending on scale) of devices and waiting a day is cheap insurance. Side note: Build a good relationship with customer service people so you hear about these things immediately. 2. A failsafe firmwa…

> A failsafe firmware reset back to factory state. This doesn't work if your threat model includes denying rollbacks to prevent exploiting bugs in old firmware. I'd love to be able to roll-back firmware on some of my devices to allow me to "jailbreak" them using old firmware. In some cases your newer firmware may be blowing e-fuses that prevent old firmware from functioning. See the Nintendo Switch, for an example. T…

This is a good reason for manufacturers not to deny rollbacks, and a good reason not to have e-fuses.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#129

Post by eckesicle »

eYrKEC2 wrote: post #39

My Samsung TV got more and more unusable with every update. Over the years, saved apps, like Youtube, started to disappear every time it woke up. Then it would default to their Samsung TV app, rather than your last app. Samsung TV app happened to be on the Baywatch channel every time my young children started the stupid thing. Finally, after it took 2 minutes to load the youtube app, I factory-reset the device, disco…

I also had the Baywatch bug. Neo QLED right?

Every time you’d start the tv it’d switch to the Samsung Baywatch 24/7 stream.

So inappropriate for the children.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#130

Post by onemoresoop »

lostdog wrote: post #104
thimabi wrote: post #12

It bothers me that many devices are so easily remotely bricked and that keeping them offline is the only way to avoid such issues. Automated updates were supposed to give us peace of mind instead of having us worried about what bug or enshittification will follow. I’d wager that, for most Internet-connected appliances, keeping them offline or disabling autoupdates have way more pros than cons.

Damaging or removing features should reopen the return window. Then they will be more careful about what they change.

I agree but it's a headache even if you are able to return.
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