Latest news with #HW-S801D
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Yahoo
Samsung's best Dolby Atmos soundbar is being bricked by a new update – here's what we know so far
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An over-the-air update has "bricked" many Samsung HW-Q990D soundbars The update has been pulled by Samsung It's unclear what those affected can do Owners of Samsung's five-star soundbar, the Samsung HW-Q990D, are having a less than five-star experience right now. In what appears to be a faulty firmware update, many users are reporting huge problems that are effectively turning their Samsung soundbars into little more than long black bricks. If you have a Samsung soundbar and you're not currently affected by this, it would be wise to turn off its auto-update feature (if it has it) for the time being. According to The Verge, the same issues may be affecting the Samsung HW-Q800D and HW-S801D – albeit in significantly smaller numbers so far. So far, all a Samsung spokesperson had to say about the issue is: "Samsung is investigating the cause of the issue, and is taking immediate action to resolve the firmware error." That leaves a lot of unanswered questions, so here's what we know so far. The firmware update, version 1020.7, has rendered some soundbars completely unresponsive: you can turn them on, but they appear to freeze and cannot be adjusted via Samsung's SmartThings app. Right now there's a 31-page (and growing) thread on the Samsung support site, with unhappy owners also turning to AV forums and Reddit. Towards the end of that thread there's a screenshot apparently of a UK Samsung moderator, who says that "we have received feedback from our AV product specialists that this issue is a result of an OTN (Over The Network) software update... the OTN is now suspended, and customers that have updated via USB are not affected." The post continues: "if your issue is the result of an OTN update, then it will be necessary to arrange an engineer's inspection and repair in order to get this resolved." The customer is then asked to contact Samsung support directly. As yet we don't know if that's the only solution, or if there's a way for Samsung to use an OTN update to fix the last one. We've followed up with Samsung to request instructions for those affected as soon as possible. Whatever the fix, this is a bad look for Samsung: this is a soundbar with a launch price of $1,799 / £1,699 / AU$1,995, not some cheap buy from a no-name brand. And as we've seen from the Sonos app disaster, if issues aren't resolved quickly they can do serious damage to brands among the early adopters and big spenders they work so hard to attract. Especially with the Samsung HW-Q990F soundbar that replaces the Q990D due for release in a matter of weeks… Sonos cancels its TV streamer amid the ongoing app issues The best soundbars you can buy 5 cheap soundbars to upgrade your TV audio
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Yahoo
Samsung Q990D flagship soundbar gets firmware update that makes it inoperable
Last week, Samsung released a firmware update — version 1020.7 — that locked the Samsung HW-Q990D, the best overall soundbar available, and other 900 series soundbars in eARC mode, rendering them useless. As originally reported by The Verge, users started posting to r/soundbars on Reddit, Samsung forums, and AVS Forum soon after the update to explain what happened. Some Digital Trends readers that are experiencing the problem also reached out to us for answers (thanks Marcel!). A response from a Samsung forum moderator in Europe indicated that Samsung AV Product Specialists are aware of the issue and confirmed that it is the result of an OTN (Over the Network) update, which they have now suspended. According to the moderator, 'If your issue is the result of an OTN update, then it will be necessary to arrange an engineer's inspection and repair in order to get this resolved.' It's important to note that this is aimed for those based in the UK. We recommend that you turn off automatic updates, as it's unknown if those updates have also been suspended in the US and Canada. Apparently, customers that did the update via USB were not affected by the problem. Additional reports seem to show that the firmware update has also affected the 800 series soundbars (HW-Q800D and HW-S801D) as well. Hopefully a new firmware update will be made available to fix the issue, and customers won't need to all send their soundbars back to Samsung for service. We reached out to Samsung for a statement and about any plans for a fix. We'll update once we have more information.
