Okay, so on Thursday around 7pm, I was halfway through watching a blu-ray. Machine - a Samsung Home Theatre J4500 - was working just fine. Then I stopped the movie, did something else, and came back to it around 7:30 - and it was screwed, going through an endless cycle of stops and starts, so that as soon as you powered it on, you could barely get the screen to stay stable, as it immediately started going from the home screen to seeming to select the "photos"option to powering down to returning to the home screen in an endless manic loop, each screen lingering for less than a second. Turning it on and off didn't work. Tried unplugging it, attempted a hard restart (which I couldn't even make happen, as it cycled from screen to screen): the machine seemed to be busted.
I took this for an isolated incident and tried to get a sense of what my options were. I didn't want to have to buy a whole new home theatre system, since, you know, the speakers are all fine and in place. Spent this afternoon making inquiries of Samsung Canada and London Drugs (where Erika and I bought the system, a few years ago). Some suggestions, nothing very exciting.
So I looked online and soon discovered that on Thursday night, my time, apparently all over the world, Samsung players all went on the fritz in exactly the same way. The discussions I've found are most prevalent in the UK, but there are similar reports from Germany, the United States, Brazil, Toronto... a vast number, if not all, Samsung blu-ray players have gone crazy in the same way at the same time.
People are speculating that it's the result of a some sort of update or patch from Samsung that has had unintended effects. I have no idea. Can there be viruses that do this? Some sort of industrial sabotage, maybe from, say, North Korea? I don't understand these matters enough to do anything but speculate. What's most interesting is that the Samsung Canada rep I spent half an hour on the phone with earlier today apparently hadn't heard about this yet.
So hey, folks - is your Samsung blu-ray player on the fritz? Is it on the fritz in the way described above? Welcome to the club. There is apparently a Change.org petition to pressure Samsung into taking action. I have no idea if that's necessary, but it's definitely one way to make sure Samsung knows that there's a problem, here. (They have said that they're investigating, apparently).
I guess it's all for the better I haven't been using streaming sites very much lately, since it may be awhile until I can watch my blu's and DVD's again!
One week later: update:
So I've now written customer service, who didn't let on there was a global problem (though I mentioned it, linking to one of the tech news articles about this crash). With no help there - they just suggested I get it repaired - and no updates on any of the sites I've seen, I called the main Samsung 1-800 line and had a chat with a support person, who sounded maybe like she was in a call center in Mexico. I said at first that I was "one of the people affected by the Samsung blu-ray player crash," and she said she didn't know what I meant; I then explained the symptoms and she told me that, ah yes, she was aware of this problem. (I'm not sure if she had been being coy or thick). After several minutes of delay (where presumably the troubleshooter was going over the script to use), she told me that Samsung was aware of the problem and working on it, that there was no timeline for a fix, and that no one knew what had gone wrong, none of which is new or informative.
End of week one without a blu-ray player. Erika and I are streaming The Man in the High Castle. Should keep us going for awhile. I frankly would be surprised if Samsung actually took action - they're no longer making blu-ray players, so there is no real motivation for them to do anything, except, of course, the suspicion this failure will cast on EVERY OTHER SAMSUNG PRODUCT. I will wait another week or so, then start looking at my other options...
Weeks later still: update #2:
Well, that was unexpected. Took a long time on the phone, but Samsung APPEARS to be doing the right thing - I'm being told to package my player and send it in for free of charge repairs. Haven't gotten it back, haven't even got it packed off, but it's somewhat promising. I kinda expected they'd just blow it off, but I guess the loss to their brand image would have been greater than the cost of repairing players. Anyhow, tentatively optimistic!
Incidentally, I got tired of The Man in the High Castle in Season 2 - it got thin on ideas and big on domestic drama for a bit - but it's really growing on me for Season 3. Optimistic about season 4, too.
Weeks later still: update #3. They sent it back! It works! They actually fixed it! I am impressed. Good job, Samsung!
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