Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 12 - What time is it?

26 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016   The twelfth problem Just the other day I managed to capture some images of an eleventh issue that the TV has. It apparently sucks at telling time correctly. I turned the TV on because I wanted to record the current program, but it didn’t go quite as expected.   The experience went as follows. I turned on the TV and navigated to the TV-Guide. Here I noticed that it was off by 2 hours. So I wondered what would happen when I set it the record the program that I wanted to record. It was on currently but according to the Guide it wasn’t on for another 2 hours. So when I selected to record it… Nothing happened.   I went back to the program and snapped this picture of the current channel. Here you can see that the TV thinks the time is 17:07, but it actually displays the correct current program information which is a show from 19-20.   Since it didn’t start the recording when selecting it in the EPG I decided to record it manually, but this failed with the following message. “Optagelse mislykkedes. TV’et er optaget af andet” – “Recording failed. The TV is busy with something else”   So back to the EPG and remove the recording (which hadn’t started) and then back and try manually again and it succeeded.   So time is obviously some kind of issue for the TV, and what does that mean with our other recordings? We have missed recordings in the past, and this might be the reason…   The solution None yet

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 7, 8 and 9 and a major meltdown

26 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016 After installing the update in May I was getting tired of the dialogue with the support from Philips, we started getting accustomed to common errors and various issues with the TV. The problems we have had falls in to 3 primary groups.   The seventh problem When watching TV either through DVB-T, playing games on our attached PlayStation or when starting Netflix or other aps, we just see random restarts. This occurs usually on a weekly basis but we haven’t seen any patterns that we recognize. So we don’t know how to prevent the reboots and we don’t know when they happen, so whenever they do we just have to sit and wait frustrated for a couple of minutes before we can continue whatever we were doing before the reboot.   The eight problem When combined with our seventh problem, this issue just makes things even worse. When the TV boots very often the experience is that it boots up and start displaying the last viewed channel, but we can’t yet control the TV. It displays a circle on the screen and does not allow any interaction, so we just have to sit a wait for a while until it responds.   The ninth problem Just like we saw the EPG app crashing we are constantly seeing other apps crashing such as Netflix, YouTube and the flow TV app itself. Just random crashes killing any enjoyment we might have with the TV   A major meltdown This would be the tenth problem, but this issue we saw was a lot worse then all the other problems that we have experienced. This issue started with the usual “Safe mode”-dialogue, that we have seen several times before, which resulted in yet another reboot. This time though, something was completely wrong and this screen appeared after the display of the Android This was an error screen that I had never seen before. The only thing that I could do was either - Reboot system now - Apply update from external storage   If I selected Reboot system now, I could see some activity on my USB-drive after which the TV rebooted and returned to the same screen. If I selected Apply update it looked for an SD-card which was available and then it return to the same screen If I unplug the power to the TV and plug it in again it just rebooted to the same screen   So all in all I had a dead TV. No warning or anything, the TV just died on me. How it possibly ended up in this state is completely beyond me. I have no clue, one minute I was watching TV and then the next minute I had a TV that was no longer working.   Luckily this didn’t happen to my kids, but instead I was at home, so I had an idea as to how to get my TV up and running again. The solution was to grab a software update from Philips website, download it to an USB-stick and insert into the TV. Then I could use the option to apply update and it would start reinstalling my TV.   The big question is just, how is it all possible EVER for a TV to get into this state under regular circumstances. I had been living with the other issues but this was just the final straw.   The solution When I confronted the support with this new issue, I heard nothing from them. By now I was getting really tired, so I called them on the phone asking for a response. The support then told my that they would send my request to their second level support to look further into the issue. After waiting nearly a month I got a respond with the message from the second level support which was ''deepsleep should be solved now. Pls check if issue is solved with sw 0.5.38.150''   So once again by stalling the issue they managed to create a new software update and the messages was “we don’t know really what is happening, but try to update, and your issues might be resolved”   I just can’t seem to find the link between deepsleep and corrupt firmware/software preventing the TV from booting. But sure, let’s try it once again and see what happens

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 11 - Recording and viewing at the same time

26 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016 Yet another bug has shown its face on the TV.   The eleventh problem This bug occurred at a time, when I had paused live TV and had rewound the recording to see the program. All of a sudden when playing the recording the screen suddenly went black. The sound kept playing but the video was lost…   When playing, the image never came back on, but what I experienced was that if I rewound a couple of seconds/minutes and tried playing again the video and audio was playing. Then after viewing a couple of minutes the video went black again at a later time. This I could keep on doing while watching the rest of the recording. So the recording itself was fine, but for some reason it could not be played back properly…     So another annoyance adding to the already large stack of issues.   Now I’m getting really tired of the TV. So now when contacting the support I am requesting a refund, because I am tired of playing the “support”-game… and just waiting for the next software update.   The solution After not having responded to my request for nearly 1 month, the dialogue goes something like this Philips support: “Sorry for not responding, we have had internal problems. Is your problem still relevant” Me: “yes, they are still relevant, and I would like to get a refund. I’m tired of this TV” Philips support: “We have to do a complete troubleshooting and if we cannot solve your issues we will have to send it in for debugging” Me: “Seriously, this TV has not been working properly since I bought it, and all you seem to do is stall…”   At this point I decided to post all the issues online in case other people experience the same issues.

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 10 - more strange behaviors

26 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016 I updated the TV back in January but I had lost faith in the fact the Philips probably couldn’t fix the problems, and I was right. Instead I started seeing new issues as well.   The tenth problem When watching Netflix we suddenly started seeing the message displayed below. “Der er ingen tilgængelige TV-guideoplysninger” which translates to “There are no available TV-guide information”   It came up and showed for a couple of seconds. Then it went away for a couple of seconds before coming back on again. This just kept on going until we stopped the Netflix app. So a message appearing in a context where it is totally irrelevant   The solution None yet, the support has yet to respond to this on

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 6 - EPG? isn’t that something new?

25 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016   The sixth problem While waiting for the response to bug 2, 3, 4 and 5, I encountered yet another bug. This bug was experienced when I attempted to start the EPG, when I got this error It is nothing serious as it is “just” a message saying that the EPG is broken. Something that has been a core functionality in TVs for many years by now is now a faulty feature in my brand new Smart TV. What happened to the “failing gracefully” and showing a meaningful error message? By now I just can’t comprehend how so many core functionalities can work so badly on a new TV produced by a company that has produced TV’s for so many years.   The solution Install the latest software (did it fix the problem? No, this problem I have seen afterwards as well)

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 4 and 5 - Visiting with an old friend with a twist and questioning why you should record flow TV

25 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016 While I was communicating with Philips support regarding bug 2 and 3 I had two new bad experiences just adding to the my annoyance.   The fourth problem Bug number 4 starts out like my bug number 2. It starts by showing the “Safe mode” error message (while I was watching flow TV this time), and I lost all control of the TV and it did not respond to the remote. This occurred while I was watching regular flow TV and while the message was on and I could not interact with the TV it just kept playing in the background.   This continued for a couple of minutes until it finally gave up what it was doing and the TV restarted on its own. What followed after the reboot was this. A cute little Android with the subtitle “Sletter…” which is “Deleting…” At this point I can only wonder what is going on and what initiated this. Then all of a sudden this screen appeared This screen says “Systemopdatering installeres…” and in English “System update is installing…”   So I obviously have a TV with a life of its own. I am watching TV and for some reason it decides that now is a good time to install a system update. But instead of asking me whether I want to install it or not, it displays an error message and blocks all user input… Seen from a user experience angle, this might not be the best way to do things like that…     The fifth problem The fifth problem occurs just a couple of days later. I’m recording some movie on an attached USB-drive from a DVB-T channel and in the meanwhile I am watching Netflix. Suddenly the TV freezes and stops playing my Netflix movie. It stalls for about 30 seconds after which the TV reboots. It starts up and shows the regular Android logo that I am getting pretty accustomed to by now. It never really reboots completely though before it shuts down once more. When it finally comes back on after the second reboot it displays this error The error says “Forbereder USB-harddisk. TV’et forbereder harddisken. Dette kan tage et minuts tid” which in english is “Preparing USB-drive. The TV is preparing the harddrive. This can take about a minute” So I had just spent the last 5 minutes, while it was rebooting, trying to accept the fact the the movie that I was currently recording was broken, and now I suddenly had to get used to the fact that all old recordings probably were gone as well…   With a life of its own I can’t really call this a trustworthy TV and with this kind of product, which in my case should be used by the entire family including 2 children, these kinds of errors are just not acceptable.   The solution I hadn’t heard anything from the support when I reached out with these two new bugs, but when I got the response I could see why.   The answer was once again, “We have a new software update, and it will probably solve your problems” (what I read was, “We have no clue what your problems are, but hey we have fixed some problems, so let’s give it a shot and hopefully it will solve your problems too”)   So once again I crossed my fingers and installed another update hoping that I would finally get a functional TV.

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 2 and 3 - Time to stop using apps and watching TV

25 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016   So after having experienced my first bug on my TV and having installed my first software update from Philips, I was thinking that it might be a good TV after all. But that feeling didn’t last long and the update was only newly installed when I encountered two new interesting bugs in April/May.   The second bug The second bug I saw appeared when I was using my PS3 attached via HDMI. Then this dialogue appeared In English it is the following message Important The TV has detected a problem with the installed Apps and is now set to Safe Mode.This problem might be caused by one or more Apps. Press OK to delete all Apps and to recover from Safe Mode. You can install your Apps again from the App Gallery or Google Play Store later.   Hmm. I thought, what to do know. I didn’t have any apps I had installed at this point in time, so I pressed Ok and nothing happened except for the message “Safe mode” being seen in the bottom left hand corner until we rebooted the TV manually next time. So a bug related to… I don’t really know what it was related to. At this point it only displayed the start menu on the PS3, so I wasn’t doing anything that required anything special from the TV except just display the signal streamed through the HDMI cable..   The third bug The third bug I experienced was a more critical bug, which got me a little more worried. Twice within 2 hours one night the screen suddenly looked like this When this happened the TV stopped responding to the remote control, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to get it back into a useful mode. I couldn’t even turn off the TV. So the only solution was to unplug the power and reboot (I never thought I would have to reboot a TV as often as I have rebooted this TV). This third bug is as the previous bugs the result of me doing nothing actively… So it is somehow related to a background process or a fault in the app displaying flow TV.   The solution I approached the support once more, and the answer at this point was a reinstall of the TV. Wow, I thought, I had just updated the TV and now I was told to reinstall the TV, what kind of problem solving are we doing here.   I challenged this because it made no sense, and it just seemed like a way to stall me and make me waste my time. I asked the question “Is the reason for the reinstallation due to fixing some known issues or is it just a way of saying. We have know idea what is going on and let’s just try this and hope it fixes everything.   The follow-up answer Then I got a the craziest response Problemet lyder ikke til at det skyldes tv'et da vi ikke har noget fejlbesked der hedder Sikker tilstand, eller nogen sikker tilstand på tv'et. Jeg vil anbefale at du lige prøver at høre Playstation eventuelt da det kan være en fejlbesked sendt fra den. Which loosely translates into The error does not seem to be related to the TV, since we do not have an error message called “Safe mode” or any safe mode on the TV. I will recommend that you contact PlayStation, since it can be an error message from them.   So obviously I am in contact with a supporter that does not know their own TV well enough to know the error messages that it might display, and the option to reinstall seemed like an option picked from some list of “How to get rid of the customers”   I had to send him the following link http://philips-tvconsumercare.kxondemand.com/portal/en/Faq/All/4477 letting him know that it is indeed an error coming from the TV and not my PlayStation.   The support never responded to this issue but eventually (after I had reported two further issues) said that yet another software update was available and that I should update the TV

Philips 49PUS7100 - Bug 1 - Problem with flow TV

25 February 2017 Allan Philips
This post is part of a series of posts that I am currently writing about the bugs that I have found in my Philips TV since I bought it in January 2016   The first bug I encountered on my TV started showing up within months of my purchase. The behavior was that I was watching TV, and then the screen suddenly went black. I could go into the main menu and navigate around, but I couldn’t get any response from TV related features. I couldn’t change channel and did not get a picture.   After a couple of minutes this dialogue appeared. Translated it says “The process org.droidtv.settings has stopped”   After displaying this dialogue the TV shut down entirely and rebooted, showing me a nice Android logo and then it spent a couple of minutes booting again.   This appeared once in a while for no apparent reason. I had not done anything actively when the error occurred, but was just watching regular flow TV. So if I was watching a good movie I should be aware that I might experience a 5-10 minute fall-out for no reason at all.   The solution I approached the Philips support about this issue, and due to my naivety I just asked when there was an update to fix this because I thought this was just a simple issue and easy to fix. This decision I have regretted ever since… I should have returned the TV immediately at the first sign, that it showed issues with regular flow TV.   The answer from the support was 2 things 1. Disable HBB TV, so a smart TV feature should be disabled on this brand new TV making it more like a “dumb” TV 2. Disable automatic channel updates, presumably based on the assumption that when I saw this error it was because the TV was attempting to update the channels in the background, which obviously conflicted with me watching TV   I did both of these things, but the problem continued, and when I reached out to the support, they told me an update was on the way. This update seemed to fix this specific problem, but if you continue reading my blog you will see that this was just the beginning of a long an painful journey.