topic Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC in TV

Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 16:05:15 GMT

I have the TV and soundbar of the same name - Q90R. Presumably they are designed to work together...

If if I connect my 2 HDMI sources to the soundbar and use the HDMI ARC to connect to the TV, everything works fine except that my TV remote will switch the TV and soundbar off. However, if I switch the TV on with the TV remote, the soundbar does not switch on. Why would it switch off but not on? This is how you are advised to set it up in the manual.

Everything is enabled on Anynet+ CEC and the universal remotes also set up. Volume controls also work from TV remote. Just not switching on both devices together. I also sometimes have to switch the source off/on to have it recognised. The only way to switch on the soundbar is with its own remote.

Interestingly, if I move my 2 HDMI sources to connect to the TV and not the soundbar, the TV remote will switch both devices on AND off and works perfectly in this regard. However, then I get unreaolveable lip sync issues and don’t even get me started on that!

Any ideas (or fixes - Samsung) gratefully received.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 14:20:35 GMT

I have the exact same behaviour as you on my Q85R and Q90R setup. It seems to me that it is a TV software problem likd he don't remembers the soundbar as it's default speakers. When I switch on my TV, I can toggle to quick settings and change the speakers from TV to the soundbar. The soundbar switches on and works like it should. This tells me, that there is no problem with communication between the devices. It also switches off when I switch off my TV but not back on, except if I switched the TV off while I used for example my Nvidia Shield which is connected to HDMI1 of my Soundbar. Then the Soundbar as well as the Shield wake up with the TV. If I switched off from let's say the internal Netflix app, the soundbar stays off till I change the settings in the quicksettings menu of the TV. Very annoying for a setup that expensive...

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 14:24:36 GMT

I downloaded and installed an update via USB today. It doesn’t show on the TV updates but is on the UK website. I haven’t tried it too much yet but seems to potentially improve some lip sync issues. Possible ARC etc is worse however with some very irratic behavoiur.

Will update more once I’ve tested a bit more.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 05:51:24 GMT

I've seen the update but didn't found time to install it. There is also an update to 1008 for the Soundbar on the US site. I installed it but didn't really improve much except of some connection issues I had with my rear speekers.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 08:27:20 GMT

I've installed the update aswell and out of my experience it got even worse. As usual, it worked for a moment but from the next morning, the Soundbar didn't turn on with the TV anymore... Now I have even the Situation that the Soundbar stays off, but the TV thinkgs it's on so trying to change volume does nothing. I also experienced full crashes and reboots of the TV lately. I don't know but I regret deeply that I bought this setup. Spending more than 4000CHF for a 2019 setup they advertise like it's made and optimized to work together that not even is able to turn on together is just a bad joke. My first and last Samsung setup. I had LG before for years and never experienced something like this.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 18:00:22 GMT

New update (1318) available. Installing...

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 20:24:21 GMT

I’ve installed it and not seen any improvement. Did you?

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:38:45 GMT

Can't say it for sure. I found the update because I lost sound over hdmi arc completely. The soundbar still reacted to volume up and down but no tone. Update didn't fix it in first place. After one more time plugging everything out and in, it worked again. I really hope Samsung fixes this stuff because for now, this is really the worst setup I ever owned.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 15:09:17 GMT

I've spent an hour on the phone to Samsung and also chatted on Twitter. I got absolutely nowhere and they refuse to accept that there are any issues. I even pointed them at the forums, which clearly they do not read.

Please make sure you call Samsung and raise a ticket with them. The more people that raise these issues the better chance we have of fixing it!

Samsung are now wanting to exchange the TV for the same model, which presumably won't fix anything...

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 15:31:16 GMT

I called the support today again without any result. What upset me most was how rude and at the same time also incompetent the support agent this time was. She looked up what we have done an the last session and ment, okay we can't do more and that I need to be patient. When I told her that I don't have patience anymore she asked what I expect her to and as I told her that she will not be able to help me in this matter becasue she don't hase the competence she just hung up. My intention was, that I want return the device and that she will not have the competence to decicde this but her reaction was just horrible. Well, there were also some false statement from her side that made my statement about lack of competence also legit but anyway.

Did you have any success? What makes me thinking is that nor more people write here. I mean, is this combination really that rare?

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 21:06:46 GMT

They are basically rude and useless at Samsung. Their definition of an “engineer” was a (nice but useless) 16 year old not even old enough to drive who came to my house. Agreed that there was an issue and took a video of it on his phone. Nothing was done following that.

However, after ages more on the phone I managed to get an “Uplift” number. Basically a returns authorisation which you give to the retailer and they have to exchange the TV. The exchange took place today. So I need to test over the next few days. I did also notice that a software update must have come out in the last few days. I’ll report back once I’ve done more testing but I’m not hopeful.

I would suggest to demand an uplift number and an exchange. The more it costs Samsung, the more likely they are to fix it. Also, if the exchanges don’t fix it then it means they might recognise the issue. In the unlikely event it does fix the problem then that’s great news too!

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

SeeNoWeevil — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 18:02:13 GMT

It's certainly a bug that the TV defaults to internal speakers on startup and it's incredibly annoying. Almost as annoying as the TV turning my PS4 on every time it switches to the ARC input with my AVR on. The ARC implementation is a mess on this TV.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 12:58:25 GMT

Well first I tried to escalate the behaviour of the agent via complain on the hotline and also using twitter. After a few reminders I finally got a mail from samsung where they refered to a completely different topic as my real problem and told me that they consider my complain as closed now.

The topic they referenced on was Atmos. They statet that the Q Series TV's don't support Atmos and therefore they can't do nothing for me. I think reason for this was an argument I had with a support agent before because she brought this false statement up out of nothing while we discussed my real issue. As I was already somehow upset about my current situation with the devices this statement made me somehow explode and let to an argument. Fact about that is: my current setup supports Atmos as DD+ stream out of the native Netflix app of the Q85R what is fully compatible with standard ARC so her statement was defenetely not correct what she couldn't agree to. Of couse true uncompressed Atmos is only possible with eARC because the TV doesn't support that but that wasn't the topic either. Just to have it complete. This discussion let us further to that eARC is only possible with HDMI 2.1 what was also nonsense. It's indeed part of the standard 2.1 but many manufacturer implement eARC already alongside with HDMI 2.0. Even the Soundbar Q90R got eARC capabilities with HDMI 2.0 in place but also there, realworld facts were not able to make her believe that she isn't right.

Anyway, it wasn't the reason I contacted the support at any time but it made me just feeling really bad about trying to fix my issues with someone who clearly isn't much ahead knowledgewise then I'm myself.

At least, after I clarified that they focus on a wrong topic, a support agent contacted me again, suggesting the basic steps like power reset or that I may send it for repair through my retailer. If I do that, strongly believing that this is a software problem, I just end up with a lot of effort and without any TV. Maybe they don't care but I spent a lot of money and this was first and last product I bought from Samsung.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 08:33:17 GMT

Well here really everything that can go wrong goes wrong. I should receive a call from samsung between 09:30 and 10:00. After the time passed I got a mail that they couldn't call me because of a wrong number. Well, we talked few times so it's quite unprofessional what happened now again.

@m-oc did you have any sucess with your exchanged TV? You also mentioned newer Software? What release do you mean?

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 10:39:37 GMT

They exchanged my TV and it is still basically the same. A lip sync issue with the video ahead of the sound on Dolby Digital HDMI sources when the sound is via a sound bar.

I've called them today and they say that they will escalate the issue to their support team to see if a fix can be made. They wouldn't commit to any timeframe for this. I would strongly suggest for you to also get your TV exchanged and then follow the same process. I know it's inconvenient but the more people that do it, the more chance they will want to fix the issue.

I made a mistake about the firmware version, sorry. The new TV is on 1315 and in fact it won't update to 1318, even though my old TV automatically applied the update. So, this is also inconsistent. I'm going to test for another day or 2 on 1315 and then will manually update to 1318 but, as my old TV had 1318 and this TV doesn't seem to want it, I don't expect it will fix anything and could even make it worse.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

userjYtfoTda0t — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 12:29:58 GMT

Thanks for reporting. I was under the impression that the 1315 version was for the QNxxQ90R but I guess you have a QExxQ90R? Do you see any other differences in the 1315 ?

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 13:26:52 GMT

I have the QE55. It seems like it shipped with this version as I don't believe it updated after initial set up.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

m-oc — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 13:27:56 GMT

No difference that I can see in terms of lip sync or any other improvements.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

SeeNoWeevil — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 13:59:27 GMT

It really agitates me how many support departments will put the customer through so much inconvenience and hassle, such as packing and returning a TV - when they could just spent TEN MINUTES replicating and confirming an obvious bug on their own internal hardware. It's a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. These things are complex, they have bugs. Users will report bugs, support need to replicate the issue and if it is indeed a problem, log it with the engineers to fix. Not mess the user around endlessly.

Re: Q90R TV and Q90R soundbar not working correctly with ARC

primalair — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 17:29:05 GMT

After my last support call yesterdays the responsible support engineer and me came exactly to this conclusion. He will try to replicate the behaviour on the same hardware in his lab and will give me feedback next week. There is no lack of understanding for the complexity from my side. I work myself in software development and I know that bugs happen. What I don't understand is the stubbornness of a lot of support people to acknowledge it. For me it's fine if they tell me, okay it's a bug, we pass it to the responsible dev team. Why is it so difficult to establish a proper ticketing system where I can see how the progress is about something like that. The other thing that drives me mad is the powerlessness as customer. You buy something for a *****load of money and it doesn't work like it should but you can basically do almost nothing, at least here in Switzerland. The retailer will not take it back and give me my money back, I can send it for repair what will only generate costs, effort and will leave me without TV or I can just accept and hope for a miracle.