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Remove or hide Rakuten / TV plus - how?

(Topic created on: 11-05-2019 08:18 AM)
50152 Views
adm1n
Apprentice
Options

I have a new UE43NU7020 and am disappointed that upon turning it on I am presented with a loud, blaring stream of advertisements for a PAY TV company called Rakuten under the guise of an app called TV plus.

This is unacceptable in many levels

 

  • The sheer intrusion of having my television default to streaming (on my internet connection, not samsungs) advertisements attempting to lure me into purchasing something that I do not want to
  • The fact that my TV crashes about 50% of the time when these adverts kick off
  • The material being shown is not suitable for children to the fact that 
  • The interface of this TV hangs and crashes when I turn it on due to this irritating and unwanted application when all I want to do is startup Plex, Twitch or sometimes Youtube but most often something that I have plugged into the USB port.  I cannot do these things half of the time because of this TV Plus app blaring out asian bollywood movies at unacceptably high volume and annoying, distracting and often showing content that I do not want my children to see.
  • I literally cannot turn this TV on while the children are in the room.  This is pathetic, I cannot even turn my own TV on when I want to because of this app

I have unchecked these rouge channels form the channel list but what do you know, they come right back after a restart

 

I have blocked the Rakuten servers on my DNS server by directing them to 0.0.0.0 but what do you know?, Rakuten keep changing the domains that they use for this nuisance .

 

I thought I would just remove the default gateway in the network settings and prevent the entire TV from going on line and sacrifice the "smart" aspect of this but no, it only supports DHCP, you cannot even set an IP address manually.

I have tried to remove the app but it comes right back at the default input so that it is always playing when the TV is turned on.

I have been a loyal customer, never looking at other manufacturers for over ten years but this is too much, you have completely broken faith and abused the customer relationship with this overt and aggressive marketing.

I have not consented to this application running on my hardware and I have not consented to allow it to use my internet connection to stream ads to me.

I called the call centre to try to find out how to get rid of this and was told that there was no way and to live with it.

Samsung: This is unacceptable and if you really thought that this would be a good idea (there is no way that Rakuten is paying you enough to cover the losses you will make from people simply learning about this and choosing a clean TV instead from an ethical manufacturer) then you could have at least tested it to make sure that it would not impair the normal operations of the TV.

I wasted 400 pounds on this piece of junk that is an otherwise average but acceptable TV but you have rendered it useless with this one application.

I welcome a solution to this problem but if none is forthcoming then this is going on ebay and I'll just get an LG.  My next TV in the living room is approaching the end of it's life, that will be an LG too and the hundreds of TV that I specify and purchase at work for use in large network operations centres will also be LG or some other ethical supplier and never again will I use a Samsung product.  The same goes for mine and my families phones, if I cant trust to with a TV then how am I to trust you with a phone?

As you can see by now, I am very irritated with this unnecessary intrusion into my life and instead of sitting here watching game of thrones I am typing this while a frozen screen with a bollywood advert and a frozen menu are on the screen before me.

 

 

32 REPLIES 32
Letsfixthis
Journeyman
Options
I tired everything too and failed .... I'd like to send in a complaint in writing or email to Samsung and share with as many Samsung owners as possible how to do this. Where can I write feedback other than these forums?

They have taken away the enjoyment of turning on the TV. now it's a display annoyance.

I have tried deleting all the channels in TvPlus but alas the app comes up on startup by forcing the source and app to be this by default. And somehow it find a hidden channel to play. This is NOT what I bought a few years ago. It was a Netflix certified TV. That means it was able to force startup on the last used app (Netflix). This now no longer works. So yes I get screaming celebrity rubbish in the form of TvPlus /TV+ and in my country (CH) it's a channel called " it's in tv " playing loudly ... And yes as I type this is it's showing Playboy magazine covers with nipples airbushed out. And then flash photography of celebrities.
StupidTelly
Journeyman
Options

I have a young family with a 22 month old and four year old - and my TV seems to default playing Rakuten TV or random preview channels from TV Plus.

 

Steps I've taken to avoid this?

 

1) removed all channels from TV plus

2) removed Rakuten and TV plus from the home screen menu

3) set Smart Features to play the last app - usually iPlayer - this doesn't happen.

 

My TV has no other input - we have no aerial, and we have no satalite or cable. The TV is simply used as a Smart TV, using the apps to watch TV.

 

I've had this problem since I bought the TV year (2018) and it wasn't resolved then (i phoned support), it seems to have gotten worse now, beforehand it used to be a girl riding her motorcross bike - now it's full on unsuitable movie previews.

 

Today I used online chat, who handed me over to phone support who accessed the TV remotely.

 

They took my details to let me know when technicians have implemented an update on my feedback.

adm1n
Apprentice
Options

Did they actually do anything? (i suspect not)

I have managed to block it everywhere in my network so it is impossible for it to show up.

There are various short term fixes that sort of work for a few days but then it comes back. I started by locking the TVPlus app. It is of course still there on position number 1 but as it is locked, it should not run. It does however come back on after a few days which proves that the child lock on samsung smart TV's is not fit for puropse.

Anyway, the only real solution is to block redirect the offensive domains in your DNS server. This is not difficult to do but it depends on your level of expertise.

you have to block these domains

terraform-prd-tvplus-qoe-api-1809606091.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com
and
rakuten.tv

and while you are at it you might as well block the other ***** that they their apps are trying to do. The amount of traffic that these TV's are generating is very worrying. What are they up to?

I have blocked these as well however you may actually want some of that.

I use dnsmaq as my DNS server, it is lightweight and easy to set up. You will have to search for a tutorial for that or your preferred dns server as they wont let me post links here.

address=/rakuten.tv/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungads.com/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungqbe.com/0.0.0.0
address=/c4assets.com/0.0.0.0
address=/4music.com/0.0.0.0
address=/akamaiedge.net/0.0.0.0
address=/chilli.com/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungacr.com/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungcloudsolution.com/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungcloudsolution.net/0.0.0.0
address=/samsungotn.net/0.0.0.0
address=/prd-sas-slb-1369401183.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com/0.0.0.0
address=/terraform-prd-tvplus-qoe-api-1809606091.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com/0.0.0.0

I hope this helps, it has made a big difference not having that ***** blaring away every time the tv gets turned on.  I still will never buy a samsung product, especially once I saw what was going on under the hood.  They are collecting all kinds of data on you and sending it all back to their servers and also selling it on to their partners.

You know that agreement that you must agree to in order to use the TV, you know - the one that you cant skip past and have no choice but to accept?.  That gives them permission to monitor your TV viewing, apps, times you watch, what you watch and if you have a microphone in your tv, they capture the sound from around your tv, conversations etc and that all goes back to samsung too for them to do god knows what with.

This is a privacy nightmare.


Solution
Spiritboy
First Poster
Options

What worked for us was to make the channels all locked so you need to enter a pin to allow them to play. They don't run when the TV is turned on and you can select your app to play.

 

To do this:

 

Go to channel list

Then edit channels

Select all the channels

Then select lock (it will prompt you to enter your PIN)

That should be it!

 

Hope it works. I completely agree it's a ridicululous infringement of privacy and choice and would definitely make me choose another manufacturer next time.

seamusmcdoor
First Poster
Options

Turned on the TV this mornig with my 2 year old daughter to a see voilent fight scene being played out infront of her eyes. Not the first time this has happened. 

 

I'll gladly ditch Samsung if they don't sort this out soon.

TSD
First Poster
Options

Do what spirit boy has suggested in the edit channel list but you can also lock the apps in the app browser box which is the blue square on the tv plus strip. It will give you the option to lock all of those apps that can t be deleted. Unbelievable that you have to do all of this, such an invasion. So now every time I push the home button, all I can see are the normal Netflix, bbc, itv apps which I have chosen to keep there. No more intrusive adverts for pay tv! Hope this helps.

Letsfixthis
Journeyman
Options

following the various instructions above (menus and optoins vary by TV model) I have been able to painstakingly (hours spent!) lock out most apps and remove all TV plus channels (except one which re-instals itself still plays annoyingly *loud* on TV start-up, but its a cooking show - at least its not offensive/action content). so for me 90% solved.... 

 

tech support answers: I contacted them twice simualtensously, got 2 different answers form 2 different people, so, I sent them each others responses, and got a defintive answer from them testing what I was asking about , after they actaully tested the solutions on a TV in the lab to see fi what they *say* does *work*. the answer is that in the end the annoying soaftware will always re-install on most Samsung TVs (Samsmug?), but the work arounds int his thread get rid of *most* of the channels and apps and therefore the problems, and for some of you amy totally solve it (remove apps and delete channels and the ones that stay, lock them.

 

is it still a ruined experience for Samsung TV owners? yes.

DannyT
Moderator
Moderator
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Hi all,

 

Thanks for sending through your feedback referring to this, we will make sure to pass this on for you.  We can see a few of you have correctly deleted the channels from your TV, and they keep returning. Have you tried disabling Standby Auto Tuning?

 

To disable Standby Auto Tuning to prevent the TV from reinstalling these channels - Go to: Home > Settings > Broadcasting > Auto Tuning Settings > Standby Auto Turning > Turn off.


Welcome to the Community!

0 Likes
Glorfindel
Pioneer
Options

it's a ridicululous infringement of privacy and choice and would definitely make me choose another manufacturer next time.


Completely agree. And it's also a good reason not to advise Samsung TV's to friends and familiy (panel lottery is another good reason).