Glitchy UE43TU8500

[SBR999]

I took delivery the other day from John Lewis for my new TV. I was so exicted. However after messing with the thing for most of the day, I feel very underwelmed at a cost of £599. What the hell are samsungs tech people doing releasing a TV thats full of bugs?

TV constantly locks up whilst looking at Guide, menus, anything really, then have to restart!

The samsung TV plus kept taking over my Freesat channels and then greying out the option to retune. I have now managed to remove it from my homescreen.

Ambient mode, take a picture of your tv and surroundings to see what it looks like as a back ground and send to TV, dont like it, TOUGH no delete option thats what your stuck with? 

I realise this is quite a recent model, but dont do your deguging with the customers, get it sorted before you release a product!! 

If the above issues are not resolved soon, I will never by a samsung product again!!

[AndrewL]

@SBR999: Sorry to hear of your frustrations regarding your recent purchase. While in Ambient Mode, please select the cog symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen to enter Ambient Settings, and scroll to Reset All Photos, to remove any uploaded images.

Is the TV still freezing when accessing the guides/menus, or did the reset resolve this?

[SBR999]

Thanks for the Quick response. 
the tv locks up sporadically and not set action to it???

i have already gone to that setting in ambient mode and when I click on the rest all photos options it says, "no personal photos added"? 
honestly I love the picture quality but the menus are 3 to 10 seconds behind remote presses. Really frustrating to use and this is not a cheaper end unit. 

[asfound]

Welcome to Samsung Smart TV ownership. Join the club!

Since Day 1 mine takes at least 3 or 4 minutes between turning it on, and actually becoming operational and responding to button presses. It's a coin flip whether or not it will find the wifi or I'll have to turn it off at the mains for 10 seconds, which seems to be the Samsung tech's solution to everything!

[SBR999]

Is yours the same model, UE43TU8500?

i had an old Samsung smart tv previously and screen died after about 2 1/2 years. Replaced under John Lewis 5 year warranty and the screen is on its way out just after warranty finished. But tat least the menus did exactly as they where suppose to and it probably froze twice in 6 years. 
so come on Samsung, rushing you're products out of the door, we need a firmware update for the UE8000 series. It's too unstable! 

[asfound]

I think mine is the slightly cheaper UE43TU7100 model that I took off someone's hands but I also have a UE48 with the same problems for years. Like you say, it's just buggy and unstable and I see no end in sight for these issues without a major overall of the operating system.

[SBR999]

Update Saturday morning 09/05/20

smart things app will now not send any photos to the tv for use in ambient mode. Reset and not made a difference to the outcome. "Connection Failed" TV is on an Ethernet cable feed. 
also just had to unplug the TV from the mains for about the 4th in a few days. Totally in responsive to either remote control or any Alexa commands! 
does anyone from Samsung actually read these posts?  
is this as good as this tv is going to get or should I send it back, because to me it doesn't perform as advertised therefore not fit for purpose. 

[SBR999]

Ok another update and hopefully a solition;

even though I went into the settings menu and then support, update firmware. TV says you have latest firmware! Ver 1081. 
However I decided to check the Samsung support web site. Just put in the search box your TV model. For me that was UE43TU8500. The page then shows you what's available for that model. And guess what firmware 1114 is available!

Download the pdf instructions and read properly. Then download new firmware file, takes ages, either the traffic on Samsung servers is high or the path is severely lacking in bandwidth. Anyway it did download.  You have to install the file on a USB stick at root, then plug the usb into your tv. Mind started installing immediately then restarted. I checked my firmware version and now it's 1114. TV is a million times better to use, quicker to respond and everything. Hopefully it continues. 
NOTE. the smart things app will still not transfer any personal photos. Just says, Failed Transfer, check that your device is on the same network as your tv? Erm yes it is. 
anyway, I'm so surprised no one from Samsung tech teams aren't reading these customer gripes and could of saved me time and pointed me to the latest software. 
question is, why the hell does your tv tell you, you have the latest firmware, when it clearly didn't. Improve your services Samsung! 

[SBR999]

Another Update, DONT DO THE FIRMWARE UPDATE!

So since doing the firmware update from 1081 to 1114 the 4K capabilities of the Tav have totally gone! I have since accessed 4K UHD content on YouTube, Netflix and Amazon after resetting the TB to default as after firmware upgrade the Tab wouldn't play anything on the Amazon App. 
now the picture is a reasonable HD 1080p picture at best. The difference is horrendous. 
First thing Monday I'm contacting John Lewis and returning this TV/piece of ***** for something other than not a Samsung TV. 
I can not believe how bad this set has been. Save your money and buy a different brand. If the Yech guys at Samsung get payed to totally dumb down a 4K TV capability for stability purposes. I'd say the tv wasn't powerful enough to do what it advertised. 
cheap processor and insufficient ram. 
im out. 

[stevenlanders]

I had this exact issue (everything worked between app and TV except ambient photo upload) and fixed it by joining wireless instead of using a wired connection.  It’s likely a TV software bug for the ambient mode feature.