Major issue with 2020 Samsung QE65Q80t and Samsung HW-Q70T soundboard

[Johng11]

Hi All

i have recently bought the Q80T and Q70T from a retailer in the U.K end of July 2020

When I tried to set up the TV and the Sound Bar using the recommended connection for the Sound Bar of eARC HDMI 3, I was unable to connect to the Sound Bar. 
I contacted Samsung support, which was an absolute waste of time. To say they did not know what they were doing would be to pay them a compliment, frankly they were useless. After several attempts with people who did not even have the basic idea of how the TV and Sound Bar should connect, I received a call back from a supervisor called Anna, who promised to look into the problem and call me back. Surprise Surprise, I receive no further communications from them. 

I then went back to my retailer John Lewis, who replaced both the TV and the Sound Bar

i received both replacements on the 13th of August 2020, and was able to initially set up the TV and Sound Bar as per the way they should operate according to the Samsung Website.  I was able to see the Sound Bar was connecting to theTV and the display on the Sound Bar showed TV ARC and showed it was Atmos enabled and Q Symphony (the reason I bought Samsung) was displaying in the Tv sound settings.

Thinking the problem was solved, I switched of the TV later switched it back on. I THEN FOUND THAT THE EARC PORT WAS NO LONGER SEEING THE SOUND BAR. Q symphony has disappeared and the TV said nothing was connected to the EARC HDMI 3 port. THERE IS CLEARLY AN ISSUE WITH THESE TV, AS I HAVE NOW HAD THE SAME  OR SIMILAR FAULT ON TWO TV’s.

I then reset the TV and Sound Bar 4 more times and set it up again, only to find that exactly the same thing happened again ie the EARC port simply disappears and does not connect the Sound Bar

I have completely documented and taken picture the screen at various stages and am happy to send this to Samsung. 

This is the first TV I have bought from Samsung and frankly I would recommend anyone who is considering buy these product to think very carefully before proceeding. Samsung service is terrible, and the only saving grace is that I bought from John Lewis who are excellent

[Technocrap]

I fell into the same fog. I am in the Midwest USA. 8/2020 Samsung Series-8, 55” tv and 9/2020 hw-Q70t soundbar set. After researching all I could on the internet and getting dumb responses from Samsung specialists in online chat that couldn’t even fake being smart by just quoting what I could just read in pdf. Manual 6 minutes quicker than their 8 minutes to respond to me with things like “yes it can be used with Alexa”, when I actually asked if it “had Alexa included”, and I found that oddly Alexa and google assistant are NOT included; yes like everything these days it  “can” be used with Alexa, etc...but unlike Many of the smaller odd brands that include 2 or more service apps. Samsung=None. Big difference. I installed all, troubleshooted all, I could not get the tv to see the HDMI-(e)arc wired soundbar, and the soundbar was happy to just NOT have a purpose either. I had hoped that in spite of horrible ratings everywhere for 2020 Samsung. That lack of clarity in reviews may just be how dumb the internet is these days. Nope. Nothing today especially Samsung, has any intelligent “plug/play”. Samsung + Samsung equip = no detect, no continuity.

My big issue is I am stuck with the Samsung t.v., and no matter what soundbar system I find there is NOT a good automatic pairing; very far from it. If you get external sound to work, merely a power down will erase any progress and any link. Everything about our Samsung experience is bad. Anything we set up is gone the next day. Each new day is a new stupid unprogrammed tv, and zero familiarity tv. It serves as an expensive monitor for our gaming consoles. Family movie night is now ***** and non-existent thanks to Samsung cutting edge underwhelming sludge. Maybe UK and USA could get back into electronics if “tech” countries ship unapologetic ***** as our only choices. Cranky masked sailer

[brewywill]

this had just happened to me. I've had the TV for about 3 weeks and it's acting up just as you said. the sound bar just disappeared and it's not picking it up anymore.

We bought the TV from John Lewis. did you end up with a new make of TV in the end Technocrap?

[Technocrap]

Sorry so long to reply, I have to admit i am cranky and old, and maybe shouldn't complain as the internet seems to be a little too full of that. In the spirit of fairness, I must add, that SAMSUNG is by no means bad nor any worse than any other major manufacturer in regards to customer service. We are very tech heavy here in our home and business, and I have dealt with most large manufacturers by now and all are very poor customer service indeed; it's just not important part of business to any of them and many are farmed out to unqualified third parties in distant countries; so online forums have become our best allies in matters of troubleshooting and advice. On a positive note, maybe that forces us all consumers to be nicer and more helpful to each other in such matters at least as we are all in this together so to speak... My purchase in the "States" was Best Buy and was too late for an exchange and way to big and heavy as well for me to opt for any fix that may have been possible if I insisted. Best Buy is almost overly generous with remedies and fantastic customer service so not their fault i feel at all.   My later fix to losing linked equipment was to not allow the tv to power down in the ECO (power) settings; also many months later a software update seemed to have fixed all my issues; later on when many other HDMI issues appeared, my researched move was to discard and replace all HDMI cords with the highest quality ROCKETFISH 8K Ultra high speed (2.1) HDMI cords. BAMMOO! all issues 100% gone! Expensive, but worth zero issues and I am kind of future proof as well. Cheers to you my friends across the "Pond"!   Good luck, Good health, God Bless!