Q950 Remote no longer working properly

[twuk]

Having worked fine now for months, the smart remote for our Q950 seemingly stopped working this week.  Bizarrely, the LED on the remote would light and the TV in many cases would still react, but commands are no longer being sent to our connected Sky Q box nor the Sonos soundbar (the TV even displays the 'volume' animations but the soundbar doesn't react).

I've tried everything I can think of to resolve it with no success.  My thinking is either 1) the TV has somehow lost/corrupted the configuration of what signals the remote should be generating or 2) there's a problem with the TV's IR emitter.  Hoping it's the former, next step is probably to factory reset the TV and step through the configuration again.

Has anyone else seen this, and any suggestions?  I'd report to Samsung but I know that's going to be a very long road to resolution.  😞

[CarloL]

Hey @twuk, are you still experiencing this issue with the remote? If so, what troubleshooting steps have you tried already to get this sorted?

[twuk]

Hi Carlo

We had resolved it, but unfortunately it happened again this morning.

On the previous occurrence, we ended up factory resetting the TV and walking through setup all over again.  This got the remote controlling the Sky Q box, but we couldn't get it to control our Sonos volume.  With the help of someone on the Sonos forum, we found a way.  The issue with Sonos is that your setup wizard (wrongly) tries to test each group of settings by *powering on/off* the soundbar. As Sonos devices are never 'off' this doesn't provide a valid test.  You should instead be checking if volume changed when testing soundbar remote settings.  In the end, the *second* set of Sonos settings appears to work by IR.  There was no way to tell this, we just had to accept the second set offered and the remote began working again to control the Sonos.

Unfortunately the issue occurred again this morning.  The smart remote stopped controlling all external devices, including the Sky Q box and Sonos.  After trying everything, I ended up taking the batteries out of the smart remote and reinstalling. Fwiw, the remote has NEW batteries installed so it's not a case of low batteries.  This got things working again.

This is a worrying pattern and I'm not at all clear what has caused it.  Has Samsung changed something recently involving either the TV firmware, or any update impacting the way the remote would work?

[CarloL]

Thanks for confirming this. There have been some reports of compatibility issues between 2020 Samsung TVs and Sonos soundbars mainly in regards to sound interruptions with HDMI eARC and both sides are working to fix this. I haven't heard anything about issues with the remote control though. I would monitor the situation and I would also make sure that the TV is always up to date: Menu > Settings > Support > Contact Samsung. If the remote goes funny again, I would contact the AV/TV team on Live Chat or on the phone at 0333 000 0333 for further assistance with this. 

Another thing to mention is that each remote has a 12-month warranty. If still under warranty and the issue persists, you can request a replacement remote for the TV. Please note that a proof of purchase will be required for this.

[twuk]

Thanks, few points:

1. The TV is up to date, and set to automatically do so. (though I'm questioning this at the moment if it breaks things without me realising!)

2. This is only a Sonos Playbar, so connected by optical as that's all it supports.  Thus eArc etc. not a concern here.

Will keep the remote warranty in mind, though strange if it works at times then stops.  Is there some way to do just a 'reset' on the remote itself?  Does it receive updates of any kind, or are all of the 'smarts' in the TV?  My assumption here is that the remote speaks bluetooth to the TV, and the TV in turn sends out IR to external components when needed.  Is that correct?

[twuk]

I'm afraid the flakiness continues.  Yesterday the options to reach the Sky Q Guide, Recordings etc, just disappeared.  The remote was still working to control the TV and external components, but on the top row in the menu it showed only 'quick access' channels.  I can't see that being an issue with the remote, more likely an issue with the TV itself.

Fwiw, the TV reports it's on firmware 1460, and no updates available.

[twuk]

Incidentally I've now noticed online there's a 1462.1 firmware, but can't get it to install via download.  I've raised a separate thread on that.

[twuk]

so today the TV again updated itself, and has once again broken the remote's ability to control SkyQ. Seriously, for a TV that cost over £5k  this is  getting ridiculous now.

I've tried deleting the sky box from the TV and setting up again, trying every available device setting that made any sense. Is anyone else experiencing this please?