Solved: Solution Found - Q950A eARC Problems - Page 7

Moralneeeick · ‎02-07-2021

I have spent 4 painful days trying to solve the issues with eARC on the Q950A when paired with a Samsung TV (I have QN800A). I have finally got the eARC connection to persist and have some explains below. Hopefully someone from Samsung reads this and fixes their software.

What you need to sacrifice to get this to work:

Samsung universal remote for everything except Q950A.

CEC functionality from a non samsung device.

What the issues are:

1 - any device connected in the chain which has CEC enabled can break the earc handshake

2 - if you use samsung universal remote it will not leave the appropriate delays when turning on devices causing earc handshake to break

Steps to get a perfect earc setup:

1 - on every device except for TV disable CEC or HDMI control. Apple TV, Sky Q, Xbox, PS5. Has to be all of them.

2 - unplug all devices from tv and Soundbar and hard reset both. 950A hard reset is holding volume up and down on bar until you see INT displayed and then it says BYE.

3 - During Samsung tv setup plug everything back in (nothing into Soundbar, all into TV)

At this point samsung setup pairs things with the smart remote. But it also defaults earc to ‘off’ which is helpful for next step.

4 - once the tv is set up - do not enable earc (yet). Go to sources and universal remote and delete all sources created by Samsung so they default to HDMI 1, 2 etc. You can still rename them and add them to home just don’t use the universal remote.

5 - Turn off all HDMI inputs and turn off Soundbar.

6 - now enable earc in the menu. If it doesn’t switch on the Soundbar after this you can. It should detect earc for the first time.

7 - now turn on Xbox or PS5 - you will have to change the input manually on Samsung remote. In samsung sound settings on tv once the input is up select pass through and leave it.

Now you have an earc connection which can’t be killed by external sources. One final point:

whenever you turn on tv - make sure you turn on tv first and no other device. Soundbar should come on automatically if you have a Samsung tv - if not turn that on after tv is on. Check you have earc - if so you’re safe to turn other devices on.

I don’t know if Samsung will fix this - but I know understand why it’s not totally within their control. However it is in their control to fix pass through for multi channel LPCM and DTS-X.

make sure Xbox is set to bitstream Atmos pass through and PlayStation set to Dolby. Also make sure to change blu ray app output to bitstream within the player to get lossless Atmos.

Hope this helps someone. And I hope Samsung read it.

crazyjohnyw · ‎12-01-2022

Thank you very much Moralneeeick. So they have to replace 2 boards then. That's good to know. I will tell them to do that, and hopefully they don't break my screen like they did to yours.

SmartOnly · ‎13-01-2022

Mate very simple fix I’ve got. Its the tv QN800 which is some how faulty even though motherboard changes, the problem will not be fixed. I think this qn800 some sort of technical problem which includes incompatibility within the parts inside the tv/one connect box.

But do this Hopefully the problem will be fixed. For now

** Use ethernet/wired connection (If you don’t use others streaming player like apple tv etc)

** Go to settings > General > Network > Expert Settings > Wi-Fi ( turn it off)

thats it. Then make sure your hdmi eARC is in auto mode

Dolby atmos compatibility turn on.

Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC) turned on.

Hopefully problem will be fix. Must be something to do with wifi cheap they used (Not sure just a guess) Even though it fixed this tv model is faulty they should recall it.

SmartOnly · ‎13-01-2022

Mate very simple fix I’ve got. Its the tv QN800 which is some how faulty even though motherboard changes, the problem will not be fixed. I think this qn800 some sort of technical problem which includes incompatibility within the parts inside the tv/one connect box.

But do this Hopefully the problem will be fixed. For now

** Use ethernet/wired connection (If you don’t use others streaming player like apple tv etc)

** Go to settings > General > Network > Expert Settings > Wi-Fi ( turn it off)

thats it. Then make sure your hdmi eARC is in auto mode

Dolby atmos compatibility turn on.

Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC) turned on.

Hopefully problem will be fix. Must be something to do with wifi cheap they used (Not sure just a guess) Even though it fixed this tv model is faulty they should recall it.

crazyjohnyw · ‎13-01-2022

I turned the wifi off before, but once I use the smarthting app and program the universal remote for mibox, it lost the soundbar due to earc disappeared.

I have samsung this friday...will tell them replace both boards and see what happen

twchpr · ‎14-01-2022

I had an engineer visit today and they replaced the main board in the TV. Unfortunately it didn't seem to make much difference but I will do some more testing later. To be honest the engineers didn't seem to have many ideas and suggested it was probably a problem with the Bluray player. I've also come to the conclusion that the Bluray (with VieraLink/CEC enabled) is the main cause of the trouble in my setup. Obviously this is not a Samsung device so maybe it is some vendor incompatibility between the Panasonic and Samsung CEC flavours. However they did offer to order a new OCB board and cable and will replace those also in case it does help. If the problem persists after that, I suppose I can't really fault Samsung for trying. I would've bought a Samsung bluray player - if they still made them!

crazyjohnyw · ‎15-01-2022

Oh no. The samsung tech came out and they didn't replace any board of mine since I told them a lot of people have the same problem. They told me to call samsung again. What the f...

crazyjohnyw · ‎18-01-2022

Oh no. Samsung contracted Service Quick for the repair, what a terrible company.

Servive quick has a liar technician name Marco.. Service quick sent out a technician named Marco, and what a terrible liar he is. My samsung tv has hdmi earc connection problem, my soundbar is not detected by the tv. That Azz hole Marco came and check, he saw the problem. Them he told me to call samsung for refund and replacement, and said the tv is defective; he can't fix it. However, when I called samsung and I read the report the Azz hole Marco wrote, he wrote down no problem with the tv and no fault was found. What a liar who don't wanna do any repair because my 85 inch is heavy, and he lied. He lied to me, he also lied to his boss.

crazyjohnyw · ‎20-01-2022

F... samsung tv. After millions time of phone call to samsung to see I can replace the tv and refund, one tech support guy remotely log into my tv and see the hdmi earc problem, and he told me the management team will call me back for refund or return yesterday. Sounds very hopeful...however, they called me today and said I can't get the refund or replacement unless the service come out and check;then write it down on the ticket says it need to be replaced. I told one the guy name Marco from Service Quick came out and checked it, he told me he couldn't fix it, he also lied about it by saying no problem was found on the tv.

That's it, I'm done with Samsung, I return it through Amazon. I will never buy samsung tv again.

Moralneeeick · ‎21-01-2022

Glad you are able to get a refund - the problem I had is I bought direct from Samsung and the tv arrived a month before the Soundbar - so I waited a month to open both and lost my ability to get an instant return in that first month. I would go down the Amazon route and see if you can find a supplier that will tell you the manufacture date of the Tv if you want to get a new one. My understanding is that one’s manufactured post Q2 2021 seem to be fixed but it’s not the easiest thing to find out unless the supplier can tell you.

totally appreciate your frustration I loved it for months I’ve never been treated so badly by a company after spending £6k with them all told. Actually had to return my Neo G9 monitor too - but they are the best when they work so it’s a tightrope.

Best of luck

crazyjohnyw · ‎23-01-2022

I just replaced samsung q80a 85 inch tv with sony x91j 85 inch tv connected to samsung q950a soundbar, Sony tv work perfectly with this soundbar. So I can tell you that the samsung tv we got with earc problem is defective and should be a recall... samsung just don't want to admit it and lose money. I will never buy samsung tv again.