Samsung‘s flagship soundbar, the HW-Q990D, has become unusable for some owners following a buggy firmware update that the company released this week. A huge number of posts on Samsung’s community forums, Reddit, and AVSForum confirm that something has gone wrong with the premium Dolby Atmos system in recent days. The problem is not limited to any specific region, with users from the United States, Austria, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries sharing their frustrations.
Customers say the soundbar is unresponsive and none of the usual factory reset methods work; the affected devices are also unavailable through Samsung’s SmartThings app. The device turns on, but seems to hang on the TV’s eARC input – with no audio output to speak of.
The culprit seems to be the latest firmware release, namely version 1020.7. Many Q990Ds are set to automatically install new updates, which has led to massive complaints of bad software over the past few days. If you have a Samsung soundbar, it might be wise to disable auto-update for a while until the situation clears up. There are scattered reports that the same bug is affecting other Samsung models such as the HW-Q800D and HW-S801D, but most complaints are about the Q990D. It’s one of the most popular soundbars on the market, so this is an unfortunate case.
Some customers have already received instructions to send their Q990Ds in for repair. This seems like a worst-case scenario, so hopefully Samsung will find a simpler solution that can be done at home once they realize the extent of the problem. Is it possible to fix the problem with another firmware update in the coming days? Stay tuned.
