Samsung has issued an official response in regards to the firmware update earlier in March that bricked the HW-Q990D soundbar — the best soundbar currently available — as well as some other Samsung models, including the HW-Q800D and HW-S801D. The following is the official response sent to Digital Trends by Samsung:
“Samsung Electronics has identified a software update error as the cause of the operational issue affecting certain 2024 soundbar devices. We are taking immediate action to resolve the situation. Samsung is offering free repairs for all affected units—regardless of warranty status.”
Earlier in the month, Samsung released firmware update 1020.7 that rendered the Q990D soundbar inoperable. Reports from users on the r/soundbars on Reddit, Samsung forums, and AVS Forum were posting about the update causing the soundbar to get stuck in eARC mode with no way to get it working again. (The story was originally reported by The Verge.)
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A moderator on the European Samsung forums messaged saying that Samsung AV Product Specialists were aware of the issue and an OTN (Over the Network) update was the cause of the bricking, and that the OTN update was suspended. Apparently the firmware update did not affect users that initiated the update over USB.
That original post from the Samsung forum moderator continued, “If your issue is the result of an OTN update, then it will be necessary to arrange an engineer’s inspection and repair in order to get this resolved.” Samsung’s official statement above doesn’t specifically indicate that non-working units will need to be sent in for repair instead of a new firmware fix being forced to resolve the problem, but if they do, at the very least it sounds as though Samsung will cover the cost.