Earlier this year some Samsung displays, primarily in the UK, went dark after the manufacturer pushed an auto-update to connected TVs. 

There is now a “permanent workaround,” says Martin Ellis, managing director of Pulse-Eight, developer of HDMI and HDBaseT switching devices.

After communicating with Samsung, Ellis says the company performed “extensive testing” on the purported fix and found it has “no adverse affect on how the TV operates on a day-to-day basis.”

Here's the simple program:

1. Change source to TV
2. Go to settings and then Broadcasting
3. Go to Auto Tuning – Select Standby Auto Tuning
4. Change the Standby Auto Tune setting to OFF
5. Return the TV to the HDMI source

Ellis further expalins that some customers who implemented this preventative step reported that “the TV even felt a bit snappier, although we cannot confirm this.”

Some manufacturers like Pulse-Eight were able to fix the problem within their own software, but the process above should fix the issue for everyone else.

“As always,” Ellis says, “we continue to recommend to installers/dealers that when deploying a system, to turn off automatic updates to devices that they cannot remotely manage.”

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