A What Hi-Fi writer just went public with the argument we have all had here for years: he let his Bravia 8 II take an automatic firmware update and now half his system is out of action. The symptom is oddly specific. Anything arriving through an external source, his Apple TV 4K or a Sky Stream puck, drops audio when routed out to his external sound system. The TV's own built-in apps play back fine. Sony knows about it, a fix is apparently in the works, but there is no date and the bad build has been in the wild about two months already.
Two months is the part that gets me. If a TV at that price arrived from the factory with that fault it would be a straightforward return. Push the same fault down the wire after the return window has closed and suddenly it is a support ticket you sit on. Same pattern turns up on webOS and Tizen: a point release lands, eARC or the HDMI handshake goes sideways, and the fix shows up whenever the next build is ready.
His new policy is the sensible one. Kill auto-update, wait a week or two when a new build appears, search the release number, apply it manually only if nobody is screaming. Costs you nothing except a short delay on a feature you probably were not waiting for.
The catch is that some sets make this hard. On a few platforms the toggle is buried three menus deep, and I have a nagging feeling at least one brand quietly re-enables it after a factory reset, though I have never pinned down which. Has anyone actually confirmed a set where off stays off?
Two months is the part that gets me. If a TV at that price arrived from the factory with that fault it would be a straightforward return. Push the same fault down the wire after the return window has closed and suddenly it is a support ticket you sit on. Same pattern turns up on webOS and Tizen: a point release lands, eARC or the HDMI handshake goes sideways, and the fix shows up whenever the next build is ready.
His new policy is the sensible one. Kill auto-update, wait a week or two when a new build appears, search the release number, apply it manually only if nobody is screaming. Costs you nothing except a short delay on a feature you probably were not waiting for.
The catch is that some sets make this hard. On a few platforms the toggle is buried three menus deep, and I have a nagging feeling at least one brand quietly re-enables it after a factory reset, though I have never pinned down which. Has anyone actually confirmed a set where off stays off?
