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Bit of a rant. I get that they need to get security updates out, and bug fixes that some people want. But why do they have to keep messing things up while doing it, I'll never know. I'm sure they have their arses covered by their terms and conditions but these cockups are costing people time, money, data, and sometimes the device altogether - when they had a device that was working perfectly fine before. Not broken, didn't really need fixing. It's usually automatic, sometimes can be opted out or postponed but often not or not indefinitely. I'm fortunate enough to be able to fix many of these problems but it takes time and the average person won't be able to.
Anyone have similar experiences?
I remember from the past few years after various updates, all reputable manufacturers too:
- Phone needs a reboot every time I get home before it'll connect to the WiFi. That was the very last update they pushed out for that model.
- Laptop disconnects and reconnects to WiFi every 5 seconds.
- TV no longer shows the video output from Chromecast, only the audio.
- Garmin randomly crashing mid-ride.
- Friend's laptop is unusable after auto update to Windows 10.
If you read online there are even people whose cars were made undriveable by failed or faulty software updates.
Presumably anyone that bought Cyberpunk and applied the latest patch.
Friend’s laptop is unusable after auto update to Windows 10.
Probably less unusable than an unsupported or unpatched Win 7 update.
A few years ago I bought a pair of hi fi quality Samsung wireless speakers. The hardware was amazing and to this day I have rarely heard better from a Wi-Fi set up…when they worked which was hardly ever due to the proprietary Samsung app they had to use. It never worked properly with speakers ungrouping, error messages etc then after a year or so it started working flawlessly and I was in multi room heaven….for about 6 months when they randomly shut down support for Deezer on an update and that was that. Basically bricked. Loads of people had spent a lot more than me on them and bitterly complained but tough. Samsung then exited that market and closed the app. Some of the higher end speakers in this range were 700 quid each….
Garmin.
My Forerunner watch. Fix 2 problems whilst failing to fix the 3rd, and introducing 4 more unrelated but waaay more fundamental problems whilst at it.
Eat, sleep, repeat 😖.. FFS.
I'd forgotten just how sh1te the Garmin s/w revision control was whilst I had a Polar watch for a few years.
Happened to me 2 weeks ago with a Windows 11 update causing lots of blue screen problems which I couldn't resolve so had to fork out for the local PC repair place to sort out.
My Vauxhall electric van is waiting for a software upgrade/fix at it's first service. Several colleagues have got the van back with inoperable air conditioning! Seeing as it's the first van I've had with air con, I'll be pretty upset if they break it and I'm faced with another 7 years of sweaty bollocks!
(We don't use the main dealer network so fixing the air con isn't considered important, although one guy did manage to get their van back in to redo the update and that fixed it)
Spotify has been glitchy in the past and they seem to often take a leaf out of Elon Musks book of impulsive snap decisions and break or remove stuff. I think the last one was they moved the sleep timer to the main controls which was great, but apparently it disabled the function when listening/requesting sleep via some wireless speakers (I forget the exact problem). A few weeks later they reverted to the old method of needing to be on the currently playing screen and then digging through a side menu.
Scottish schools use a system for reports and class registration. They seem to like to do untested updates at random points during the day. Some of them not entirely successful.
Once a item is not supported the API to control it or some details about the firmware should be opensourced. It terrible the way so many good become unusable due to software updates near eol or become unsupported. I don't expect a company to support a device for ever but if it's end of life let people have the data to develop and repair.
Once a item is not supported the API to control it or some details about the firmware should be opensourced.
100%
Whatever you think of Richard Stallman the person, it's hard to read threads like these and think he was wrong on software "openness".
Hammerhead are a repeat offender with the Karoo 2. They have a two week firmware update cycle and frequently their latest 'upgrade' doesn't work properly or breaks other features. Go the the HH forum for the latest where they have changed the UI which has caused hundreds to complain bitterly. Meanwhile, many many requests to allow users to disable the dysfunctional rerouting function have been fobbed off / ignored / promised but not delivered. The Karoo 2 feels like a badly implemented beta test programme. 30% price drop just now suggests a Karoo 3 about to go to market. Hopefully a more mature product (SRAM now owns HH and they may have brought a more controlled process to HH's at times chaotic development process).
Hammerhead is based on Android 8, now six years old. That their architecture is unable to cope with core android updates suggests both a design and a process failure.
Early iPads were driven into unusable bricks by updates. Just got slower and slower. I was lucky enough to buy an iPad Pro about 7-8 years ago though and after the Ipad 1 & 2 I had died rapidly, this one is still an amazing piece of kit. Battery life not quite as good, to be expected, but performance is still great. (Oh yeah, bought a Pixel 3a about the same time (thank you redundancy money) which is still updating and still superb. Battery life also very good).
My Windows 10 PC, which was an old test workstation at my last job used to get MS updates which removed the graphics driver every single time. Drove me nuts, defaulted to 800X600 after every patch day! I think I disabled Windows update and it's been ok for years now. (Security nerds, just don't bother. Fingers in my ears lalalala)
Pretty much every ‘smart tv’ sold will stop getting updates after about a year of sale. My 2007 Sony Bravia is now failing, the screen looks like a 1960’s psychedelic dayglo poster, all the colours are reversed and very bright. It’s been a bit flaky for a while, then it sorted itself, then Sunday it went completely on the fritz. That means I’m going to have to buy a new set, and there are no non-smart sets available anymore. ☹️ Will the new one last 16 years?
Just an app, but my go-to photo editing app on Android, Snapseed randomly decided not to continue to save edited photos into it's own Snapseed folder.
Now they are just saved alongside the originals in the main camera folder.
I back up just the ones I've edited and delete the rest so it's really annoying.
You can't contact anyone about it either.
The ironic thing is this thread being on the SingleTrack world forum 🙂
Google's (who should know better) constant tweaking of assistant annoys me. I have a home screen short cut that starts with the dogs bed time white noise. Well I did because an assistant change has rendered it useless. There is the option to run a custom command. Just stopped working one day. Stupid thing is the exact same command spoken works.
Zwift are masters of breaking more things than they fix, must have some ex Garmin staff.
just buy a non-Android smart telly & use it in non-smart mode with an AppleTV plugged in.Pretty much every ‘smart tv’ sold will stop getting updates after about a year of sale.
Zwift are masters of breaking more things than they fix
I can tell you don't play games by Frontier Developments.
Do smart TVs serve ads or is that just the US? There's a reason monitors cost so much more to buy.
My Windows 10 PC, which was an old test workstation at my last job used to get MS updates which removed the graphics driver every single time. Drove me nuts, defaulted to 800X600 after every patch day! I think I disabled Windows update and it’s been ok for years now. (Security nerds, just don’t bother. Fingers in my ears lalalala)
There's actually an easy way to fix that without going full nuclear, I've done it previously.
Just turn off auto update, that’s what I do. Choose security updates on a necessary basis. My phone has 64 updates “needing” done. Only ones I do regularly are banking and online payment apps. My Strava can do without support for the 126 languages I don’t speak.
just buy a non-Android smart telly & use it in non-smart mode with an AppleTV plugged in.
Are there any? Even a lot of car manufacturers are using Android in their infotainment systems, Volvo and Polestar are entirely Google. I want to replace my Sony with another Bravia, and I think Sony use Android, although they’re among the worst for creating proprietary software and hardware, and updating both every year, mobile phone connections between one in particular! Then there’s storage cards, music media formats…
I’ll certainly turn off updates, but I have a Sky Q box, and my old Mac Mini gets plugged in to use the telly as its monitor, so I have no real need for smart functions on the TV, so hopefully not allowing updates means nothing important will get ‘broken’ in future.
Why buy a TV at all one of these or similar at £580 and plug a Firestick or AppleTV into it and away you go.
That monitor won’t have a remote and won’t support ARC so can’t be used for a decent sound bar setup and I suspect would be a pain to use as a tv.
Boeing had a few issues with their flight control software in the 737 max.
But why do they have to keep messing things up while doing it, I’ll never know.
So you buy the new version.
There’s actually an easy way to fix that without going full nuclear, I’ve done it previously.
Yeah, I think it's the "Don't update drivers" option or something. I forgot, I've enabled that, and updates a while ago on the pc.
CountZero
Pretty much every ‘smart tv’ sold will stop getting updates after about a year of sale.
We've got an LG TV that is 7 years old & still gets software updates -it got one about 3 months ago. Also, all of the apps we need still work on it - YouTube, YouTube Kids, iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon.
I can't think of anything that has stopped functioning due to 'updates', or lack of.
Maybe LG are an outlier? It would be good to have this kind of information available at the time of purchase as it would probably sway me towards a particular manufacturer, knowing the product will be supported long-term.
I want to replace my Sony with another Bravia
Any reason for this? The TV industry is unrecognisable from 2007. What does Bravia even mean? Just branding.
Hammerhead is based on Android 8, now six years old. That their architecture is unable to cope with core android updates suggests both a design and a process failure.
Caveat that I don't know what Hammerhead is, and you'll probably turn out to be Head Of Android Update Process for Samsung or something...
...But! Having been somewhat involved in updating Android for an existing software project, it's hardly a five minute job.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, but lots of manufacturers will see something like three years to be the working lifetime of a given gadget and hence the Android migration process is driven more by hardware updates.
We’ve got an LG TV that is 7 years old & still gets software updates -it got one about 3 months ago. Also, all of the apps we need still work on it – YouTube, YouTube Kids, iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon.
Same with my Samsung. Still gets updates, still a great telly, even though it was one of their cheaper ones.