By the end of February, all had become clear, checking on other websites (though Samsing never to my knowledge properly confessed the problem). There were no problems with millioons of Samsung users round the world. The problem was entirely because of a software change in Samsung's own central servers whic messed up a whole class of smart TVs all over the world. Do you know why? Because every smart TV, when it connects to the internet, always 'calls home' - ie to Samsung servers - as a way of checking that its internet connection is working. You would have thought that was not necessary, and to check that my internet linkwas working, surely that is correct. But I think it is because Samsung choose to monitor exactly how we are all using our Smart TV functionality.... Anyway, the flawed software upgrade in their central servers meant that when all our Smat TV's 'called home', they were given a faulty message. And that triggered a report in our own TVs that the internet connection was not working, and so it prevented the Smart functionality working. It did not in fact mean that the internet connection wasnt working, which is why lots of us managed to get firmware upgrades in the middle of all this.
Now these faults can happen. My severe criticism of Samsung is that they didnt come out clearly and explain all this, and admit the problem. That has totally damaged their reputation in my eyes, and no doubt smiliarly for millions of other users world wide. I will not be buying a Samsung TV in the future. Poor show, Samsung. You managed to turn a technical failure into a real disaster for your reputation.
David Quarmby