Samsung Blu-ray players are malfunctioning out of the blue, with most reports claiming that the devices are stuck in endless reboots.
Thousands of owners of Samsung Blu-ray players and home theater systems have gone online to complain about the sudden issues, which seemingly started on June 19, according to ZDNet. While the reports vary, the most common problem appears to be Samsung Blu-ray players that continuously power on and off.
“It will turn on to the black screen with the Samsung logo and after 3-4 seconds it will restart and go back to the black screen with the Samsung logo,” one owner wrote. “This issue has completely grounded my home theatre system.”
Other reported issues include Blu-ray players making noises as if trying to read a disc when nothing is inserted, shutting down a few seconds after being turned on, and not responding to button presses. Issues have been reported with a variety of models, including BD-JM57C and BD-J5900, the HT-J5500W, and more.
In Samsung’s online forums, a community manager has acknowledged a boot-loop issue, confirming that the company is working on a solution. The cause of the problem remains unclear.
“We are aware of customers who have reported an issue with boot loops on some Blu-Ray players and we are looking into this further. We will post an update here on this thread when we have more information,” a community manager wrote.
There is speculation that this is all due to a faulty firmware update, but this is unlikely according to ZDNet, as the issues also affect end-of-life models that do not receive such updates. In addition, Samsung does not usually simultaneously release firmware updates to a wide range of device models on a late Friday afternoon.
A more likely cause for the sudden malfunctions is an expired SSL certificate, which is required for the Blu-ray players to link up to Samsung servers. There has been no official confirmation that this is the case, however.
Digital Trends has reached out to Samsung for further information on the matter, including a timeline for the fix in development, and we will update this article as soon as we hear back.
