TV Suddenly Stopped Recognizing HDMI Inputs

[JakeRae]

I have a 65” Samsung S95B that suddenly stopped recognizing video input from HDMI connected devices. It will not recognize my PS5, my cable box, or a laptop and I’ve tried all 4 HDMI ports. It still does output sound via eARC to my soundbar with no issues. It also still will start via CEC when a device connected via HDMI starts, but then says it cannot find the connected device.

In addition to trying multiple devices and ports, I have tried power cycling both devices and the TV, I tried the full collection of HDMI cables I have and bought a new 8K certified HDMI 2.1 cable (from Anker not one of the crazy expensive ones but not a fake brand) to test if by some weird coincidence all my cables stopped working overnight—they did not.

I’m out of ideas and have a ticket for a Samsung tech to come in person to try to fix this, but also wanted to see if the SoSH collective has thoughts on things I could do to fix this on my own. It seems like this is a persistent problem with Samsung TVs, but I haven’t been able to find any real guidance on how to fix it.

 

[ColdSoxPack]

Under "settings" do you have "support" and then "self diagnosis"? Give it a try. You already swapped out the cables which was my next guess. Do your cables go into a hub rather that straight into the TV? If you have a hub you can reset it under self diagnosis. I had to do that once. My oldest Samsung is acting squirelly.

 

[The Mort Report]

I have a fairly new Samsung too, it can also be reset by going Settings to General, last option for me.

 

[JakeRae]

Under "settings" do you have "support" and then "self diagnosis"? Give it a try. You already swapped out the cables which was my next guess. Do your cables go into a hub rather that straight into the TV? If you have a hub you can reset it under self diagnosis. I had to do that once. My oldest Samsung is acting squirelly.

I’ve tried this. It tells me all the cables are bad, thus the new cable. I have now decided the TV is wrong since the odds of all existing cables failing at the same time was low, but the odds my brand new certified cable was also bad are pretty much non-existent.

I don’t have a hub. I suppose what I should do next is hard reset the TV. I really would like to avoid that because then I have to track down all my app passwords, but it is the logical next thing to try.

 

[JakeRae]

The bad news is trying a factory reset has still left me in the same place. The TV recognizes that there is a device connected sufficient to auto change input when I power on a connected device, but then doesn’t connect and puts up a “check device power” error message.

 

[cgori]

Shot in the dark but try turning off ARC/CEC functions.

 

[candylandriots]

I had something like this just on HDMI1 with my AppleTV. It was pretty much a brand new HDMI cable that worked fine the day before. I switched to HDMI2 and it worked fine. It honestly seemed like a Samsung issue, so this makes me feel a little better about my problem, though worse about yours. Seems like something's weird here.

 

[JakeRae]

Shot in the dark but try turning off ARC/CEC functions.

I’ve tried this too. Seems like I’m probably stuck waiting for the tech to show up. At least I’m in warranty so any fix/replacement should be covered.

 

[OfTheCarmen]

I assume you've tried the cords in other HDMI devices? Not that it will fix anything, but it checks a box and gives them one less thing to latch onto.

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

Does the firmware automatically update? Might have been a bad patch that borked it.

 

[Batman Likes The Sox]

In another thread here I documented my Samsung slowly losing one HDMI port after another until none remained. It was five years old. Was hoping for far more life out of it but it’s now buried at the town transfer station. That’s the end of a run of three pretty nice Samsung tvs for me.

Will be interested to hear how it goes with the technician, just out of curiosity.

 

[ColdSoxPack]

In another thread here I documented my Samsung slowly losing one HDMI port after another until none remained. It was five years old. Was hoping for far more life out of it but it’s now buried at the town transfer station. That’s the end of a run of three pretty nice Samsung tvs for me.

Will be interested to hear how it goes with the technician, just out of curiosity.

Yes please advise the diagnosis as I have all Samsungs, although I will never buy another one.

 

[Humphrey]

Yes please advise the diagnosis as I have all Samsungs, although I will never buy another one.

...irrelevant if one is streaming, right?

 

[ColdSoxPack]

...irrelevant if one is streaming, right?

Correct.

 

[JakeRae]

I assume you've tried the cords in other HDMI devices? Not that it will fix anything, but it checks a box and gives them one less thing to latch onto.

Yes. I haven’t tried every cord, but the ones I have still work to connect my laptop to my desktop setup displays (usually I use a USB-C connection). The laptop also won’t display on the TV, so I think this rules out the cables.

Does the firmware automatically update? Might have been a bad patch that borked it.

It does and this could certainly be a firmware patch issue. I’m not clear on whether the factory reset should have fixed this or if it resets to the current OS version.

 

[JakeRae]

...irrelevant if one is streaming, right?

Correct. Streaming is fine, which means I can basically watch TV as I would normally. The cable box connection is a minor annoyance since we don’t use it that much these days. The PS5 not connecting is far more annoying.

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

It does and this could certainly be a firmware patch issue. I’m not clear on whether the factory reset should have fixed this or if it resets to the current OS version.

I believe you would have to manually reinstall or revert the firmware.

 

[JakeRae]

As an update, a repair tech came today, replaced the circuit board, and everything works again. We’ll see if that holds up longer term.