I wish I was in your shoes! I also had no issues with HDMI until recent years--but HDMI-eARC is so buggy on Samsung TVs, especially when being used with surround sound or a sound bar. I had no problems before I moved to a surround system/beyond ARC, but with eARC I need to reboot the TV at the wall once every two weeks or it will "forget" it's plugged into a sound system, it's very annoying. It was far worse when I first got the TV and updates have improved it somewhat, but it's still very annoying. I don't hold out hope for Samsung updating the TV for much longer, my last one from them they abandoned it after the first year. :/