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Comment by dspillett | Hacker News Reader

Some TVs will present a popover warning that they have not been able to check for updates for a while, after being disconnected for some time, and you can't close that without letting them connect (even if you are just using the screen to display content from an HDMI slot rather than using any of the other TV features).

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Sounds like an intentionally defective product. Just after warranty period ends, TV turns on but won't show my picture. Return it to the store if you live in a place with consumer protections. The warranty period is legally irrelevant in cases like this.

Which ones? I'd be happy to know the brands.

Samsung TVs certainly do. A massive PITA.

Good to know. I don't buy Samsung anymore anyway. I have two CRG9s and they're already showing same problems after a couple of years. Had a midrange phone from them some years ago - started dying 6mo in (battery, restarts, slowness).

Be specific. Which models and after what time.

Mine has been running for two years now without insisting on updates.

FWIW, I've never seen that come up on the five or six TCLs that I've owned over the last decade. I have AppleTVs connected to all of them and never connect them to the internet. So far, so good.

I don't recall off the top of my head. It was covered in one of Louis Rossmann's rants so you might find information on the consumer rights wiki he talks about.

I wonder if this is firmware related. I've had a Samsung TV for a few years now that I've never connected to the internet, so my firmware is likely very out of date, and it has never displayed a message like that.

Do they still do it if they've never been connected to a network? So they don't even know what date/time it is relative to their current updates/firmware? Do they display the warning based on a cumulative power-on timer only (much as good quality computer displays have somewhere in their menus buried a figure showing their total cumulative power on hours).

A family has a soundbar that just turns off after a while if it isn't connected to the internet.

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