Samsung smart TV owners were hit by a mass apps blackout earlier this month, which saw nearly all of the major streaming services – with the exception of Netflix – become unavailable for several hours.
The blackout occurred on August 1, and reportedly affected apps including Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, HBO Max and many others, rendering them completely inaccessible. A Reddit thread with more than 800 posts documented the issue, while more than 85,000 Samsung TV owners reportedly tried to find assistance via Samsung’s Community forums.
When users tried using the apps, they reported seeing error messages that blamed broken security certificates and poor internet connectivity. However, it has now been discovered that the real culprit was a problem with Samsung’s own servers.
Although the exact cause of the blackout, which was felt globally, has not yet been determined, it stems from the fact that many streaming apps are reliant on Samsung’s servers, which power that company’s Tizen operating system for televisions. Netflix survived the blackout unaffected because it uses its own server system and global content delivery network, instead of relying on Samsung, The Verge reported..
FlatpanelsHD says the incident underscores the danger of relying on a “thin client system”, which refers to when applications are loaded via cloud-based servers instead of being installed on an operating system running locally on device, as is the case with Android and iOS apps, for example. In the unlikely event that Samsung were to go out of business and switch off its servers, it means that most applications on its TVs would become unusable.
Fortunately for Samsung TV owners, the company was able to fix the problem within a few hours, and users were able to resume streaming content from all of the affected apps.
Samsung issued a short statement to Android Authority, saying that its “TV service was affected for a small period of time overnight, but this has now been restored and customers should be able to resume normal use by powering off and restarting their TV with the remote control.”
However, it appears that Samsung may still have issues to rectify, with one user complaining that they attempted to solve the problem earlier by resetting their TV. Unfortunately for that individual, the reset created a new problem, where he or she is now unable to download any new applications to the TV, as it’s unable to retrieve their terms of service.
