Katarzyna Petru
On August 1, Samsung Smart TV owners around the world woke up to a reality where almost all applications stopped working. Access to YouTube, Disney+, HBO Max, and dozens of other platforms disappeared. This was not a typical outage of one service, but a complete blackout of applications on Samsung TVs – and this happened right in the middle of the summer vacation, when many viewers particularly frequently reach for streaming. Only Netflix remained available, which immediately caught the attention of users and experts.
Avalanche of reports and unclear errors
Those who tried to launch the applications instead of watching a series or movie saw error codes related to the server, the internet, or security certificates on their screens. Normally, this would suggest a problem on the user's side, but this time the fault lay with Samsung's servers. The internet exploded: over 800 posts appeared on Reddit describing the outage, and on Samsung's official forum, as many as 85 thousand people were desperately seeking an explanation and solution.
Tizen and the "thin client" – Samsung's Achilles heel
The failure revealed how much Samsung Smart TV applications depend on the Tizen platform and the company's central servers. In practice, this means that if Samsung were to turn off its servers in the future, a significant portion of applications could completely stop working. Only Netflix operated continuously, probably because it enforces the use of its own independent CDN infrastructure. Experts also reminded about the "thin client" model, where the interface is loaded from the server, unlike solutions like tvOS on Apple TV, which operate locally on the device.
Samsung's Reaction and Bitter Déjà Vu
The company assured in a conversation with Android Authority that “the TV service was affected for a short time at night, but has already been restored,” and that users can resolve the issue by turning the TV off and on again using the remote. However, not everyone shared this optimism – some reported that after the reset, no applications could be downloaded because the TV couldn't read the terms of service, and the setup still wasn't working properly. Worse still, this isn't the first crisis of its kind – in 2020, Samsung's Blu-ray players were "bricked" by an incorrect internet configuration and required physical repairs. Today's outage showed that history can repeat itself, and the entire platform stands on more fragile foundations than many might have assumed.
Source: The Verge, Android Authority
