Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

[Jwrc]

Since the update, the soundbar is unresponsive and can't be reset.

Seems like quite a few people with the issue

[OldButSlow]

If you dont mind can you share which country you live in and how you obtained the unit? I reside in Germany and have bought the unit directly from Samsung's online shop. Support told me 6 days ago that they will reach out to me once they figure out the solution. I have not received a ticket number, they only have my email on file. I am wondering if I should contact them again and ask to register a case number.

Thx

[EdB1]

I got a case number from samsung Germany. Waiting for a mail with instructions how to return. Use the Chat Option when you contact samsung 

[Bman1096]

I am in the US and bought from Bestbuy last May.  I called and explained the issue and they asked me to try resetting it which I told them no buttons respond so they had me send my receipt and then they issued a UPS label and QR Code to send it in under warranty.  Just tell them it doesn't respond at all to anything and they should issue a ticket.

[brazilianboy]

I’m from Brazil. I own an Q-930D also bricked. The costumer service here is terrible. At this point I guess Samsung will not give us any hint or excuses about what happened. It’s very sad and frustrating that a company like this treat us this way. 

[Aussieditts]

My Q990D unit came with a HDMI cable. Should be Ultra High Speed 2.1 to match the units ports of 2.1. The cable is stamped UHS and the cable number is E504858. All the research I’ve done says that E number is Premium High Speed. Which is 18 GBPs, not the 48 GBPs for UHS. I think this cable is only 2.0 and stamped incorrectly UHS. I’ve raised with Samsung who are looking into it. Just be aware. If you’re using the included cable, you may not be getting the full potential 0f 2.1. I’m in Australia 

[Shadowind]

Same here

[WhammyBars]

I’m from Singapore, Samsung support sent an engineer down to my house today (Thursday) and took the unit back as they do not have stock to replace the motherboard. 

Edit: i got the soundbar back today (Friday) after Samsung replaced the mobo. Alls good. 

[BonTikkersWife]

Just now I spoke to someone from Samsung support in The Netherlands. They acknowledge that they are aware of this major update issue and confirmed that Samsung is aware of its worldwide scope. Still, they don't have a solution available, other than sending by technical support.

Unfortunately, I bought my soundbar at dealer Mediamarkt (a well-known Dutch chain store). Their only solution offered is bringing by the soundbar to their store for reparation. Only if reparation can't be done within three weeks, they will consider a product exchange.

Ridiculous to send a 1200 euros worth f**** soundbar for reparation, which is only 5 months old, because some **bleep** at Samsung didn't consider to proper release test nor a rollback @Samsung_Moderator 

[Marcocce]

Samsung’s handling of this issue raises serious concerns. A firmware update should never be capable of completely bricking thousands of devices unless there is a serious design flaw in the main board hardware. Well-engineered systems include built-in protections to prevent catastrophic failures, ensuring that even a faulty update can be reversed or recovered. Yet, in this case, not even manual USB recovery works, leaving users with no option but to replace the entire main board.

This strongly suggests that the issue goes beyond just bad software. If a simple firmware update was enough to render so many devices unusable, it points to a critical design flaw in the hardware itself. How did a premium sound system end up so vulnerable to a single bad update?

Even more concerning, Samsung appears to be replacing the faulty units with the exact same board model, without publicly addressing the root cause. This means the fundamental issue hasn’t been fixed—just temporarily patched. Even if repaired units are working now, there’s nothing preventing the same failure from happening again.

Without an official statement or a real long-term solution, users remain at serious risk. If another update triggers the same issue, we’ll be right back in this situation. Samsung needs to acknowledge this as a potential hardware design failure and provide transparency, not just leave consumers to deal with the consequences of what could be a major engineering flaw.

[userIGnei5PCYf]

I believe the thing resembles updating bios in motherboards a while back. Then if you installed wrong file, you rewrote original file and bricked the device. At some point motherboards started coming with 2 separate bios and a physical switch that would toggle other one in case of failure. Nowadays motherboards also check if the file is for correct device, but I believe this is just some string in file reading what device it is for. 

In Samsung's case it really isn't hardware's fault, because every hardware stops working if you replace firmware with trash. The problem is solely in update process and in maintaining and testing those updates. Samsung has long history of pushing out untested updates that mess hardware.