(Update: a commenter suggested that “broke the sound” is more accurate than “bricked” or “regressed” and I agree. See end note below.)
In 2022 I purchased the most expensive television in my life — a 77-inch OLED TV made by LG. Recently LG pushed a firmware update to the television. It effectively bricked the TV, and LG won’t fix it. In today’s world of large-screen televisions, it is expected that the TV will be able to generate a “Dolby 5.1 surround-sound” digital signal on an optical output. The idea is that the user can run a fiber optic cable from the TV to an “AV receiver”. The AV receiver will decode the Dolby 5.1 signal digital signal into six distinct audio signals:
-
- left front speaker
- center speaker
- right front speaker
- left “surround” (rear) speaker
- right “surround” (rear) speaker
- subwoofer
The user can then connect five conventional speakers to the receiver for the first five signals, and can connect a “powered” subwoofer to a line-level output for the “subwoofer” signal.
My particular AV receiver is a Pioneer device, and it has served me well for many years, quietly decoding Dolby 5.1 signals into the six analog signals.
All of this went silent a couple of weeks ago. LG pushed a new firmware version to the TV (version 3.53.31 dated September 12, 2025) and now the TV no longer generates a proper Dolby 5.1 signal that can be decoded by the Pioneer AV receiver. Others have reported the same unhappy result — quoted at right is a Reddit post dated September 17, 2025, reporting that the user’s LG OLED TV is hooked up to a Pioneer AV receiver and “after the update, it no longer handshakes the audio and so now I’m stuck with TV sound and no more surround sound.” This user, like me, is now stuck unable to use any audio path other than the built-in monophonic TV speaker.
I spent half an hour on the phone with a first LG tech support person who insisted that if I were to do a “factory reset” on the television, the problem would go away. Of course this did not fix the failure, although it did delete all of the streaming apps that I had installed on the TV. And it deleted all of the login settings. So to make any further use of the TV (using only the built-in monophonic speaker and not the surround sound) I would need to reinstall the streaming apps and log in again at all of the streaming apps. The support person placed me on hold for a very long time, and after about forty minutes on hold, there was a click and I was listening to a dial tone.
I hit redial on the phone, reaching a supervisor. The supervisor declined to assist with reverting the firmware to the previous version (which would have fixed the problem) and declined to commit to providing a future firmware update to restore the Dolby 5.1 connectivity to my Pioneer receiver. And the supervisor cheerfully noted that the LG two-year warranty had already expired, so LG would not fix this failure under warranty.
Fortunately for me, I had purchased the TV at Costco, and Costco had provided a $99 five-year extended warranty, covered by a $100 credit on the purchase price. Yes, you read that right. Costco actually paid me $1 to take an otherwise free-of-charge five-year extended warranty.
And a replacement 77-inch OLED TV, made by a different company, will arrive this coming Tuesday, delivered to my door, free of charge.
I’m likely to go out of my way to make my next few large consumer electronics purchases at Costco.
Hello readers. By now I have retitled this article twice. First, see a comment below in which a reader suggested better terminology for what LG did to me. The commenter suggests “regression”. And indeed here is a Wikipedia article defining “software regression”. And yes, I think that is a more accurate characterization of what happened.
It is clear that what LG failed to do is “regression testing”.
But then another commenter suggested what I think is a still better title using the phrase “Broke the Sound”. So that is what you see now for the title.
Thank you to our commenters.
Costco is the best! LG I’m not so sure about and I will likely pass on the next firmware upgrade for my older Tab, assuming they even support it anymore.
It’s bad that LG’s update broke previously working functionality. It’s worse that they refuse to acknowledge and fix their problematic update.
However, it’s quibble time! “LG bricked my TV” implies that the firmware update not only caused your TV to stop working altogether but also destroyed its ability to receive further updates to correct the problem (rendering your TV permanently as functional as a brick).
This meaning of brick is well established and ought be respected, not distorted for dramatic effect, especially by one with your technical sophistication and writing talent. What happened in this case is actually referred to in the software profession as a *regression*.
Thank you for commenting. I will update the article accordingly.
LG customer support is terrible. I bought a 47″ curved OELD monitor and when it did not work properly, I sent an email via their website to “the President.” I received a support ticket and an email that said they would contact me within 48 hours. I sent several follow up emails since they never contacted me and I received the same automated reply but they never contacted me. So you’re not alone.
In Europe, I could imagine a statutory consumer right to get the firmware update undone. In the USA, I suppose you must just accept the free market operating.
Maybe some more quibbling is warranted. The term “regression” is almost exclusively used to refer to unintended, unexpected consequences introduced by a software change. Occasionally it is used to refer to an unavoidable consequence, e.g., when an emergency security update predictably breaks something else which cannot be fixed without delaying the security update. It doesn’t appear that parties outside LG know whether the issue complained of is a regression.
“LG Broke the Sound on My TV” seems more accurate than “bricked” or “regressed”. No one who buys a 77-inch TV expects to use the internal speaker.
Thank you Neil for commenting. I think your proposed title is much better. I am updating it now.
1. You have sold me on purchasing my next TV from Costco and buying their extended Warranty (I hope they have the same deal you had).
2. You not only are getting a brand new TV from another manufacturer, because, why reward atrocious customer service with repeat business, but; you will be eligible for the class action lawsuit that has to happen. This story is horrifying.
I’m not so sophisticated with surround sound, I just link my Amazon Alexa dot thingys to my TV for stereo sound because I am half deaf and that works for me. When they get a little wonky I just reset the Firestick.
I sent this article to someone who responded:
“Those TVs are beautiful (and so expensive!) and the software is notoriously bad, which is unforgivable.
“But it’s also kind of surprising that someone with a home theater setup like the author would be using the smart apps on the TV to generate audio. At the time those were the best TVs money could buy, and he has a 5.1 sound system. Most people in that situation would use the TV just as a display and plug in something like a Roku directly into the AVR. So the problem could be solved with a $30 stick, and you would never have to deal with the TV manufacturer’s garbage software! (Unless he has an inexpensive AVR that doesn’t support 4K.)”
Would a Roku stick have solved the problem?
No it does not matter whether the streaming is accomplished using a stick (like Roku or Amazon) or is accomplished using an app in the TV operating system. Either way, I would need to somehow communicate the Dolby 5.1 signal to the AV receiver. The usual way to do this is via an optical cable (from an optical cable port) or via an electrical serial digital cable (from an electrical serial audio digital port).
ne
I have used many Roku and Amazon streaming sticks over the years, and the sticks I have seen have no output other than an HDMI output.
I am not aware of any stick (Roku or Amazon for example) that has either of those two ports. It would be very helpful to hear from your friend what kind of streaming stick has either of these two pots.