XH90 multiple issues - Sound, Android, Alexa

[DanOpri87]

Hi all,

Joined this forum as a last ditch effort in trying not to sell my newly-bought XH90 because of soooo many issues! Have to mention this is my 4th Android Sony TV, but by far, the buggiest. I thought that maybe after all these years, the development would've been more advanced and the bugs would stop. Boy was I wrong! Getting to the issues:

SOUND

- currently using a Sony G700 soundbar along with my 55" XH90 and the sound randomly stops while watching TV from various sources. Sometimes it does it during TV, other times during Netflix, or also during casting. It feels like it stops communicating with the TV. Connection is HDMI, through the ARC port. I did try changing the cable, issues' still occurring.

ANDROID

- AirPlay only worked the first day. After that, I wasn't able to mirror anything, the TV would just not appear in the list of devices available to mirror. Not on my iPhone, not on the Mac. Right now, I can see the TV in the list of devices for mirroring, but it would not receive casting from any of the afore-mentioned devices.

- Random freezes of the interface. If I want to quickly switch between apps, there's a 30% chance the system will freeze, and the long-press of the power button doesn't work for restarts. I have to unplug for 10 secs. 

- Alexa not working. Ok, this might be intentional, but it is extremely frustrating. Not residing in the UK, which is apparently one of the very few EU markets (soon not even EU, eh? ) where Alexa is active. I don't have the Alexa app, and if I change countries to the UK, I lose a ton of the TV channels, because during setup the TV will scan for channels in the UK typical bands. Any workarounds?

I'm running the latest firmware v6.0414 and all of the above were happening BEFORE and AFTER the firmware update. So this didn't solve it. What the update did seem to solve, was the crackling sound of the PS5 in 1/3 boot-ups. I didn't mention this above because it is solved now. 

TIA for any pointers, I really don't want to sell this one. I've always chosen Sony for the image quality and I still think that in conventional LED, Sony is second to none. 

[Joe_Dohn]

Have you tried clearing the cache (Settings - Device Preferences - Storage - Internal Shared Storage - Cached data) and restarting by holding the power button?

If yes, maybe go for a full reset and see how it goes.

- JD

[DanOpri87]

Yeah, on multiple occasions. Currently on 3 factory resets. No improvement or even worse behaviour. Will call Sony today, but I presume they will suggest this as well, or either bringing it in for service/replacement. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm having to deal with a faulty unit, or all this is software-generated and I can just (hopefully) wait it out. Although I have to admit, it's getting worse. When changing sources from PS5 to TV, it completely forgets the channels, it says something like "no channels found, please do a scan". But I reset it and it comes back around. Right now, moving to 2 in 5 startups that are faulty.

[Joe_Dohn]

Do let us know what they end up recommending as it may help others on the forum ^^

[jutler123]

Can't help with the alexa issue nor do I use airplay, but in regards to the sound cutting out, have you enabled eARC? I have noticed this issue when eARC is enabled as I have the 55xh9005 and a htg700.  Turn eARC off and you should find that the sound won't stop (at least it worked for me).  Thinking this is something that Sony still needs to fix

[DanOpri87]

Doesn’t turning eARC off remove the function to automatically turn on/off as the TV powers on/off? 

[jutler123]

no, your soundbar will still power cycle with the TV when eARC is disabled.  

[DanOpri87]

I have now got 3 separate tickets with them, one on sound, one on AirPlay and one on channels dissapearing. I will keep you posted on the progress.

[DanOpri87]

Ok, so just out of luck I've checked my emails to find that I had a reply on the Apple forums on my AirPlay issue. It was actually one of the Apple guys giving me the standard reply, with "have you checked our support pages?" etc. However, something caught my eye. It seems that for AirPlay to work on non-Apple devices, which is the Sony TV, you'd have to set up HomeKit first. You can't really do (or at least I can't do it on my TV) AirPlay and expect it to work without setting up the TV as the hub in the Home app on iOS. 

So once I've set it up (I remember I did it the very first I got the TV, and then for the other times when I've reset the TV, I always clicked that I'll setup HomeKit later, but never did it), the Sony TV started appearing in my list of devices that I can AirPlay to. You'd think problem solved, right? Guess again.

Changing inputs from stopping AirPlay on my phone to back to watching a TV station was fine. But when I disconnected AirPlay from my Mac, it could not get signal for the TV stations. Any of them. I was forced to restart the TV. Once I've restarted the TV, it was no longer available in the list of devices for AirPlay. So I went into the Home app and closed my TV from there and then reopened only to restore the TV back into the AirPlay list.

So long story short, there's a bug there somewhere. Had no clue it was mandatory to have the TV set up in HomeKit, but then the fact that when changing the sources, the TV just goes haywire, I think that's due to Android having a bug. 

Before this I had a 2018 Sony XF85 series and every time I used to watch stuff from my Mac on the TV, it worked like a charm, not once had any issues. Granted, I was using the Apple TV 4K as "middle-man" but still it would change inputs and when returning to the TV I never experienced any issues. 

[DanOpri87]

So, fast forward a couple of weeks later,

- AirPlay works with the TV 1/5 times. That's still a software issue from my point of view

- Sound still stops randomly while watching multiple sources, the latest update from a couple of days ago doesn't solve the issue, still happens.

- Furthermore a new issue appeared: if sometimes I change sources from ATV to watching TV or Netflix, it cuts the TV's internet connection. Can't really understand the reason but it does. 

- It didn't reproduce the losing of TV channels anymore, which I guess is a good thing. 

I did get some emails from Sony engineers who seem to have viewed this post, but their emails are just copy/paste templates from the same engineers that are trying to fix it here locally. However, so far, they're just asking for proof, like I don't have anything else better to do than to come up with issues on my TV and spend hours and hours trying to find a fix. Frankly, I'm tired. I'm just going to put this up on eBay and sell it. Don't know what I'm going to get, probably LG OLED, but Sony just lost me as a fan for their TVs. I know I won't get that image on any other LED TV, hence why going with OLED. But Android just killed it for me.