It's very frustrating for me, but it was the remote's low batteries issue
When issue started, I tested them with voltmeter and it showed around 1.3V. I thought it was OK for the AAA type of batteries as I believed all batteries of this type are 1.2V. But today I've noticed that remote needed
AAA R03 1.5V type of batteries, not
AAA HR03 1.2V type of batteries. Problem was solved as I changed them to new.
Another confusing moments was that even with low batteries:
- I saw IR rays through smartphone's camera coming from the remote
- remote started working after pressing any key on it for 1-3 minutes
- remote kept working while I was constantly pressing button on it every few seconds
- after some idle time I had to hold remote's button for 1-3 minutes again, but it always worked
My theory is, this behavior was because of charges in the batteries was activated more and more while using them intensively by constantly pushing any buttons on the remote till TV started catching the signal. And kept more activated for a few seconds while I kept pushing remote's buttons. After some idle time I had to activate charges inside batteries again holding any button on the remote for 1-3 minutes.
Meanwhile Philips reached to me by suggesting two options to reset the TV:
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Using One Button Recovery (OBR) method:
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- turn off the TV by pulling it's power cord from the outlet
- if TV's control joystick is under the TV, pull it towards yourself; if TV's control joystick is behind the TV, pull it down
- while holding joystick in the position as described above, put the TV's power cord back to the AC outlet
- TV's LED should start to blink and after TV turns on, the setup guide should start
- this process should install initial version of TV's software, so after the setup, if connected to the internet, TV should show message of new software version found on the internet and suggest to update it. You can try update again or decline: decide for yourself.
But for me this process was not smooth:
- As my joystick is behind the TV, I've pulled it down, but it not worked - in 40 seconds Ambilight was lit without turning on the screen and after 30 seconds more Ambilight was turned off. Nothing happened after if I was still holding the joystick.
- It appears I had to push joystick as a button instead of leveraging it. Then LED started to pulsate for a few seconds and TV screen was turned on with the initial setup guide.
- But after setting it up, TV's settings still showed the same software version as before, so this method looked like the same Factory Reset form the TV's menu
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Using USB with .pkg file
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- For this method you have to use USB 2.0 drive formatted as FAT or FAT32
- Link of the .zip file was provided in the e-mail for my TV's model. I noticed it was the same last version as was installed on the TV. Though file's extension inside .zip was not .upg as on the official download site, but .pkg and it was 2.9 GB comparing to 1.3 GB of the .upg (see my post above for more info)
- .pkg file should be copied to the root of the USB
- USB should be inserted in the TV while TV's power cord is out of AC outlet
- After turning the TV it should show message, something about "Software update in progress"
- after about 20 minutes software should be installed
- remove the USB key from the TV
- go to Settings > Device settings > About > Reset Factory Defaults > Reset Factory Defaults > Delete everything > OK. This menu path was provided form me in another language, so I've tried to translate it. I didn't try it because never got to the install process.
This process wasn't successful for me too as I couldn't make TV to start software update process at startup: TV always just turned on. USB was recognized by the TV, though, as it showed menu about USB disk and options what I would want to do with it.