Extremely slow remote on Philips Ambilight

Right everyone I know these posts go back 18 months or more but I’ve kind of sorted the issues with the remote out and my 65” ambi light freezing. It’s been doing it ages now is really annoying and I’ve sometimes had to resort to a reboot, and as you’ve all said especially around the Netflix apps etc. I’ve bought a couple of powerline Ethernet adapters and hardwired the Ethernet to the tv from one. It’s Coincidentally reduced the remote lag down to zero and Netflix and Prime video no longer appear to crash under heavy scrolling while using the remote.

Connected my TV to my powerline adapter by ethernet and things seemed slightly smoother, but I'm not writing off placebo. Had to go back to wireless though as my TV has an annoying habit of turning on in the middle of the night if I connect anything other than hdmi devices to it.

I'd rather remote sluggishness than being woken up by Sky News every night.
 
The TV may be checking for a software update.
Have a look through it's menu for an auto-update setting and turn it off.
 
The TV may be checking for a software update.
Have a look through it's menu for an auto-update setting and turn it off.

Thanks, I'll give it a go. Not sure it's going to help as the TV has been auto checking and notifying of updates without turning on for the past two years. It only does this switching on thing when I've had an external HDD connected via USB and my powerline adapter connected via network cable.
 
1 month in. And suddenly have sluggish remote. My Nvidia shield also had same issues with remote and controller. Not with WiFi app. So it's unsurprising it's an android TV issue. But disappointing it suddenly happened with ambilight. It seems to suddenly work again after 20+seconds. Trying out wired version. And also testing remote app.
 


Spamming all the buttons without any batteries in appears to have made a difference.
 
Having the same issue with Philips Ambilight 65OLED706/12. Started a bit after last update to v.TPM211EA_R.101.001.003.232 dated 2023-01-05.

It feels like remote receiver on the TV goes to sleep while idle from any remote signal and red LED of the remote receiver on the TV doesn't blink when pressing any button on the remote. At this state any button on the remote needs to be pressed and hold for up to two minutes to wake the remote receiver on the TV! As remote receiver on the TV acknowledges signal from the remote, LED blinks ant TV reacts.

  • This sleep state on the TV's remote receiver happens about after 20-40 seconds of not sending any signal from remote. So if I constantly pressing Volume Up/Down it works all the time
  • The longer I leave the TV without any remote signal, the deeper the sleep state happens and the longer buttons on the remote needs to be pressed to wake it. Sometimes this sleep state of the remote receiver on the TV can happen after 10 seconds of idle, but then it takes about 10 seconds too to hold the button on the remote to wake it again

Remote is sending signals to the TV remote receiver constantly as pink light stream can be seen on the smartphone's camera. So it's not the remote.

I've red all posts here carefully and tried everything, but nothing helped:
  • TV Factory reset
  • No USB devices attached
  • Internet with Ethernet cable/WiFi; no Internet at all after reset
  • Downloaded this last update from official Philips site, copied downloaded .zip archive and extracted .upg file alongside. But update process using USB says nothing found. USB is not faulty as I can browse it and even generated "TV identify .html file" using the same Update menu. It appears TV is searching for .upg file inside "upgrades" root directory so I moved it there. But now TV notices that the upgrade file is older or the same version and will not accept it.

Will try to contact Philips itself.
 
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It's very frustrating for me, but it was the remote's low batteries issue :facepalm:

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:

=================================
Using One Button Recovery (OBR) method:
=================================
  • 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
==================
Using USB with .pkg file
==================
  • 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.
 
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