Sony KDL-43W756C reboot and/or Android crashing

[spizzz]

Hello all,

I have the above TV which was bought in late 2015 (outside warranty atm) and hearing about all the issues I decided to turn off the auto-updates as my TV was relatively stable as it was. So I stayed in Lollipop and didn't do any upgrades after Feb 2016. 

Last week the TV started to behave weird with several apps crashing out of nowhere. These issues were solved after rebooting from the remote. However today, as I started the Youtube app, i got several apps crashing and although Youtube continued functioning, nothing else seemed to work. So I rebooted from the plug and here I am right now:

1. TV starts with the SONY logo

2. Then shows the flying circles of Lollipop

3. Then shows the 'Android is starting...' box and 'Optimising app X of 206'

4. Once it finishes the above, it shows briefly 'Starting apps' and then it instantly displays shows boxes with multiple crashes including: 'irbservice has stopped', 'Leanback has stopped', ' blah.blahblah.gapps has stopped' and 1-2 more that appear almost too fast for me to see.

Sometimes it doesn't even get to step 3, it reboots after 2 and goes back to 1.

I have tried:

- Disconnecting all devices and cables.

- Entirely unplugging the TV from the plug and waiting for 10 minutes.

- Turning off my WiFi router and internet.

- A combination of the above.

I tried looking for other solutions in the community but I can't seem to find anything else.

I really hoped that I could keep it functioning relatively OK without the updates, but I was wrong...

Is there any hope or should I throw it out of the window?

Many many thanks in advance for any help or advice.

[dutchice]

Just an idea. To be sure that the TV can recognise and read your USB stick with the latest firmware, try to use Diskpart from a command prompt on a Windows PC and perform the following steps:

list disk

select disk TYPETHEDISKNUMBERCORRESPONDINGTOTHEUSBSTICKFROMPREVIOUSCOMMANDHERE

clean

convert mbr

create partition primary size=2000 offset=1024

format fs=fat quick label=2GB_FAT16

assign letter=s

active

exit

[spizzz]

Hi @RobPC82 the fix was the replacement of the mainboard and it was done by Sony's authorized repair service free of charge after I complained about it + all the other smaller issues that I have been having with this TV. I was quite surprised that Sony agreed to fix it as this would have cost me £150, which I was reluctant to spend given the other issues of these sets.

After the repair, I enabled all the automatic updates and the TV was updated without any problems and still going strong with the last updates.

Hope this helps.

[RobPC82]

Thanks for your idea,

i had found  that way to perfom the format to the USB stick but it did not work.

i

[RobPC82]

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@spizzzwrote:

Hi @RobPC82 the fix was the replacement of the mainboard and it was done by Sony's authorized repair service free of charge after I complained about it + all the other smaller issues that I have been having with this TV. I was quite surprised that Sony agreed to fix it as this would have cost me £150, which I was reluctant to spend given the other issues of these sets.

After the repair, I enabled all the automatic updates and the TV was updated without any problems and still going strong with the last updates.

Hope this helps.

---

Thanks both for your fast reply,

today i have tried again with the online shop where i bought the TV in 2015 but acc. to them it is out of warranty.

i have called againt to Sony service but they say that the TV is only 2 years of warranty, and they can not make anything. They send me to a authorized repair center..

The only way to fix the problem is call to Sony authorized repair center. i had alreday called them 3 days ago and acc. to them i have to carry the TV to their shop in order to check the problem (i wll very happy carrying 50" TV in the car without damage it, if i want them to catch the TV in my house -> apply extra cost). i have no idea how much could be...i suppose finally i have to pay for the repair but in my point of view is a clear design fail.

Thanks for your support  

[spizzz]

This is very frustrating. You could try to research for some other repair centres (authorized or not it shouldn't make much difference once you are out of warranty, right?). In some cases, they may be able to order the part and come fix it on site. Hope you get this sorted. For me, this purchase has been a lesson learnt - next time I would go for a different brand with 5 or 6 years of warranty.

[RobPC82]

Hi again,

Finally i got the problem solved by installing Android 7.0 from a USB stick.

I had tried before in diferent ways but after reading more information i found that we have to make 2 copys of the firmware (1 renamed with upgrade_uploader), and put them into the USB stick. I connected the USB stick to USB port 2 and just after plug in the TV the installation started (maybe this can help somebody with problems..)

After this the TV started and Android 7.0 was running, i made a complete factory reset again (following sony instructions) and the TV has been working for 2 weeks (slowly, but worked). In the latest days some applications like play store or youtube didn´t work, so i decided making a complete factory reset.

After the complete factory reset the TV (50W808C) does not start.

After plug in the TV the  Sony logo appears, then the animated balls from android and then restarts again with Sony Logo.

After aprox 10 min, the Sony logo appears frozen and thats all. I have to unplug the TV..

I have tried "forced factory reset". Power + volume down.. the led turn green (now it seems to be working), restarts two times and instead of starting Android, starts again with the boot loop problem. it´s really frustrating. i have tried it a lot of times...

I have also tried installing again the latest firmware (same as installed for solving the initial problem) but during the instalation the led turns blue and restart again with the boot loop problem.(after reading information from internet, i suppose we can only upgrade the firmware with a new version, not previous or equal).

i found some videos with the problem on youtube, just one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNhzg96sr-g

So acc. to all post from other forums it seems like the only thing that we can do is to send the TV to a repair center (or throw it TV directly to the trash).

In my case, i bought the TV on Jun 2015 so the warranty has expired.

I can not understand how Sony can allow that a huge quantity of sold Android TVs has been crashed and making nothing to solve the problem.

Now, i am trying to get information about replacing the mainboard by myself ( cost around 50 €)  but i am not sure if really it´s possible without extra "software" from Sony Support.  I suppose that mainboard is not plug and play, maybe we have to make something special with Emmc or who knows.

I have read the service manual but it´s not describing how to proceed with a mainboard replacement.

If somebody knows if mainboard is plug and play and we have only to install the firmware from sony... (with Android 7.0) some information would be very appreciated.

i prefer trying by myself that sending/carrying the TV to repair center because i suppose it will be much money.

if you have any suggestions please....

Thanks in advance.