Is the Oreo update for TVs safe?

[lgcebr]

I’ve just received an emal from Sony inciting me to update my TV to Android Oreo.  My TV has automatic updates turned off because past updates had bugs which disrupted the TV functionality.  I have seen large numbers of posts on here saying the Oreo update is buggy and has disrupted many functions from video playback to sound and ARC.  Does the Sony email inviting updating mean that the Oreo update is now fixed and safe to use.....  or is it still risky?  Thanks

[stormyuk]

I have chosen not to update until  some of the bugs are fixed (if they ever do), most notably the DTS optical/HDMI passthrough debacle.

The bugs previously reported with Oreo are not fixed if thats the question you are asking. Have a look down the list of topics posted on this forum to decide if any of them bother you.

[Mooly01]

I'm another that has auto updating disabled. If you are happy with your current funtionality and operation then I would probably advise caution. There have been far to many reported issues with each previous update, and seemingly known and reported old issues are not addressed.

[Jecht_Sin]

@lgcebr The only thing that really changed on the outside is the Leanback launcher (and some don't even like the new format).

For the rest it seems to me the smart part is more broken than ever. Talking about positives which is what seems to be improved so far (but it's too early to tell):

- The Linux kernel now uses a Z-RAM (compressed RAM drive) as swap area. That should improve things when there is need for memory

- The Discover menu isn't crashing

- The volume bar seem to have slightly improved (not much, though)

- Prime Video didn't stutter on me the couple of minutes I tried (maybe because of the Z-RAM)

- The HDMI profiles (picture settings and the likes) for different HDMI devices seem to be always working 

- I didn't notice any reboot, yet

The negatives are:

- Audio passthrough more broken than ever

- Can't write on USB devices

- Recent Apps is broken

There might be more. If you use an AVR I wouldn't suggest to upgrade.

[Csongi_]

ARC support is messed up, you cannot control volume properly with a samsung soundbar.

Also the favourite channel navigation has some annoying bugs (e.g.: gets out from the favourite group without any reason)

I want somehow to roll back the update, but I don't know if it's possible ...

[cowst666]

The ARC issue is what kept me from updating right away, because I am quite unhappy with most of the TV (except the image quality).

Eventually I prepared my optical cable and went for it.

Surprisingly, my Samsung soundbar worked well so far, and reboots happened only when I enabled VPN (they will never fix this).

The satellite TV experience is not really worse than the mess it was before, and for my use the new interface feels more usable.

Didn't try Amazon video yet, but I gave up and bought a fire TV stick 4k, so I move almost everything there except  TV, YouTube, dazn. 

So, risky busyness to update, but was worth for me so far.

[Kuschelmonschter]

- The Linux kernel now uses a Z-RAM (compressed RAM drive) as swap area. That should improve things when there is need for memory

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Sony should consider debloating their system. I removed some useless crap (like Samba, Sony Select, DIAL, BIVL, IRB, interactive) and gained 250M of RAM.

[Jecht_Sin]

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@Kuschelmonschter wrote:

- The Linux kernel now uses a Z-RAM (compressed RAM drive) as swap area. That should improve things when there is need for memory

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Sony should consider debloating their system. I removed some useless crap (like Samba, Sony Select, DIAL, BIVL, IRB, interactive) and gained 250M of RAM.

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I had disabled Samba and Sony Select as well already. Do you have the list of commands/app URLs(?) you disabled? I don't mean the full list one can find in the Internet (reddit and also here), they remove things that I believe should stay there.

Then one would wonder what the heck dial is doing there. Unless it's this one: "com.sony.dtv.dialservice", but being made by Sony for TV it must have a need, I suppose.

[stormyuk]

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@Jecht_Sin wrote:

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@Kuschelmonschter wrote:

- The Linux kernel now uses a Z-RAM (compressed RAM drive) as swap area. That should improve things when there is need for memory

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Sony should consider debloating their system. I removed some useless crap (like Samba, Sony Select, DIAL, BIVL, IRB, interactive) and gained 250M of RAM.

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I had disabled Samba and Sony Select as well already. Do you have the list of commands/app URLs(?) you disabled? I don't mean the full list one can find in the Internet (reddit and also here), they remove things that I believe should stay there.

Then one would wonder what the heck dial is doing there. Unless it's this one: "com.sony.dtv.dialservice", but being made by Sony for TV it must have a need, I suppose.

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I would be interested in a complete list of safe to disable stuff too. The stuff on the net is so for and wide and inconsistant its quite difficult. Samba and Sony Select I disabled but some of the others I didn't know about.

[Kuschelmonschter]

It really depends on what you need. Here are some things that I always remove:

u0_a114       7514  1250 1711856  17832 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S tv.samba.ssm
u0_a66       21470  1250 1717384  30224 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.dialservice
u0_a30       20972  1250 1702680  30520 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.irbservice
u0_a73       19666  1250 1699716  24956 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.bivlinfo
u0_a65       20183  1250 1706884  29460 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.youview
u0_a127      19514  1250 1712276  33500 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.sonyselect
u0_a101       3333  1250 1731676  34484 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.interactivetvutil
system        6482  1250 1696276  13844 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.interactivetvutil.output
u0_a100       6497  1250 1705260  18556 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.sony.dtv.interactivetvplatform

If you don't need the Video app, you can also remove that plus alle the flaky DLNA (Huey) modules. If you don't need integrated tuners, you can also remove a lot of that stuff.

DIAL is an old thing and has been superseded by mDNS. Never experienced any issue in the way I use the TV.