Chris Welch is a senior reviewer who has worked at The Verge since its founding in 2011. His coverage areas include audio (Sonos, Apple, Bose, Sony, etc.), home theater, smartphones, photography, and more.

Samsung’s flagship soundbar, the HW-Q990D, is being rendered useless for some owners after a faulty firmware update that the company rolled out this week. The sheer number of reports on Samsung’s community forums, Reddit, and AVSForum confirm that something has gone very wrong with the premium Dolby Atmos system in recent days. The issue isn’t limited to any specific region, with customers in the United States, Austria, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries all sharing in the frustration.

Customers say the soundbar has gone unresponsive and that none of the usual factory reset methods are working; affected units are also inaccessible via Samsung’s SmartThings app. The device powers on, but appears to freeze on the TV eARC input — with no sound output to speak of.

The culprit seems to be the latest firmware release, which is version 1020.7. Many Q990Ds are set to automatically install new updates, which has led to widespread complaints about the bad software over the last several days. If you’ve got a Samsung soundbar, it might be wise to disable automatic updates for the time being until this situation has cleared up. There are scattered reports of the same bug impacting other Samsung models like the HW-Q800D and HW-S801D, but the bulk of complaints pertain to the Q990D. It’s one of the most well-reviewed soundbars on the market, so this is an unfortunate development.

The Verge has reached out to Samsung for comment. Apparently some customers have already been instructed to send in their Q990D hardware for repair. That seems like a worst case scenario, so hopefully Samsung will have an easier, at-home solution once it realizes the scope of this problem. Can the malfunction be resolved with another firmware update in the coming days? Stay tuned.

Thanks for the tip, Eric.