TCL TCL Corporation TCL Electronics TCL North America Roku Televisions freeze and reboot during viewing sessions Corona CA

Searching for solutions online, I found that the problem with our TCL Roku TV affects a very large number of customers. Reports indicate that the problem begins happening to TCL Roku TVs of various ages, from days-old to months-old. During viewing, the TV freezes in stages (subtitles, picture, response to remote or on-set controls) and then reboots itself. The process typically interrupts watching for a few minutes. When restarting a video, the place in the video is sometimes lost. This used to happen every few days and now happens daily.

Nobody has indicated in online forums that the standard advice works. Standard advice includes cycling the power on and to the set and the router, disconnecting accessories, and resetting the TV to its factory presets. The only claim of a solution that I have found came from someone who installed a Firewire accessory and used their TCL Roku device as a dumb TV, bypassing all the functionality of a "smart TV." Needing to use such a work-around adds costs and deprives customers of the capabilities that they paid for.

TCL Roku TVs automatically check for, download, and install software or firmware updates to fix such problems. However, I've found no public recognition by RCL or Roku of this extremely common problem, and I've found no indication that Roku is using the power of its licensing agreements to pressure TCL to solve or fix the problem.

Considering how much business TCL does, how widespread the problem is, and how unresponsive TCL has been, I would not be surprised to read someday of a class action lawsuit by a consumer watchdog group or an agency of the US government.