I finally decided to give up my last HDMI connection being occupied by my Xbox 360 to a new Samsung Blu-ray player. I figured my TV is Samsung, my Tuner is Samsung, it only makes sense to use the same brand for the Blu-ray. If nothing else, the remote should have more buttons that are compatible with the other Samsung devices.
My decision was good in theory and that’s where it stops. Network connectivity is a nightmare with Samsung and Googling only confirms this. Sure, it can get an IP from your network and download a few free apps. Just try logging into any of them! After tweaking the wired connection in many ways, I decided to lookup some forums. Apparently, this has been a random and reoccurring problem on both Samsung Blu-ray players and TV. Below is what I posted on another forum based on what I had already done and what others have confirmed as being issues for them – including a guy named Bob who probably works for Samsung or just likes to assume everyone’s problems is there own doing.
I’m glad that some people’s DNS was the problem, however, I purchased my blu-ray player yesterday and immediately had the same problem. I already had OpenDNS programmed into my router for DCHP. When that didn’t work, I manually setup my WIRED connection and used the primary DNS server for my AT&T connection. When that failed, I used Google’s 8.8.8.8 server. Keep in mind, I can download apps and play youtube video, and I’m averaging 5.6MB/S. This is on both stock and updated firmware.
So the bottom line is I cannot perform any logins to any service from this Blu-Ray player! One thing I found on a developers PDF from Samsung is to make sure that the Apache port is not blocked. Of course, they don’t say what port that is, and I can only assume they are referring to port 80. Since I host my own website on port 80, this may be an issue, but that would be an extremely stupid configuration by Samsung if this was the issue.
Keep in mind, that ALL of my other web enabled apps work just fine, including my PCs, Macs, Xbox 360, Wii, iPhones and iPad.
@Bob: you say, “Let me boil it down to one question. If the ISP’s DNS doesn’t have a Samsung server name, is that Samsung’s fault?
Bob”.
The answer would almost certainly be YES! If samsung has all their public name servers configured and registered properly, then their server name would resolve to an IP via the ISP’s DNS just fine. Assuming they just changed IPs, it would be reasonable that some slow propogating DNS servers might take anywhere from 2 to 5 days, but as you can see by the comments here (and ALL OVER THE INTERNET), this would not be the case. And yes, I am a network person, just in case you’re wondering.
So in conclusion, Samsung has built an otherwise good idea on an apparently lousy network platform. They are slow to admit problems about it; they are quick to blame everyone’s internal and ISP networks which means they are going to be extremely slow to fix anything. Very disappointing. I am returning my unit within 24 hours to purchase an LG and hope the have it together. I don’t have to waste weeks or months to know the problem is not in my network nor my ISPs.
It’s disappointing that something so simple should be such a time wasting pain in the ass, and I sympathize with those that spent hours on the phone with Samsung only to be given the run around and being told to try this and try that, replace this, and unplug that. The bottom line is that if Samsung’s network is so touchy that it has caused so many problems with so many people, then Samsung needs to fix their network! If you don’t believe me, go to Google and type in “Samsung network”. You will see that “Samsung network interference” is the third choice down on the list. Why? Because it’s the 3rd most relevant search dealing with Samsung and networks.