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Rene T

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I have a TV in my house. Noticed the other day the remote would not turn it on. I pulled it out and tried a blow dryer in the outlet just to make sure it was good and it was. Plugged the TV in again and the little red power light in the front came on and the remote worked. A couple of days later, the same thing happened. I unplugged it and plugged it into the spare receptacle and the power light came on and the remote worked. Today it happened again.
It seems like unplugging the TV and plugging it back in, somehow resets the electronics. Does that make sense what I said?
 
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Yes, it makes sense. Well, doesn’t make sense but it works. Sometimes our Vizio remotes stop working and the fix according to the internet is to unplug the TV for about 30 seconds and plug back in. Remotes work again.
 
It seems like unplugging the TV and plugging it back in, somehow resets the electronics. Does that make sense what I said
Assuming it's a "recent" TV, basically this century, then there's a certain amount of "sense," due to the internal computer perhaps needing to be rebooted, but if you've had the TV a while and it's only now doing this then something isn't right, as I think you suspected.

Possibly new batteries needed, perhaps you could try cleaning the infrared lens on the remote and on the TV, perhaps check house voltage, or perhaps someone is "zapping" the TV when they initially touch it after walking across a rug, thus static interfering somehow. Maybe even clean the battery contacts in the remote. If you also have a universal remote that can work that TV see if it does the same thing.

Otherwise, I'm thinking that something in either the remote control or in the TV is getting weak, perhaps a chip in the transmitter or in the receiver circuitry in the TV.

Did you recently update the TVs firmware, or perhaps you should update it???

That's all I can think of at the moment.
 
Is it a smart TV? On ours, a TCL Roku, every so often it starts getting glitchy. There's a way to reset everything. I think it completely wipes and reloads the operating system. It involves pressing some buttons on the remote in a certain order. It then takes a few minutes to restart. Then it's good for a lot of months.

The order for ours is 1.Push home 5 times 2. push up once 3. push rewind twice 4. push fast forward twice.

You might want to see if there's a similar procedure for yours.
 

Additional resources and related issues​

Text: Troubleshoot a non-responsive remote? Here are some resources and issues to help:

  1. Batteries: Check if they are functional and properly inserted. Weak ones can be the reason.
  2. Reset: Remove batteries and press the power button. Reinsert them and test.
  3. Line of sight: No obstacles should be between remote and TV. This can block the signal.
It might be the TV is not responding to the remote instead of the remote not working.
 
Keep in mind that modern TVs are 99% computer and 1% TV Tuner.

Is the TV hooked up to a wired or wireless network? Can you force it to update itself? That might help.

If it's not, or it's an older TV you may need to download an update into a USB memory device and perform the sequence of steps that installs the update. You'll need to do some online research to find out how, it's different for most TVs.

You may have a bad processor board in your TV. While they're really simple to replace unless you do it yourself it's probably not going to be worth it. If you decide to go that route I've found the best place to get parts is shopjimmy.com.
 
Let me add some more. It is not a smart tv. We purchased it about 4 years ago, When I can’t get it going, the small power light on yhe tv is not lit. After I unplug the tv and plug it back in, the very small red power light on the tv will light up and then the remote will turn it on
 
If it continues acting the way it has, I’m going to install a power cord in line switch. Instead of pulling the tv out every time to unplug it then plugging it in, I’ll just kill the power and turn the power back on using this switch. It should work the same as unplugging/replugging the tv
 
With Every electronic gadget I have ever had has, at some point in time, required to have the power disconnected at some time, and plugged back in. Our Vizio TV needs that about once every six to eight weeks. The Starlink Router seems to need that about every six months. There are logic circuits than never clear completely unless power is fully removed. And, a stray couple of bits can create all sorts of interesting things.
(also, most power strips hold a charge on the device power circuit unless the are completely unplugged. )
 
Let me add some more. It is not a smart tv. We purchased it about 4 years ago, When I can’t get it going, the small power light on yhe tv is not lit. After I unplug the tv and plug it back in, the very small red power light on the tv will light up and then the remote will turn it on
In that case (IMHO) the problem is more likely to be the power supply.

Have you tried googling the brand and model TV it is + won't turn on?
 
the problem is more likely to be the power supply
Agree. Years ago I had a samsung that needed repair under warranty for bad caps in the power supply. It nearly always manifested in the set not powering up. These being switching supplies part of the regulation scheme is if a set voltage goes out of range, it will latch off (vs putting possibly hundreds of volts into it's load). Cycling power resets the regulators, but whatever is causing the output to drift is still there. I would predict that it could do this for some time but eventually it will reach a point the reset doesn't work anymore and it will be TU full time. Then you decide how bad you love the set, fix or pitch. Just a few years ago I inherited a set with a bad backlight. Just some LED's on a flex circuit strip, some were inop so how hard could this be. You could even order the strip assemblies. But LED's age so in order to fix it right you need to replace all of them, plus some various and sundry one-cycle connectors and I don't know what else. When I added it up I'd be over halfway into buying a new set. It got recycled, I don't love TV's that much. But there is a community online that is really into fixing all manner of consumer electronics and some high end stuff even if not contemporary has a following and some value. For a pedestrian flat screen TV like this I would plug it into a switched outlet and cycle power every day if it needed it, while formulating a plan to repair by replacement for that fateful day the power cycle doesn't work anymore.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM
 
Let me add some more. It is not a smart tv. We purchased it about 4 years ago, When I can’t get it going, the small power light on yhe tv is not lit. After I unplug the tv and plug it back in, the very small red power light on the tv will light up and then the remote will turn it on
When you turn the tv off with the remote, does the red light on the tv stay on? This red light indicates that the tv is getting power and the remote will work. Do you have a power button on the tv? When there is no indicator light on the tv, even though it is plugged in, it is not getting power. When you plug the tv into the wall outlet, make sure the tv power button (not the remote) is turned on. Leaving it on, with the tv plugged in will allow the remote to operate.
By constantly unplugging the tv, you are continually resetting the power switch. Now, when you turn the tv off, use the power button on the remote, not the tv, so that the red power indicator light stays on all the time. Also, make sure you are not plugging the tv into a switched outlet.
 
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When you turn the tv off with the remote, does the red light on the tv stay on? This red light indicates that the tv is getting power and the remote will work. Do you have a power button on the tv? When there is no indicator light on the tv, even though it is plugged in, it is not getting power. When you plug the tv into the wall outlet, make sure the tv power button (not the remote) is turned on. Leaving it on, with the tv plugged in will allow the remote to operate.
By constantly unplugging the tv, you are continually resetting the power switch. Now, when you turn the tv off, use the power button on the remote, not the tv, so that the red power indicator light stays on all the time. Also, make sure you are not plugging the tv into a switched outlet.
It is not a switched outlet.
When I shut the tv off with the remote, the little power light stays lit.
Sometimes when I go back 2 or 3 days later to turn it back on, the power light will not be on so the remote will not work.
I will look into what you said about the power switch on the tv being on when I unplug it and plug it back in.
 
It is not a smart tv. We purchased it about 4 years ago,
Nonetheless, a TV that recent still has a microcomputer inside, controlling operations. And computerized devices are not necessarily intuitive, making troubleshooting tougher.

This red light indicates that the tv is getting power and the remote will work.
Only if everything is working correctly, but it's not working correctly, so "and the remote will should work" is a more accurate statement, but we're dealing with an unknown fault in a computerized device, so the power cycling of the TV could just be a reboot of the computer, thus resetting one or more stray bits, OR it could be a faulty component, perhaps in the power supply, that needs the plug-in power surge to work once. Thus this unknown faulty component may need replacement.

ometimes when I go back 2 or 3 days later to turn it back on, the power light will not be on so the remote will not work.
You may well, in that case, have a bad switch or a power supply problem, as others have suggested above.
 

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