Owning a smart TV can sometimes be a headache, but no one expects their 4K flatscreen to start attacking their Windows PC. But that’s exactly what appears to have happened with certain Hisense TVs. Sound designer Priscilla Snow reported a slew of seemingly unrelated issues with their PC, such as display settings refusing to open, MIDI controllers and capture cards no longer working, the taskbar disappearing, and even Task Manager not acting right. After attempting to troubleshoot the issue, Snow finally identified a Hisense 50Q8G as the source of the problem.
****
A look into their PC’s registry revealed that Snow’s TV, supposedly one of the best smart TVs available, had been generating a lot of IDs for a Windows feature called Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). These IDs supposedly make it easier for Windows to identify a device, but because the Hisense TV had created so many of them, Windows had become overwhelmed trying to process them. In essence, the TV had inadvertently created a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Snow’s computer.
After isolating the TV on her network, and some fixes to windows, Snow’s computer returned to normal. This strange bug is a reminder that every device on a network can impact the other, and that your troubleshooting efforts should always take a holistic look at the entire network environment. It’s unclear whether this bizarre TV bug is a widespread issue. So, here’s what to look out for with your own smart TV.
****
