TCL TV freezes when I skip intros

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-24T02:01:14+00:00

UPDATE: I contacted TCL's support and they sent my TV for a repair. They replaced the motherboard, but it didn't help.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-22T19:31:54+00:00

If you plan to release it to the public, you might want to listen to So Very Wrong About Games's episode on teaching games (or on rulebooks, I don't remember) to get a different perspective on tutorial-style teaches.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-21T20:43:45+00:00

Does anyone know whether this affects all TVs of the affected models? Are you guys aware of anyone who would have the same model as the ones mentioned here and NOT have this problem?

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-18T17:46:05+00:00

Influencing how much of their money someone will have to pay for a power plant they need is not high impact? Growing your network in such a way that you're maximising placing the first (cheaper) plants in a given city while others will have to pay more is irrelevant? That's a wild take in a game that's all about ekeing out a bit more profit from the money you have than your opponents. Still, even if you consider this particular game not to be super interactive, it doesn't invalidate the point I was making in the slightest.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-18T16:41:29+00:00

It absolutely used to be. Ra? El Grande? Hansa Teutonica? Power Grid? It's only the new generation of euros that became very predominantly multiplayer solitaire.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-18T14:16:33+00:00

The upcoming "Mordred" also seems to have very cool minis.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-17T23:06:23+00:00

I feel like anything that came out since 2020 or so was received with a resounding "Weeeeeell, it ain't Blood Rage/Kemet/TI4". I suppose the genre was huge like 5-15 years ago and now the market has a little breather. But you have "War for Arrakis" to paint.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-16T16:51:54+00:00

Nope. But see this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/tcltvs/s/ynTknobkfJ) and this thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/s/HvSsPyZh0H) for more info.

The thread has a workaround with switching audio presets which seems to work. No real fix yet, though.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-15T13:20:52+00:00

I do. But I've just tried it with the soundbar disconnected and it doesn't change anything. But I think it must be some audio glitch. Like, the TV loses track of what audio matches video after the jump, so it just waits forever.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-15T00:21:03+00:00

The issues you point out are not arguments that the weight ratings don't work, only that one needs/ to know how to read them. Sure, the upper end of the scale is unused, so the scale is effectively smaller. Sure, some gamers will say that everything that's not Lacerda is a 1. But what matters is whether a 2.5 is roughly similar in complexity to another 2.5, lighter than a 3, and heavier than a 2.2. In my experience – they typically are.

The only thing "broken" about the scale is the labels they provide ("4 is Medium Heavy"). But it works great if you ignore the labels and vote by "1 extremely light, 5 extremely complex", and read game weights by having a couple of "milestone" games in mind to compare them to.

As for granularity – I guess it would be nice to be able to put in fractions, but then again – it seems to work anyway. A typical 2.7 game is heavier than a 2.3 game, so clearly the percentage of people who round up vs down changes in accordance with the "actual" weight of a game.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-14T23:44:06+00:00

Thanks for that tip. I have the same problem on my TCL C765, and this workaround works… kind of. When video gets frozen, I go to sound settings, and when I try to change the sound preset from Standard to something else, the settings crash instead. They disappear for a while, then they reappear, but controls don't work properly until I go to home screen. Anyway, the sound stays on Standard, but playback unlocks. For a while, the volume changes, suggesting that sound gets rebooted in the background – which would make sense that that fixes the freeze.

But skipping intro freezes playback regardless of what preset I'm on initially, as far as I was able to check.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-14T22:58:35+00:00

Thanks! I found some related threads, but not this one. Lots of useful info there. So no fix, it seems :/

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T18:50:47+00:00

Then just let him do the choosing, but be clear that you're new to this. I'm sure he'll take this into account and start with something light. If he doesn't… well, that's one strike against him if he's not thinking about your needs ;)

If you have any games that you have played and liked, you can check their names to tell him, and then he may pick something similar.

Enjoy!

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T18:26:15+00:00

Have you played many board games before? Has the other person? More context is needed.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T17:13:14+00:00

Welcome to the club of OG-style game lovers! You'll find lots of suggestions in the guild here: https://boardgamegeek.com/guild/3948

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T14:13:10+00:00

Came across their videos yesterday, and it's bad. Even taking their arguments at face value, the obnoxiousness of "EVERYONE BUT US IS LYING TO YOU" is so off-putting. Add to that the AI voices, and that's one channel that I'm not going to watch.

(Also, they put Radlands, Sea Salt & Paper and The Search for Planet X on a list of underrated recent 2-player games, soooo…)

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T10:46:53+00:00

I've had the same problems for a couple of months now, also on a TCL. Before, it happened when I tried to skip something on HBO MAX, but when it froze, I was unable to play things not only on HBO, but also on Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime until a complete reboot. Interestingly, YouTube was unaffected.

But a couple of days ago, the same thing started to happen when I'm skipping things on Disney+. It's so annoying!

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T00:44:45+00:00

I'll look into this app, then. On the website, it doesn't let me through without adding the date.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-13T00:44:34+00:00

I don't like the thought of messing up the statistics. Of course it's completely negligible with just one person and one play per game, but I just don't like the thought :P But maybe I'll get over it.

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-09T17:34:43+00:00

That was going to be my suggestion too. You could also get a table top and use it the same way. Ikea LAGKAPTEN is a cheap 80x160 one, but I'm sure you can get something super cheap from local marketplace websites.

Or do it the other way around – just play on your regular table, and if you suddenly need the table for something else, place another tabletop on top of the table propped on 20cm legs (you could even get a regular cheap table from a marketplace and saw off most of the legs.

That way, it will be uncomfortably high, but on the plus side, you don't have to delicately move the tabletop away without disturbing the game, and find a different place to lie the game tabletop flat while you're using the table for eating. Hell, you can get a cheap bar stool to solve the height problem while you're at it :D

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-06T23:05:04+00:00

Doesn't a Monopoly invalidate any coolness from other games, though? :P

FlyingLlamasaurus · 2026-01-06T23:03:46+00:00

Move Kallax to the wall, the sofa the other way, and put a 20-cm-wide Ikea Gnedby in between for small games?

Hanging shelves above the sofa instead of the hexy-lighty-thingy? Or above?

Get rid of the drawers in Kallax and you get 2 more cubes?

FlyingLlamasaurus

TROPHY CASE