Today’s failure of what should be ordinary function actually began yesterday. My wife and I started watching a movie on Hulu. We rely on closed captions and they are set to “on” and “English” as default. Nonetheless, the captions came on in Spanish. They have been doing this off & on for a few months now, but have been fixable. Not yesterday. Remarkably, Spanish isn’t even an option on the CC menu!
I tried everything on both the Hulu and the Samsung TV menus. No joy. I then spent about 20 minutes on live chat with a Hulu agent. I finally told her that I surrender and don’t want to even try any more. BYW, because of its lousy service, I had ditched Hulu live ($119/mo) for Hulu ad free ($39 mo with Max included) about 8 months ago and recently re-subscribed at my wife’s behest (TV is our main source of entertainment, as her illness prevents us from going out much). I stopped watching the movie with Spanish CC. She continued with CC off. When she was done, I deleted the Hulu app, as suggested both online and by the chat agent, planning to re-install it the next day - today.
Then the fun really began! My Samsung OLED TV is high-end & has a fabulous picture. Trouble is, there used to be an icon on the Home Screen which allowed addition of apps, since the TV is supposed to load apps so I no longer needed to use Roku to use them. With the latest software updates, though, that icon has disappeared and I could find no way to add apps to the home screen. So, I could not add Hulu back in!
Online searching was to no avail, since my screen somehow never had the options listed on any of the sites I tried. In desperation, I deleted all the prior information with a reset of the TV. Now, finally, I could add SOME of the apps which previously appeared in my home screen. Some were not offered - until I found some counter-intuitive “groups” of apps found with difficulty. Under “videos” I finally found MAX and The Criterion Channel. About 4 hours had elapsed and I had reached my wits’ end. But…
I now had to re-enter my credentials for every one of our re-installed apps. Not easy either, since - who remembers usernames or passwords for TV apps? Not me. So, there’s mechanisms which enable you to do it on the computer instead. Not easy, either! That’s because, for example, to log into MAX, I must first long into Hulu - through which I get MAX. But, my ProtonPass password manages has 7 different sets of credentials for every one of the TV apps! Choosing the correct set from those duly saved from 10 years or so - is trial & error.
Anyway, another two hours died this afternoon doing that. Granted, this is somewhat worse than my typical day. The point is that hardly a day goes by anymore when something like - closed caption suddenly changing to Spanish on its own with no possible fix - doesn’t happen at least once.
I am exasperated at least once, just about every day. I’m thinking that this is a symptom of an entire technologically “advanced” society circling the drain. I’m at minimum dizzy from the Coriolis effect. Actually, I’m so sick of it that - if it were me alone - I would cancel every shitty service for which I pay too much for what I receive. That, too, is sickening.
Dear God, please relieve me of any further technological “progress”. Come to think of it, please include social/political “progress” in that request. Over my 80 years, I’ve wondered what bodily malfunction would kill me. I now think it will be a head explosion, so I’m gonna wrap my tinfoil scalp cover in duct tape as the most cost-effective means of life-extension.