Seatback On-Demand issues on UA long-haul Flights?
 

Recently in the last month ive seen or been personally told about by colleagues about problems with the On Demand system on UA long haul flights to and from Asia.

Last month I was on EWR-HKG flight in J, the guy next to me had to have his system rebooted several times. It probably worked about 1/2 the flight

My return flight PEK-EWR, had the same issue with someone 2 seats away from me.

Last week a colleague flew the same EWR-HKG and PEK-EWR flights in J and he had major problems with the system on both legs...with the system not working for hours.

Yesterday another friend flew EWR-HKG and wrote me a short time ago that her system didn't work for about 8 1/2 hours of the flight.

I know this is a small sample size but I have flown this route now for 5 years now and have not witnessed this many issues. Im just thankful that for the 16 hour flight I wasn't a recipient of a problem system.

Are others seeing more prevalent issues happening with the on-demand system?

On my last TPAC, I noticed others having the re-boot issues. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention, but I definitely recall seeing the black screen/white text reboot display on another passengers seat several times during the flight.

Thankfully, I have been unaffected...knocking on wood and saying anti-jinks slogans :D

Frequent reboots have been the norm for a long time, particularly ex-EWR due to the high concentration of sCO flights there (who seem to have a flakier version of the Panasonic IFE system). Gallery here.

I've noticed that when I have my phone plugged in to the USB port, if someone comes over the PA (which pauses the system), my screen freezes and the system had to be re-booted. I was flying p.s. SFO-JFK consistently last year, and had it happen maybe 3-4 times before I finally just stopped using the USB port.

The last time I had an issue with IFE on UA was an NRT-SEA flight. The menu items were all moved over an inch or two to the right, meaning I couldn't select a bunch of the options. Told the FA, so they could write it up (or suggest a solution), but ended up moving to the seat next to me (from the middle, next to my wife in the window, to the empty aisle seat), where it worked. When I told the crew about the issue, and they didn't have a solution, I said not a big deal, I would just move over.

A couple of hours later, the purser came by with a Skykit (which I never asked for or even suggested) which was worth a $200 TVC.

Interesting...as my examples were all EWR flights, that would explain a lot.

Maybe is it time for the system or software to be upgraded??

Happened to me on my last flight on the UD of a 747 out of ORD. While watching a movie, multiple times it just randomly stopped and kicked me back to the home screen. Had to fast forward back to where I was. Then finally just froze up completely and had to be rebooted.

UA51 FRA-EWR yesterday in J, mine had to be reset twice.

I've never had to have mine reset on UA but when I was traveling BRU-EWR sUA 777 the woman next to me needed hers rebooted twice and then it worked.

I've had to have them reboot mine on Thai F A380 & BR J 777 (successful) and LX J A340 (unsuccessful w/ 200CHF voucher).