If you like tinkering with your devices to get the most out of them and you have a smart TV with Android TV and Google TV, recovery mode is a little-known menu that, like me, can get you out of more than one fix. Recovery mode is an old acquaintance in the Android ecosystem of phones, but you can also access it on your TV: We will tell you what recovery mode is, how to enter it and what you can do with this menu on your Android TV.
If you know the recovery mode of your phone, the essence is the same: with the recovery mode of your TV you can perform recovery tasks. maintenance, troubleshooting, installing updates and even factory reset. If you did not know it and therefore had never entered it, it is not strange: it is not intuitive to do it and it is not accidental, since it is intended for people who have certain technical knowledge.
At home we make a lot of use of our television beyond watching content: we install a large number of applications both to get the most out of it and simply to try new things. Between the fact that sometimes we install some apps that are not as stable as they should be or simply do not work correctly and that it is an entry-level model that does not stand out for its speed, it is essential keep it ready and for this the recovery mode is great.
How to access recovery mode on a television with Android TV
For this example I have used the television in my living room, a TCL 55EP660 with Android TV that is three years old and that has the power button quite hidden, specifically under the white LED that is always on when the TV is on. Why am I commenting on the button? Because it is essential to access recovery mode for this brand.
Power button on my TV TCLEP660
- The first thing to do is turn off the TV and unplug it from the power.
- With the TV unplugged, press the power button and don’t let go.
- Now proceed to plug in the TV while the button is still held down. On my TV the LED light starts blinking. Continue without releasing the button.
- The TV should start its power on process, but instead of ending up displaying the content of a channel, you will end up in recovery mode. However, when the Android logo appears, you can release the button.
The path to get to the recovery mode of any other smart TV with Android TV or Google TV could differ slightly depending on the manufacturer. When in doubt, in addition to trying our instructions, you can consult the manual or googling “recovery mode + brand and model of your TV”. This is how you can access recovery mode.
The best features of the recovery mode of your TV
Recovery mode on Android TV. Source: Cafeteca
On these lines you can see the interface of the recovery mode of an Android TV and as you can see, its appearance is very similar to other recovery modes. To scroll through the menu, use your TV remote. These are the main functions offered by recovery mode and its usefulness:
- Reboot system now to reboot the system.
- Reboot to bootloader for reboot with bootloader. If your TV is not working correctly, this function runs the necessary checks before starting the system, thus making sure that everything is correct.
- Apply update from (ADB/SD card) to install updates from different drives, such as USB or SD card. If network updates don’t work or you can’t carry them out (for example, if you don’t have internet), with this alternative you can keep your TV up to date
- Wipe data/factory reset to clear factory data. This option resets the TV to its initial state, which means that you will lose apps, data and the settings we have made.
- Wipe cache partition to clear partition cache. Clear the system cache, a solution to try in case you detect that your television is slow.
- Mount / system to mount the system.
- Viego recovery logs shows the recovery logs.
- Run graphic test to run graphical tests.
- Run locale test to run local diagnostic tests.
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