Forum Discussion

rmillerddp's avatar
rmillerddp
Channel Surfer
2 months ago

Re: [Solved] Paramount+ Playback Issues Linked to Router Ad Blocking

I’ve had a frustrating problem that started about 10 days ago, right about the time my Roku Ultra (from 2017) updated its system firmware. Now, the Paramount+ opens, but whenever I want to stream anything, I just get the buffering wheel, and nothing ever loads. I’ve tried a huge number of potential fixes - deleting the app, clearing the app cache, factory reset, reinstalling, deleting my Roku account and starting over, and today, out of frustration, I bought a brand new Roku Ultra, hopeful that it would cure the problem, but it does exactly the same thing 🤬 I started a support case with Roku a few days ago, but after getting an acknowledgment, nada… Paramount streams perfectly on my iPhone, iPad, Fire Stick 4k, two Roku branded TVs, and a Sony TV running Android. It’s only these two Roku Ultra devices where I’m SOL. And while I’m moaning, the support chat has to be the most frustrating experience I’ve had in a long while - I’m a retired electrical Engineer, and would like to think I was dealing with a better script than ‘have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again’ 😂 Anyone else having the same issues, and have you made any progress in getting it resolved?

9 Replies

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  • pam120800's avatar
    pam120800
    Channel Surfer
    2 months ago

    I have been experiencing the exact same problem for 2 days now. Unfortunately, it began in at the start of season 2 of a 6 season binge watch. All titles play on my web browser with an ad-blocker, but none will play on my Onn Roku TV or on my Ultra 4660X. I also have the no-ads Paramount subscription. I only have the standard network setup provided by Frontier, so no "network wide ad blocking". I have completed the usual troubleshooting steps of updating, rebooting, and reinstalling on both devices. I have Roku devices because I do not want to watch television programming on my PC. I pay for programming so I can watch the programming when I want. Therefore, I'd like to know who will compensate me for my days of not being able to utilize a service for which I have paid and when this issue will be resolved. It seems this problem has been around long enough that it should have been resolved by now. 

    • greentye's avatar
      greentye
      Channel Surfer
      2 months ago

      You can reach independent Roku Support Free at +1(888) 971-1244

  • Strega2's avatar
    Strega2
    Roku Guru
    2 months ago

    Are you on a plan with ads or without?  I would expect them to protect themselves in the former case - not so much on the latter.  Maybe they forgot to check the plan level before testing connectivity to the ad servers.

    • rmillerddp's avatar
      rmillerddp
      Channel Surfer
      2 months ago

      The Paramount+ plan is without ads.

      I've done further testing, and it appears that if your network is blocking the domain:

      pubads.g.doubleclick.net

      then Paramount won't work. The question still remains about who is responsible for the requirement - Roku or Paramount? Given that Paramount+ works on a number of other hardware platforms, you can guess who I'm thinking...

  • RokuJohnB's avatar
    RokuJohnB
    Community Moderator
    2 months ago

    Heyrmillerddp​,

    Thanks for letting us know.

    We appreciate the troubleshooting steps you have taken so far, and we'd like to gather more details regarding this problem.

    Can you please provide the following information?

    • Roku device model, serial number, device ID, and OS version. (This can all be found in Settings > System > About)
    • Tracker ID (when you see this issue occur, press the Home button 5 times, followed by the Back button 5 times, and provide us with this ID)
    • App build version (This can be found by selecting the app on the Home screen and pressing the * button).

    We look forward to hearing from you soon.

    Thanks,
    Roku Community Team

    • rmillerddp's avatar
      rmillerddp
      Channel Surfer
      2 months ago

      No need to provide all the details - I read a post from 7 months ago and zeroed in on the solution - it’s all about ad blocking. I run a Ubiquiti Unifi home network where the gateway implements network-wide ad blocking, so I turned it off, reset the Roku Ultra, and it miraculously Paramount+ started working.

      Was I happy with this? Heck no! Why should I have have to disable a major beneficial feature of the Unifi network in order to get one app to work? That’s major league BS!

      So what did I do to get round the issue? I used the Unifi traffic logging functions to analyze which domains were being blocked by Unifi whenever the Roku accesses the Paramount app, and to my disgust, dismay and disappointment, there are no fewer than 15 advertising domains that are accessed by Roku and/or Paramount before it will get around to streaming the video we all pay for. I then re-enabled system wide ad blocking, but added these 15 domains as ‘allowed’ in the firewall rules. It now works, but boy does this grind my gears.

      Evidently a recent firmware update added a new advertising domain that it considers ‘mandatory’ and bricked Paramount+.  I don’t know at this point if  this can laid at the door of Roku or Paramount, but whoever it is, it feels pretty sleazy. 

      • kwdavidson's avatar
        kwdavidson
        Newbie
        2 months ago

        I've been battling this for a few weeks now. When I did a search, I found a message here from eight months ago by someone using an Eero like I am. He created a profile for just the Roku devices and another profile for everything else. You turn off ad blocking for the Roku profile and turn it on for the other profile. That way you still get the blocking for everything else and you fix your Roku problems. Worked like a charm for me.