Forum Discussion

gracerae's avatar
gracerae
Newbie
5 years ago
Solved

two versions of Acorn

A few months ago I gave a Roku player to a friend as a gift.  Everything was fine until Christmas when I gave her a one-year subscription to Acorn. She said she had trouble setting up Acorn on her Roku.  But she told me eventually she was able to do it. 

 

Everything was okay until I sent her some recommendations of programs to watch on Acorn.  She said that she put them on her watchlist but when she went back, they were not there.  Yesterday I went to her house to see if I could find her watchlist.  Well it was a puzzle.  Took me a long time to figure it out and I may not have fully figured it out.  It turns out Roku has two versions of Acorn.  There is Acorn TV; I’ll call it Acorn Classic;  and there is Acorn-on-Roku.  She was using Acorn-on-Roku and couldn’t log on.  It kept offering her a free home trial.  Eventually it dawned on me to search the channel store.  Found Acorn Classic, added it to her Home Screen and deleted Acorn-on-Roku.  Acorn Classic recognized her.  She was able to log on to Acorn Classic.  However, she said she had put several programs on her watchlist.  Those had vanished. That’s the part I can’t figure out.  Whatever she did must have been on Acorn-on-Roku because that was all she had on her Home Screen.  She added a couple of titles on Acorn Classic to her watchlist while I was there.  Seemed to be working.  When she created her account, she did it on her phone.  So it must have taken her to Acorn Classic.  But she did not have Acorn Classic on her Home Screen until I put it on yesterday.  Ergo she must h/b using Acorn-on-Roku when she tried to add titles to her watchlist.  Therein lies the problem. 

 

I think this is nuts:

It is deceptive  on the part of Roku to have two versions of the same streaming platform. 

It’s also very confusing, especially to novice users, and it can only be intended to discourage people from subscribing directly from Acorn. 

acorn troubleshooting
  • Tivoburkee's avatar
    Tivoburkee
    5 years ago

    Yes there are at least three versions of Acorn tv, one where you pay Acorn tv directly, that classic. Then you can pay roku through their Roku ch for acorn tv. And when you do buy a ch through roku ch it puts up separate tile on the home screen so you don't have to go through roku ch each time. It plainly states it acorn tv via roku ch on the tile. And the third you can subscribe to Acorn tv via You Tube tv, the price its added to to your you tube tv bill. None of these are connected, you can't use you credentials from one on the others. 

  • Tivoburkee's avatar
    Tivoburkee
    Community Streaming Expert
    5 years ago

    Yes there are at least three versions of Acorn tv, one where you pay Acorn tv directly, that classic. Then you can pay roku through their Roku ch for acorn tv. And when you do buy a ch through roku ch it puts up separate tile on the home screen so you don't have to go through roku ch each time. It plainly states it acorn tv via roku ch on the tile. And the third you can subscribe to Acorn tv via You Tube tv, the price its added to to your you tube tv bill. None of these are connected, you can't use you credentials from one on the others. 

  • Suel's avatar
    Suel
    Reel Rookie
    5 years ago

    I recently discovered that I was paying for an acorn subscription on acorn and another on roku.  The discovered that I was also paying a monthly fee on amazon prime. Lot of money flushed. It seems that the confusion may be something perpetrated on purpose by the platforms. 

    • RokuMary-F's avatar
      RokuMary-F
      Community Moderator
      5 years ago

      Hi Suel,

      Thanks for the post.

      If you already have an existing channel subscription directly to Acorn TV, you need to make sure that you use the same login credentials to sign in to Acorn TV standalone through Roku. Please note that your Acorn TV subscription cannot be used through Acorn Tv through The Roku channel. 

      For further assistance with account and billing-related issues, please reach out to our support team directly here for your 'Account or billing' issue, here: https://support.roku.com/contactus. They will be able to further assist you.

      Thanks,

      Mary

      • Suel's avatar
        Suel
        Reel Rookie
        5 years ago

        Are you saying that if I use my roku device, I must use YOUR version of Acorn?  How do I find the Acorn account I subscribed to directly from Acorn TV?  

         

  • ralex9's avatar
    ralex9
    Channel Surfer
    5 years ago

    It seems the two versions of Acorn TV are not the same.  I am looking for a program "Darkness: Those Who Kill".  It is available on the original Acorn TV and it is not available on the Acorn TV on the Roku channel.  I will have to switch to the original Acorn TV to watch this show.

    • renojim's avatar
      renojim
      Community Streaming Expert
      5 years ago

      The premium channels available through The Roku Channel often have different content than the standalone channel.  You're always better off subscribing through the provider directly.