Vudu won’t play purchased content

Do you use any content filtering (family/kid safe) service? That was my issue. If you do, try turning off the content filtering and see if it works. Mine was hidden in my ubiquiti router settings.

For your situation it is possible that your router has a firewall or proxy on it that could be blocking it. Many are “reputation based” which means that over time people categorize sites as one thing or another so things that worked before may stop working if the “reputation” changes.

Roku loves to recommended the uninstall, reboot and reinstall path. So if you haven’t tried it that may help you. I went so far as to do a factory reset before I realized the source of my issue.

I just tried playing content on Vudu with my Premiere, and it played no problem. Note that this movie was not purchased from Vudu themselves, but though my linking my account with MoviesAnywhere. The specific title I played (Raiders of the Lost Ark) was a movie I purchased on Blu Ray and included a digital copy. I can play the same title through Vudu, Amazon, Apple TV or Vudu, all at the resolution I purchased. 

If you have content that you purchased from Vudu you can't play, try creating an account on MoviesAnywhere (it's free) and link your Vudu account to it. That might be a way around any issues with Vudu itself.

As far as the accepted solution goes, tweaking your DNS settings on your network might be more than you want to mess with. It takes a little knowledge to ensure you don't mess other settings up. I'm using DNS server addresses that was recommended to me for use on a Comcast/Xfinity network, which is my ISP. But I use my own personal router, not one that they provided. so I have complete control of the settings. I use 208.67.222.222 and 220.220, but I forgot who actually provides that service. But there's others that also provide public DNS servers, such as Google and OpenDNS. Those IP addresses are easily located on the web.

From your PC try and ping rokuproxy.vudu.com

open the start menu, type cmd and open the command prompt and type

ping rokuproxy.vudu.com

that means your dns is working and you have connectivity to the vudu streaming servers.

unfortunately the roku errors are not helpful in determining the actual problem.

in your roku settings under network | about 

What does it have for ip and gateway? 

if you do a command prompt on your pc again and  do an ipconfig does the gateway match?

does the roku network menu “check connection” come back successful?

Thanks for confirming, Qntgeek.

Please be aware that the team is currently in the process of investigating this matter and finding you the best resolution possible. 

We'll let you know when we've been notified of updates.

Best regards,
Carly

Hi, just checking back in on this. Still having the issue on my end.

Jaharra, you know as well as I do that there is no setting within Vudu to block content in this way. To entertain you, I went through all Vudu settings. Guess what, there is not setting to block a roku from streaming purchased content.

This is not limited to free content.

please escalate my issue.

thanks

Hello, I'm having the EXACT same issue as Qntgeek.  Everything described is erroring for me the same with purchased or free content, trailers play without issue.  All other devices on my home network can play purchased Vudu/Fandango content without issue.  Would love to get this resolved so I can view my library again on the Roku.  Here's the info gathered from my system when it errors:

Model: 4660X Roku Ultra
Serial: YJ00F5630648
Device ID: CK381F630348
Sofware version: 12.5.5 build 4174-46
Error: Unable to continue playback, an unexpected error has occurred.
GC version: 11.4.29
Timestamp 2024-05-04T06:36:30Z
Issue ID: 48-178-956

Yes, the error as mentioned earlier in this thread is “Error - Unable to continue playback, an unexpected error has occurred.”

Yes, I’ve opened a ticket with Vudu and they said it’s Roku’s fault since it works on every other device I have except the Roku.

Is there a way to get detailed debug information? I’ll troubleshoot the problem myself if I can actually see what’s happening (or not) instead of just getting an “unknown error” message

That’s a copout from Vudu. The problem is the Vudu app on your Roku, and they are responsible for the app functionality. It doesn’t matter if it’s working on other devices, because it’s a completely different app on those devices. 

Thanks again, Expert Dan. Your bolstering of Roku’s position of lack of responsibility is super helpful in resolving the problem that I, and apparently many others, face. If you could use your Expert status to go convince Vudu to fix their issue that’d be great. If not, maybe use your Expert status to help Roku provide enough details in errors or debug logs to demonstrate it’s actually Vudu’s fault.

I’m guessing your Expert status won’t help me with either of those to actually resolve this issue and neither will telling me to go bother Vudu more than I already said I am.

You may believe if you like that I'm simply defending Roku here. But the point is, The app on a Roku device is completely different from an app from the same provider on a different platform, so it's immaterial if it works on other devices. It's written in a completely different programming language, so other than looking about the same, it has nothing in common with the app on different platforms. Vudu has to fix their app if it's not working correctly on a Roku, as they have sole control over the programming of the app. 

If I was encountering the same issue, I would absolutely be contacting Vudu with my concerns. But as it is, I'm playing a movie on the Vudu app on my Ultra 4800 right now without a problem. It took longer than I expected to load the movie, but it did play, and it's playing still. I can't contact them about a problem I don't have, as I can't provide any detail they would need.

Interesting!  I intentionally use cleanbrowsing.org DNS filtering on my home router but never tried to stream without it.  I always figured that since PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, and Nest Hubs could all stream from Vudu on my home network, the DNS filtering wasn't the problem.  Thank you for your response.  Case closed, lock the thread!

We are receiving the exact same error. Our content plays everywhere except the Roku all of a sudden, out of the blue.

We have a roku box and its worked for years. We've had Vudu and watched our purchased content for years. All of a sudden one evening we got the message "unable to continue playback, an unexpected error has occurred."

Vudu customer service is of no help. They want my wireless provider. We do not have a wireless provider. We are hardwired from our router into the Roku. 

For your solution, can you explain it to the non-technical person? We can we do to get our purchased content back?

Thanks!

Sorry, I thought that I had replied yesterday - seems like it didnt get accepted. Will try again:

No content filtering. We're hardwired from the cable modem to the router to the Roku. So, no WiFi.

We've not changed any hardware in between the time it worked until now. Same cable modem, same router. We havent updated anything either. So no router software updates, etc.  

One night it all worked, the next night it stopped. It was at that point that we turned off our cable modem for a while, hoping something would "reset". We tried it, it didnt play any content - not even previews of content we didnt own. We CAN see all of the content, owned + offered. We just cant play it.

We updated the software on the router, then tried to watch a few of our movies. Still got the error.

We then deleted the Vudu app. At that point it wanted us to do something with respect to Fandango because it was right around that time that Fandango and Vudu merged(?) and we saw messages (emails) about that happening. Ironically, it was this time when we lost access to everything. 

We reinstalled the Vudu app on our Roku, it had me make a new password. We did all of that and tried again. Nothing worked.

So we have the latest software / apps and same hardware but still have this error.

Our Roku is a 4670RW - Roku Ultra. Software version was (at that time) 12.5.5 · build 4174-46 

The Vudu app was the very latest at that time which was 5/3/2024

We do not have a lot of streaming channels on that Roku box. 4 or 5. 

We did completely reset the Roku to an out of the box state and started over adding back our channels. We do not have a memory card in the box either. 

Like I said, it worked one night and the next night we got the error on everything as if a switch had been thrown on our account for that app on that box. That is what we think it is because......

....... we CAN play any of our content on our desktop PC so we are confident that it must be isolated to the Vudu app on our Roku but we're not technical enough to determine which, if both, are the problem.

We're going to borrow a friend's apple TV soon and we'll see if we receive the error on that. I will report back here but for the meantime we have deleted the Vudu app and havent tried again ever since Vudu custome support demanded to know these items:
Make/Model and generation of the Device :

Mobile Carrier: not using mobile
The Version of the Vudu Application: provided
How much space is currently available to use: unknown
Android or iOS version: not using mobile
Kernel-Version: Roku box info provided
Software Version: Roku box info provided
Billing Address: info provided
GPS location: did not provide/irrelevant

We provided everything except Mobile Carrier, Android/iOS because we're not using our cellphones and so the information is not necessary. Also didnt provide GPS because frankly I do not know how to obtain it and I do not see how that helps. They already asked for and received my billing address and I told them that the GPS coordinates are from that address.

Once I replied with the pertinent details, sans the info that IMO is not relevant, they stopped replying and never escalated it. So, IMO, they really do not wish to fix the problem.

I also informed them that I do not know how to obtain the amount of space on my Roku (I assume?) but told them that there are only several apps installed and all of them run fine but also told them that I reset the box to "store bought" and started over with the Vudu app as the only app.

Now that I found these discussions we're a bit happy to know its not just us. We just hope there is a solution.

Thanks for listening!

 OK, did that. Got the following response:

ping rokuproxy.vudu.com

Pinging e229498.x.akamaiedge.net [23.1.33.201] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 23.1.33.201: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=52
Reply from 23.1.33.201: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=52
Reply from 23.1.33.201: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=52
Reply from 23.1.33.201: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 23.1.33.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 18ms, Average = 15ms

Sorry for the delay! 
On the Roku box the network about says IP = 192.168.1.9 and gateway = 192.168.1.1

The IPCONFIG shows this:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.10
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

I will be getting an AppleTV to test with in a few days.