Home Screen Content Removed — Repeatedly
Longtime ROKU user here, writing from the US. I first reported in May that my Home Screen contents were being mostly erased across all devices in my home (one ROKU tv, the other three are ROKU Ultras...
Forum Discussion
I'm not in any way saying you're not having an issue. But if there were some sort of issue within the Roku OS causing this it would be appearing extremely often. I have close to a dozen different Roku devices on my account, and have seen no such behavior.
The issue with the remote app is that it doesn't require knowing your user password to change your device. It simply has to be connected to the same network, regardless of your knowledge of them being connected. You can disable remote access to your Roku in the Settings menu (Settings/System/Advanced system settings/Control by mobile apps), which should block someone from messing with your Roku using the remote app.
atc98092 wrote:
You can disable remote access to your Roku in the Settings menu (Settings/System/Advanced system settings/Control by mobile apps), which should block someone from messing with your Roku using the remote app.
I've tested this and have found disabling Control by mobile apps prevented a Non-Roku 3rd party alternate control app I use once in a while from connecting, but the official Roku remote app still got through.
It's been a while since I tested this though.
Apologies for the belated reply. I got tired of resetting my Home Screen, individually across four ROKU devices, and just dealt with having chunks of my content (including paid-for apps!) missing over the summer. Recently I decided to revisit this topic to see if there was a solution.
Thanks, Dan, for the "mobile device control" tip. Apparently even though all of my ROKUs are hard-wired the default on the "Control by mobile apps" menu is "permissive". What was ROKU thinking? (I disabled it.)
makaiguy mentioned that in past experience 3rd party mobile app control was blocked when network access is disabled — but not the ROKU app control. No one in my household uses the ROKU app control or any third party app to control our ROKU devices (physical remote only). Potentially could a neighbor's use of an app have this impact? (And if it's not too much trouble, would you mind testing out whether the ROKU mobile control app still gets through when this is set to "disabled"?)
Although I am happy to have disabled the mobile app access in the Advanced Settings menu, I am not convinced that everything I have described is accounted for by this scenario. The ROKU forgets my zip code. It also "forgot" my paid-for screensavers and wallpapers. I can view purchase history after logging into my account on the website but I can't download it to my ROKUs without a persistent page error. The following error has occurred in every browser I have ever used to try to access my ROKU purchases through my account, therefore I am prevented from restoring over a decade of purchases:
The website experienced an unexpected problem. There was an unexpected error in the website. The current page will not load. Close and re-open your browser, navigate back to the website, and try repeating your last actions. If the problem persists, please contact our support team.
Of course there is no straightforward way to report this to the support team that I know of. (The page error doesn't come with an error code or a link to support. 😫)
Overall my impression is that something has been corrupted on the back end (ROKU side) — but as I said in a separate reply to the Community Forums moderator the website doesn't render properly (on a Mac) so private messaging isn't cutting it as a sole means of accessing support.
Request to the mod: If anybody from ROKU can escalate this ticket on my behalf I'd appreciate it as I am truly stuck and can't come up with anything else I can do on my end to troubleshoot.
NewsView wrote:makaiguy mentioned that in past experience 3rd party mobile app control was blocked when network access is disabled — but not the ROKU app control. No one in my household uses the ROKU app control or any third party app to control our ROKU devices (physical remote only). Potentially could a neighbor's use of an app have this impact? (And if it's not too much trouble, would you mind testing out whether the ROKU mobile control app still gets through when this is set to "disabled"?)
Retested on my oldest Roku (Streaming Stick 3600) and newest (Ultra 4800) with Settings > System > Advanced system settings > Control by mobile apps set to Disabled on both of them.
- The official Roku remote app still found, connected, and controlled the Rokus.
- The RoSpikes Roku Remote app on my phone locates the Rokus on the network and allows them to be selected, but Roku does not respond to any commands from the app.
Edited to add:
When Control by mobile apps is enabled, on both systems the RoSpikes Roku Remote accesses and controls both Rokus normally.
