Forum Discussion

akharget's avatar
akharget
Channel Surfer
2 months ago

Photo Streams unlinking, not customizable

Before you tell me to suggest a feature, there are already multiple feature suggestions with tons of likes and comments that are over THREE YEARS OLD suggesting this, so clearly that doesn't work. 

Google Photo Viewer stopped working with a recent-ish update, so it would only show my photos some of the time. Before that I was perfectly happy with it, but neither Google nor Roku takes responsibility for the app no longer working, so it doesn't appear it will be fixed or updated any time soon. That's the first problem.

I started using Roku's Photo Stream instead, and immediately it was worse. It's a screensaver, but you can't set the duration of the images, how they appear on the screen, or change the transition between them, which is ridiculous. That's extremely simple programming that's been around for decades, and literally every other streaming stick has those basic customization options. Google Photo Viewer had those options. On top of that, a QR code pops up every couple slides, taking up a huge portion of the photo, with a link to add photos to photostream... Which is totally unnecessary, since if I'm playing photos on photostream, I clearly already know how to add photos to photostream. It's an eyesore, and blocks parts of photos. It shouldn't be there at all, but at LEAST we should have the option to disable it. The lack of customization is the second problem.

Then, I noticed that every couple hours my photos would disappear and it would be awful generic stock photos that aren't even fitted to my TV, so there's black bars all around them. I realized this is because my google photos album, which Roku HEAVILY advertises as being compatible with photostream, keeps getting unlinked. I have to log in, go to photo viewer, and hit "re-link" to get it working again--and again, this happens multiple times a day. This is on all devices and there are multiple people complaining about this, so clearly there's an issue with the software. That's the third problem.

This app is practically unusable. I don't understand why something as simple as a photo slideshow is so difficult for Roku to figure out. 

screensaver & theme

2 Replies

  • bobcat1's avatar
    bobcat1
    Binge Watcher
    28 days ago

    I have the same problem!! I loaded the app "photostreams" and found it totally useless.the old "photostream" (google photos) worked perfectly! I am now uninstalling the app and would like to have YOUR software updated to use the google app again! PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE

     

    • akharget's avatar
      akharget
      Channel Surfer
      28 days ago

      No change, and no one has even bothered to reply to address the issue. I went back to using the google app because I'd rather have the screen go black than have those ugly stock photos with black bars and QR codes that changes every 5 seconds. I considered trying to upload the photos directly to the Roku app but there's dozens of them and I'd have to do them one-by-one. Plus, if you're advertising that it works with google photos, it should work with google photos. I don't get why this is so difficult, photo screensavers have been around for 25 years at least.