Forum Discussion

Rotorhead's avatar
Rotorhead
Reel Rookie
2 years ago

Roku 55r4a5r Pause Live TV is mostly unusable.

I have a new 55r4a5r and the pause live tv feature is glitchy af!
I have tried multiple thumb drives and even purchased a new 32Gb SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 drive and this one and all the others exhibit the same behavior. All of them were formatted and tested on a PC then formatted by the tv as they were setup for the PLTV (Pause Live TV) function. I've also tried adding a USB extension between the tv and the thumb drive, that didn't help. 
Some of the symptoms include a short duration of picture pixelation followed by about a one second repeat of the video. After this type of event the video and audio very often lose sync and whatever station was being paused might lose all of the paused program up to that point as if you had just tuned to that station. Sometimes the video will just freeze and, same as the previous, all recording before that point might be gone.
This behavior applies to any station regardless of broadcast format, i.e. 480, 1080, etc. and the signal quality/strength has no bearing. A good strong signal will show the same behavior as will a weak signal.
I will also add that this behavior only occurs when there's a thumb drive inserted and used for the PLTV function and without one present the OTA broadcast seems to function perfectly fine.

I have other Roku units(TCL) where the PLTV feature is almost flawless and works with just about any flash drive you plug in and it doesn't matter if the station's signal is strong or weak, the thumb drive will just record everything just as it appears on the screen. After searching extensively for a solution I have found many post from people experiencing the same problems with PLTV and some of these posts are already years old so it seems Roku is not too keen about fixing PLTV in older TVs or getting it correct in newer models. I still haven't found a post on this forum where the problem has been fixed.

I'm not software expert and have no idea if this flaw could be fixed with a firmware update but seeing as this is not a new problem, it doesn't seem to be a priority with Roku.

There are multiple choices of tv out there and having the PLTV was one of the main reasons I stayed with Roku. I shouldn't have to be writing this about a new tv and a problem this old and if this can't be fixed quickly the tv will be returned.

Model 55R4A5R
Serial # X01200K93C00
Device ID S0NT43A93C00
Software Ver. 12.5.5-build 4174-ET

Issue reprot tracker ID-00-092-177

 

I've posted a Youtube video showing some of the glitches.

https://youtu.be/qyhFgqPyIEU

 

2 Replies

  • RokuArjiemar's avatar
    RokuArjiemar
    Retired Moderator
    2 years ago

    Hello! Rotorhead,

    We appreciate your post,

    Thank you for bringing the issue with your Roku TV to our attention. We're happy to help.

    We have forwarded your information to the Roku team for investigation. We will provide updates on this Community thread as more information becomes available. Thank you for your patience. Do not hesitate to let us know if you have any additional feedback.

    Thanks,
    Arjiemar

    • StreamerP's avatar
      StreamerP
      Streaming Star
      3 months ago

      I bought the same model with the same problem in Jan 2025, and Roku still has not addressed this issue. Not only does this problem cause glitching, it also results in loss of the audio sync and the clearing of the play/pause buffer.

      I have also noticed a difference in the way the new TV (Roku 55R4A5R with the problem) and my old TV (TCL 49S405 without the problem) handle the loss of a TV signal. If I disconnect the antenna for 10 seconds or so, the new TV does not save the blank gap in the play/pause buffer. The old TV saves the blank gap. So it seems they have a different way of handling the loss of signal, which might make the older model more robust and the newer one more fragile.

      While testing the new TV, I have yet to fill the entire 90 minute play/pause buffer without experiencing a glitch that dumped the play/pause buffer. With the older model, I have never experienced a loss of the buffer.

      Clearly this is a known issue that is easy to reproduce and affects all the TVs in several of the Roku models. It may be something that is not fixable with a software patch.