Apps & viewing

[nycdrea]

I’m trying to filter the channel guide so it only shows my "favorite" channels. I'm following the directions for how to do this (see below) but I don’t see "Filter" as an option on my channel options list.

When viewing my Live TV Channel Guide, I click the cog icon, and my Channel Options menu comes up but only includes: Favorite this channel, Hide this channel, Sort channel list, Manage channels, Close. It does NOT include “Filter”, per the directions below. Can someone please help?

From support.roku.com:

How to filter the channel guide
You can filter the Live TV Channel Guide to display all channels (minus any hidden channels), an automatically generated list of recently watched channels, or your favorite channels. When the channel guide is filtered, only the channels that are part of the filtered view appears. Use the following steps to filter the channel guide.

How to filter the channel guide

Open the Channel options menu
Select Filter
Choose All channels, Recents, or Favorites

[easytodobetter]

@nycdrea 

There is no way to browse only your favorites, the channel guide is extremely poorly developed by comparison to almost every other guide available like from Plex, which uses tabs and keeps you in the tab you select.

Roku thinks you want to select a favorite channel, then have to navigate all the way back to favorites list, including every single time navigating down from that annoying banner.

I honestly don't think Roku employees use the guide or they'd understand.

[nycdrea]

I appreciate the response but don't understand why the same articles were sent to me as a solution, as those are the articles I referenced in my original post — the directions in those articles do not work for me.  Please see my original post as I detailed it out as best as I could, in the hopes of communicating my issue clearly. Can a different solution be proposed? 

[easytodobetter]

@nycdrea 

There is no solution.

This TV guide is utterly garbage and extremely poorly developed.

You cannot simply browse your favorites.

You have to travel from your favorites list to each channel individually, requiring at least 7+ clicks due to that obnoxious banner at the top that comes back each time.

We're forced to go all the way back to favorites and then scroll all the way back to where we were in the favorites list because it can't even remember where you/what channel you're on.

It's utter trash and everyone involved in its development should feel shame.

[AvsGunnar]

@nycdrea 

Unfortunately, that Roku Support article https://support.roku.com/article/4420557730839 that you were referencing is out of date (1/29/2024).

The Live TV Guide has undergone some changes since then (and actually those instructions were when they first introduced a sorting feature two or three years ago to the Guide so not even sure that still worked in 1/24).  The individual lists were replaced with categories introduced to the left side of the Guide.

Currently, there is no longer a way to just view a Favorites list to the exclusions of others.  Need to return to the Guide and select the Favorites "category" from the left hand side each time.  

[easytodobetter]

@AvsGunnar 

I find it mildly entertaining that you just repeated what I already said and kind of ignored me, and of course, I know why. haha, can we be friends?!

I'm probably also too harsh in my wording for you. My apologies! But this live TV guide is truly horrendous; I could improve it overnight by simply listening to user feedback, anyone could.

If the banner at the top didn't come back every time you opened the guide. And if you simply stayed in your favorites list until you reached the end of it, it would be a huge improvement and those aren't difficult changes to make.

There really aren't any excuses for Roku.

Like you, I've been a big supporter of Roku for a long time. I even popularized them in my city when they first came out because I was running multiple electronics stores and Roku, right out of the gate, was signing contracts with tons of content providers and really quickly built an impressive library of apps and content. I honestly couldn't tell you how many I've ordered in bulk and how many we sold. Back then there was tons of free content that they eventually banned. Then when they added the headphone jack to the remote? That was great for sales.

But I also have decades in this industry and have brought products to market. I know extremely poor development when I see it, which is why I don't pull my words. This guide is trash. Any reasonable person comparing to its competition would find the same. Not that you disagree, just saying for the thread. This is kind of an insane problem for a TV guide.

[nycdrea]

Sounds like everyone is having the same problem and feeling very frustrated with not having the option to filter the favorites. Can the moderator please tell me who I can contact to request a change to the guide to bring back the filter function? 

[easytodobetter]

@nycdrea 

Literally hundreds of comments and several threads/posts about this exact issue and Roku ignores all of us and they ignore the basic functionality the TV guide is missing and how obnoxious it is to use in its current state.

They don't care.

This has been going on for a long time and I've even contacted upper management without response.

I switched to Plex's live TV guide a long time ago, I just installed Plex for free on my Roku's and started using their Live TV inside Plex, one extra click on the Plex icon instead of 7+ clicks each time I want to change the channel, it was a compromise.

In Plex, it's magical. When you select a tab or category of channels, you actually browse them until you're done in that category/tab.

Roku's employees, to my knowledge, are completely useless and terrible at troubleshooting. They'll often take info down as if they're going to do something but they won't, they don't know how and the problems are always above their heads. Most of the time the questions they ask are irrelevant, for example. They're clueless.

This forum is here to make us feel better, to make us feel like we're being heard, but we're not.

[nycdrea]

Thank you for sharing your workaround! It's very disappointing to hear everyone's frustrated experience with this issue!