Definitely a Youtube issue, your son is correct. I use Playlet (an alternative frontend for Youtube) instead of the Youtube app on my Roku devices and the shorts play just fine across the devices in my signature.
I just want to add that I am having the same problem.
at ROKU
stop asking for equipment information and saying “we’ll pass it on to the team“ and just fix the darn thing. Don’t care if it is YouTube, it’s your equipment, rather my equipment that I bought from you whatever YouTube is doing it’s your responsibility to fix it and make it work on your equipment. So please stop grousing and fix it. Roku!
though like another user here said, Roku equipment getting old, maybe it’s time to look for another option besides Roku. I mean if they can’t fix this after this amount of time what are they gonna fail on next. Certainly my next upgrade I will consider something besides Roku apparently has a pathetic support team.
what suggestions to other users here have as an alternate to Roku?
Having this same issue. Will this be fixed?
We’re upgrading Roku Community to bring you a faster, more mobile-friendly experience. You may notice limited functionality or read-only access during this time. Read more here.
Planned Downtime:
Community will be unavailable for up to 24–48 hours during the upgrade window during the week of May 19th and you may notice reduced functionality.
In the meantime, for additional assistance, visit our Support Site.
We're sorry for this disruption — we’re excited to share what’s next!