Channels & viewing

[braylor]

Roku Channel doesn't work. It's not playing videos on any of our five TCL Roku TVs. Selecting a video to play, it just goes right back to the Roku show or movie page without playing the video. It won't play shows, movies, or anything.

On all five TCL Roku TVs, we've removed the Roku Channel and unplugged the TVs for 30 seconds. We then reinstalled the Roku Channel but it still won't play any videos. We've tried all suggestions for fixing it but nothing works.

There's something wrong with the Roku Channel itself. All other apps play videos just fine.

[AvsGunnar]

@braylor 

Have you tried restarting your router and any network peripherals as well? (extenders, access points/APs, etc).

Tested on my devices and all is well with Roku Channel (do not have TCLs to test on though), so this is something unique to you or a TCL/Roku combination thereof.  Have not come across other postings today of a similar issue, so would start troubleshooting at the network and internet level.  Since other Channels/apps seem to be working fine, appears your network is simply having an issue connecting to the Roku server.

Normally a router reboot will take care of any issues I am having with the Roku Channel.

[renojim]

@braylor, is this a new problem or has it always been like that?

[braylor]

We restarted our modem and router before going through the process of removing, unplugging, and reinstalling the Roku Channel. It didn't fix the issue.

We were able to use the Roku Channel until about a month ago. Nothing has changed between that time, unless there was an update. We've tried to use the Roku Channel on each of our TCL Roku TVs but it hasn't worked on any of them since we first noticed the issue.

[renojim]

Are you in the US?  It seems people outside of the US have more problems.

[braylor]

We're in the US.

[AvsGunnar]

@braylor 

If the problem was strictly linked to a corrupted Roku Channel, the Remove, Restart, Reinstall of the Channel you initially performed should have resolved it.

It could be an issue related to the Roku OS11 update and TCL or still a network setting.

Try performing a Manual System Update followed by a System Restart. 

Settings/System/System Update/Check Now (press OK) - note if it says latest update installed or if it performed "something" after pressing OK.

Then, Settings/System/Power/System Restart to perform a reboot.

Try the above on the different RokuTVs and see if some get fixed, none get fixed, etc.

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Just to see if anything jumps out, what is router model number and ISP (internet service provider)?  Any use of router or network addons (VPNs, ad-blockers, or raspberry/pi-holes, etc)?

See if network is allowing you to watch the Roku Channel from the online Roku Channel. (https://therokuchannel.roku.com/).

(edited w/additional info request)

[braylor]

Roku Channel still won't play videos on our TCL Roku TVs. Still just goes back to show page without playing. Only Live TV on the channel works. We were able to watch shows on Roku until about a month ago.

We just now uninstalled channel, checked for system updates (there were none), unplugged TVs for a few minutes, rebooted both modem and router while TVs unplugged, reinstalled channel, checked for channel update, checked for system updates again, rebooted TV system. Still the same issue on all TVs.

When we tried to watch Roku Channel via browser, we got the following error message:

An error occurred loading this page - Error: 451
Please try reloading the page or close the browser and open it again.

We're not using VPN, ad blocker, or anything. Router is Netgear Nighthawk RAX70 and ISP is Spectrum.

[AvsGunnar]

@braylor 

Whenever you get a 451 error on a webpage, it usually means it is being blocked/censored by the ISP for some reason. (many innocent reasons exist and are normally due to DNS server settings.)

Your best bet may be to contact your ISP and let them know you cannot access the Roku Channel on your computer and your RokuTV because of this. They can either walk you through changing your DNS or seeing why their DNS server is producing this message.

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If you want to fix yourself, the ways around/resolve a 451 error are by using a VPN, a proxy server, or by changing the DNS settings at the router.  Since you are in the US and not being subjugated to censorship by your country or your ISP (we will give them both the benefit of the doubt here , for now), it is likely just a DNS server issue.  

Login to your router admin panel and try using Google public DNS servers. (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) rather than the ones currently associated.

If you want to see if this is the issue by testing on your laptop for the online Roku Channel, follow the below steps which will just change them on your laptop while leaving the router's DNS settings in place for troubleshooting. (Assuming Windows is your OS, so here are basic steps. )

1.  Click on the Windows button in the bottom-left corner of the taskbar. 

2. In the search field, type “Network connections”.  In the menu that appears, choose View network connections.

3. Choose the internet adapter you’re currently using. Right-click on the internet adapter, and then on Properties.

4. Choose Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), and then click on the Properties button.

5. Choose "Use the following DNS server addresses" and add the address of an alternative server (8.8.8.8)

6. Restart your web browser.

(Easy article discussing the above steps at https://www.exai.com/blog/451-unavailable-for-legal-reasons).

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The above problems can also be occurring if your router is configured to be using IPv6 protocol or even IPv4/v6.  Since the NightHawk RAX70 is a triband Wifi6 router, could certainly be contributing to issue.  Try disabling IPv6 and instead use only IPv4 and see if issue is resolved.  If so, then you will likely need to confirm that the RokuTV is assigned to use a band that has IPv4 enabled (currently, Roku does not support IPv6, as far as I know).

Feel free to post back with an update or if you have more questions. 

[braylor]

We checked the advanced settings of the RAX70. IPv6 is and has been disabled. We couldn't find anything else in the RAX70 settings and we don't have Armor.

We changed the DNS on the laptop's WiFi adapter setting for IPv4 to alternate 8.8.8.8, restarted the browser, and there's still a 451 error on the Roku Channel webpage when trying to play a video.

We then tried accessing Roku Channel video on laptop using a VPN and that worked! So it looks like the next best step is reaching out to Spectrum for them blocking the Roku Channel.

Thank you for all your thorough help. We'll reply again once we hear back from Spectrum.

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Update: Spectrum is saying that they don't block anything. Is there some other issue that would be resolved by using a VPN? Are there other router settings we should be checking? DNS 8.8.8.8 didn't work. Perhaps I should reach out to Netgear?