Channel Issues & Questions

[chunksloth]

When my father first got the Roku Stick 3500X as a Christmas present he used it every day and everything was great.  This is no longer true, and it seems to be due entirely to software changes and opposed to hardware problems.  A while back the navigation within Youtube got very slow.  Videos play fine once started, but when moving around the app, selecting videos, etc... it is PAINFULLY slow.

Tonight I decided to make this post because a new issue has just started - namely, the sound made when navigating within the Youtube app has changed from a crisp, clear *click*, to a weird, obviously buggy and distorted *BONG* sound.

I just wanted to know if others are experiencing these two issues and what they have done to address them?  I just want my Roku to play Youtube as well as it did when we got the thing.  It is crazy for a product's capabilities to degrade so much when literally changing nothing on it would have kept the experience good.  Is there some alternative app/channel taht allows for Youtube viewing that DOESN'T suck?

For reference, my Stick software is up-to-date and, in the past, I tried a factory reset to fix the Youtube slowness but it didn't work.

[ghb51]

YouTube did change it's sounds recently, although i wouldn't describe it as a bong, more of a whoosh, you can turn it off by opening YouTube, looking on the left hand side for the gear icon, then Sounds and choose Off. As for the slowness, your model Roku appears to have come out in March 2014, which is just a year after my Roku 1 and it seems to have the same specs as my Roku 1 and my Roku 1 has always been painfully slow. You can try uninstalling YouTube, rebooting and reinstalling again, but it may not help (never mind, missed that you already tried a reset), it's a device that's 5 years old which is about the prime life span of most tech these days.

[atc98092]

Older players may have issues with the latest firmware versions and the latest channel updates. YouTube in particular is terrible on the older players. It's completely unusable on my old 2 XS, which is identical in power to the old 3500 Stick. It's more the fault of Google (they own YouTube), as they have updated their channel to work best on newer players, and have made the older ones impossible to use. And yes, YouTube recently changed the sound made while navigating the interface.
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Unfortunately, there's really nothing you can do to make it better. Right now a brand new Premiere is on sale on the Roku web site for $29.99. That is your best solution. Or switch to a Fire TV Stick, if you're tired of the Roku. However, the Fire TV is really Amazon-centric, and not as easy to use as the Roku interface in my opinion. And they start at $39.99.