SOLVED this by:
The problem hasn't occurred since. It's almost certainly a youtube version and update issue.
I am getting this same issue too, and could really use a solution. This is, in fact, not just happening on YouTube but on a number of other channels. In all situations audio and video overlays, such as pause/progress bar, etc, all still work. If I fast forward or rewind on channels the preview thumbnails show what should be showing once I hit resume however it also will go "gray/grey".
I have tried a number of things such a restarting the app, the device, resetting internet, checking cables (as suggested, though I doubted it was the issue), and nothing seems to fix it permanently. This has been plaguing me for well over 2 months and I'm just tired of it and seriously considering alternatives after using roku faithfully since version 1. (I own all the devices pre-v4 but am disabled and can't afford anything new right now).
Any help would be appreciated.
This has been happening to me as well, for a few months now. It seems to be more prone to happen after the roku has been running for a number of hours without a reboot. I'm guessing maybe cache or memory locations are getting corrupted after running for a while. I don't know.
It's really annoying. Sometimes if I jog the video forward or backward a few seconds I can get the gray screen to go away, but not often. Only thing that definitely fixes it for me is to reboot the roku... which is annoying to have to do so often (up to 2 or 3 times a day).
I am also having this issue with multiple channels. If anyone finds the cause or solution that would be great!
We just started having this issue on our Roku 3, mostly with YouTube, but now other apps on it are having image freezes while watching, though the sound is fine. We back out to the main screen and start over, but it's getting very annoying. Wish someone had an answer for it.
SOLVED this by:
The problem hasn't occurred since. It's almost certainly a youtube version and update issue.
Thank you! We have done that and so far, so good, though it’s only been a couple of hours! I appreciate the help!