THIS appears to be an attempted hack. I tried to send an email to support to report this issue; the short and sweet was that nothing short of factory reset would fix the issue.
There were no power issues, the system is powered from an UPS. It appears to be a stream injection. Every Roku on the network was affected. No other apps on Roku except Paramount Plus on Roku was affected. Android TV was not affected, Paramount Plus on Android TV was not affected. Paramount Plus on the computer was not affected. None of my other computers, systems, or networks were affected.
Hello, I have solved a problem that I had on Paramount Plus only by doing a factory reset. Not ideal, but I expect it could occur again.. According to Paramount Plus this issue has happened with other customers, as well as myself. Of course, it took a while to recognize that this was a Roku issue and a Paramount App in Roku issue.
Just before the error appeared, I noticed that the Brand and Ad section before a show starts streaming was severely affected. Lately there have been 60%+ complete failure followed by Error during this stage of streaming. On one occasion after the Error appeared, the Roku completely froze requiring a complete power off reset of the system. After powering up, the error appeared.
Multiple shows were affected in Paramount Plus. The first show I tried to watch was permanently affected until factory reset. Star Trek - The Next Generation. (STTNG) Both audio and (CC) closed captioning was affected. Independent of the Roku setting, which was correct, STTNG was in German (audio and (CC)). Other show's primary language was not affected in Paramount Plus. Many other shows had (CC) affected, and the language that appeared seemed to be related to what other languages were available other than the language chosen. Shows in the primary language only may have not been affected at all, because of how Paramount lets Roku handle these choices, it was not possible to determin which if any languages were available in most of the shows. No other app in Roku appeared to be infected.
I wrote this because I needed a way to contact Roku and inform them of the issue. It was impossible for me to determine the exact source of the exploit, and my home system and network did not appear to be affected. I suspect the start up stream in Paramount Plus or the Ad start stream service to be the part of the program affected.
Simply, for myself, this is a one off at this time; I would like to report it as such. Only Paramount was affected, none other... they are obviously not going to do anything about it, since they are acting like it is a Roku problem. And, it is, but it only affected Paramount on Roku. This is a critical point. However, it is my personal opinion that it appears that the issue is with Paramount Plus' interface with Roku that has been affected, and therefore both Roku and Paramount Plus will need to fix it.
I have recommended to Paramount Plus that they do what most other apps do which is to create separate primary audio language and (CC) language options within the app itself. I do not use every app or ROKU and do not know if other apps that rely on ROKU for this choice have been affected. Paramount Plus is the only app I use that relies on Roku for this interface, and it was the only app I use that was affected.
Since it is one time, I am simply reporting the issue to ROKE... however, I would like a response from ROKU as the fastest and easiest way to report issues like this. I am a retired scientist, tech, troubleshooter, computer analyst and troubleshooter, and spent much of my life troubleshooting many systems and situations.. IOW I am a Metrologist with an extensive computer background.
The issue interfered specifically with one program "Star Trek - The next generation" (STTNG) other programs I checked were unaffected with primary language (audio).
STTNG (CC) closed captioning was affected, it was always in German
Many other shows in Paramount were unaffected in Primary (audio) nor (CC). I suspect because they were only available in English, and only provided English closed captioning (CC).
Although primary audio did not appear affected for various other shows in Paramount, all my shows were in English and I do not know what other languages were available for primary language support. I only observed that (CC) was affected in other shows. I think this depended upon which languages were available in CC. Also, I suspect if other languages were available, one of those languages were substituted for English or anything other than the (CC) language chosen.
IOW, the language chosen for (CC) was affected, the choice affected may have been chosen based on location in individual show being viewed language availability list, however, whatever was displayed it was never the language chosen, but some other, which varied depending upon a factor unknown by me.
Removing and Restoring Paramount Plus did not work. Only Paramount Plus on Roku was affected. Paramount Plus on Android was not affected. Paramount Plus on Browser was unaffected. All Roku devices in my home *were* affected similarly.
Factory reset fixed the issue, whether temporary or permanently is yet to be determined.
I suspect a security problem; however, the type of Roku devices was not a factor, both of mine are different Roku devices.
I have confirmed this issue on the 2nd Roku device in our household; however, it has not been yet factory reset. If I hear back, I will let you know whether I had to force factory reset to resolve the issue, and whether that resolved the issue. I see not reason it won't work at this time.
