Are your Roku channels not working? Find troubleshooting tips for adding/removing channels, logging in, authentication, activation, playback issues, and more.
From my June 30, 2022 post
Next, I will test again without a network reset and then again with no restrictions on Router 2. If there are any crashes at 29 minutes but no crashes with isolation via router setup, then the timeout bug is not fixed for the 3800.
July 1, 2022
XM crashed yesterday sometime after 5.5 hours. XM stopped audio after 2 hours. Restarted by re-selecting channel 27 since screen is now visible post fix. XM audio stopped after 4 hours, Roku 3800 was not responsive to restarting, then XM crashed Roku causing device to restart. XM restarted again. When Roku would run for more than an hour, it would display a generic error message screen while trying to exit the track details screen. Error message displayed, “Sorry, Something went wrong. Try again later.” centered on a black screen with OK button below this message. Pressing OK would not eliminate the error screen. Maybe XM programmers should actually try to do what their error screen instructs before unleashing this junk on the public.
Multiple runs of XM crashed after 29ish minutes on the 2.4 GHz band. Therefore, this bug is not fixed for the 3800 .
July 3, 2022
Downloaded Netspot. Used Netspot to identify wireless activity within earshot of Roku 3800 and elsewhere. I found a great deal of activity within the lower channels of each band available for the routers’ use. Some routers are not very smart at minimizing interference. Network adapters can only choose from the channels being broadcast. I set the frequencies available for the router intended to be used for the Roku 3800 (Router 2) on the highest channels since those channels appear to be unused by my neighbors. Roku 3800 was already set to use Router 2. XM would still crash at 29ish minutes after multiple re-launches of the channel.
Netspot output is below. Popup is from clicking on SSID. Color in popup matches SSID color. Note that no one else is using channel 11 except Router 2. There is a hidden SSID that I assume is the Roku 3800 remote since the signal strength is too strong to belong to a neighbor on the same channel. When nothing is launched in Roku, the same BSSID has the SSID of DIRECT-roku-935-52CA35. This SSID must be polling the Roku remote for input.
After signing out of XM and then re-launching XM, it would run a little longer the first time but then revert to the 29 minutes timeout.
July 4, 2022
Since the Roku was connecting to a new channel compared to previous channel, maybe something is storing the old channel and encounters some type of unrecoverable error condition due to switching channels. This error condition is not something a normal user would expect to have to handle. Each router vendor has different logic for channel selection and this selection could change at any time without requiring the devices on the network’s permission. I can only conclude that XM is storing some information about the network that is irrelevant to normal operations but very relevant to some error condition that XM has conceived. A network device/app should not care what channel is being used currently vs previously. The only method by which a user can erase this information is via network reset.
After resetting the network with the Roku System options, linking to the network, signing in to the network, the new channel shows up within Roku System/Network/About screen as it did without the network reset. Launched XM. It ran for 11.5 hours. Tried to change channels after this elapsed time and XM threw the same generic error message but I could reselect channel 27 again. Behavior was still normal. XM crashed after 12 hours and 7 minutes. Audio was dropping out before the crash. XM caused Roku to crash and restart the device. Because Roku crashed, I can’t capture anything relevant.
After Roku crash, relaunch XM and observe. I believe the Roku crash was caused by the attempt to change or re-select the channel within XM after throwing up some error message. After letting XM run until crashing, the number of minutes it would run seemed to decrease but the elapsed time was random. Several times, XM would freeze on the track details screen by dropping the audio. Pressing OK on the remote would trigger an error message suggested to press OK which changed nothing on the screen. After some freezes, XM would not respond to any commands from the remote. Several times, XM would crash and cause Roku to crash and restart the device. From last weekend’s testing, triggering the crash was more difficult on weekends. Since none of the conditions have changed, perhaps XM is altering something on their server side on weekends.
July 8, 2022
There are four ways to exit XM
- Press the Home key
- Use the back key to exit and do not select CANCEL
- Sign off from the options screen
- Crash
Each method saves different data for the next launch. When XM gets lost on the track details screen and you use the Home key to exit and then re-launch XM, XM is still lost in that the track name does not match the audio. I don’t think the app knows the audio and screen are out of sync. XM will now always get this out of sync condition if the app is up long enough. The amount of time varies from 1 hour or more. The results are unpredictable. Sometimes you can change the channel and sometimes it crashes the Roku while trying. Sometimes, you can change the channel to something else and then back and it runs another hour before getting lost again.
XM tends to flip tune-start on even if you have it off before it crashes. Somehow XM knows it is crashing and flips this option on while leaving. If you launch/exit/relaunch with no crashing, XM leaves the option how you set it. This testing condition is with all other options set to off. If XM crashes and is re-launched, the track details match the audio more closely upon restart. There is an out of sync between the menu screen containing the favorites and the track details that lasts for a few seconds. This specific condition was true in pre-May 16 version as well.
At this point in time, I cannot get XM to crash at 29 minutes even though I have changed no test conditions and XM has allegedly not changed anything. If anything changed on my side, Local Wifi activity would be greater on weekends and holidays and make a crash more likely if frequency contention were the source of the crashes. The Roku launching XM is using channel 11. There are no signals on channel 11 except the router, the Roku remote and some neighbor that with -40dBm lower signal. Essentially, these are ideal conditions. Roku was crashing earlier in the day at 43 minutes. In the afternoon, the elapsed time between crashes extended to hours with no other changes.
Summary
After the factory reset, XM seemed to run longer by a few minutes since it originally crashed at 20 minutes. Tuning the router to provide the cleanest signal helped extend elapsed time between crashes eventually. Resetting the network connection within Roku extended the elapsed time when the crash time was short. Weekend is not a good time to test since the conditions on the XM side are apparently changing on weekends such that the short elapsed time crash bug is suppressed. Testing results are currently too variable. Resume testing on July 11, 2022.
