Channels & viewing

[renojim]

@jebbrown, sorry, I wasn't exactly trying to say it was your fault, per se, just that it's the button press on the remote that's doing it.  The screensavers that advertise channels have been around a few years, but I do believe there's a more recent bug that makes it so that even if it's just a blank screen pressing Play/Pause (and possibly OK) will install the channel being advertised that you can't even see.

As for resuming your show/video after you've paused, if you can see the paused video, use Play/Pause.  If you see a blank screen or a screensaver with these little advertised channels scrolling by, press some other button on the remote like the down arrow.  Once you see the paused video again press Play/Pause.  It's a good habit to just not make Play/Pause the first button you press when you pick up the remote.

You can understand why Roku makes these screensavers (there's a few of them) the default since they're making money off the advertising.  I won't say what I think should happen to the person responsible for this underhandedness.

[jebbrown]

Yes - what you've said is exactly what I've found.  The last few days I've been pressing back & even more so, the left arrow when the screen is black.  I didn't know if I was just getting lucky or not, but I was paranoid of the buttons I normally pressed, so just like you said, I went for anything except the ok and play/pause button.  Of course as the problem is a randomly occurring one, I still had no idea if I was on the right track.  But thanks to your feedback, I'm pretty sure I'm safe now.  I had already changed the screen saver, though I've yet to actually see either the black screen or the new screen saver show up since I've been avoiding those buttons, as most of the channels I'm on have their own screen saver.  The only one I haven't checked yet is You-Tube, and I don't remember ever seeing a screen saver for that channel, so.... stay tuned lol.

Thanks much for the help   

[Voolery]

I’m happy to report that changing my screensaver from the default scrolling cityscape with billboard ads to Aquatic Life and adding a PIN to my account solved the problem for me. I can also use any button on the remote to wake up the Roku without fear of a random channel downloading and showing up in my home channels list without my consent. It’s still a bummer Roku is using dark patterns by default to basically trick customers into installing channels. 

[jebbrown]

I replaced the screensaver (I used Aquatic Life also), and the problem went away.  I didn't need to use a PIN, but having extra security is a good idea, especially if you have children.  As it was mentioned before, perhaps the black screen was a bug and not intentional - lets hope they fix that issue for everybody's sake.

I opt for commercial free versions of my pay channels so I don't have to deal with commercials.  If I wanted any other channels ROKU provides a place where I can browse for them easily, and beyond that I feel like they are bugging me, and that's annoying.

Thanks much for your input 

[billman]

I recently went back to using a roku on a tv in my home office, and am having this same issue.   waking up the roku often times goes into adding some random channel that I never want.   this is insane that this 'feature' cannot be turned off, and the reply that 'this is user error' is idiotic.  

in my case, I think I'm going to chuck the roku in the garbage and grab an apple tv that I have on another tv but isn't really needed there anymore.  The Apple TV NEVER does this kind of stupid thing.

[Strega]

I assume that by the time you read this, you will have read the thread and turned it off. 

[DBDukes]

@billman 

Because spending $150-180 is a lot easier than changing the screen saver?

If you read and understood the posts, you'd know that using a screen saver with ads embedded will launch the app (the ads are for apps) and attempt to install it if you end the screen saver with Play or OK. Ending it with Home won't launch the ad/app. Or use a different screen saver.

But yeah, spend the money instead.

[Psyrog]

Thanks for the help. I had the same problem with my Roku TCL TV. Roku should definitely do something so the end-user doesn’t experience this issue.

[Eliana]

I have a pin on mine. It still does the same stupid thing. Constantly adds channels without my permission.