Ok, so me being 25+ years in network admin/IT I totally agree with you. Doesn't matter who is at fault with this. Roku is a device for non-technical people so every question should not be a 1000-word essay on technical aspects about Google/Youtube/Roku written in this "I know more than you" mentality.
I did get this fixed but this forum was not much help and pretty much it was just about most of what people did here but requires a 1-6 step-by-step here.
Proper explanation in bullet points, summary in numbers below:
- Check age on Google Account just to be sure. If your correct birth year is already there skip it.
- On your Roku TV, go to settings and click reset app. You can either remove the app and reinstall or just redo the credentials. Resetting the app, basically does this but I went ahead and did a remove/reinstall of the app.
- Be sure that when you sign back in that you use the correct credentials and account. I have 2 accounts, by which one of them is an old legacy account. That for me was more than likely the issue on my side.
- Once I put back in my credentials with my legacy account as the primary account, which it is, the videos that were being skipped due to age restrictions began to play.
- For me, I had the newer account on the TV first and it was a year before I realized I had 2 flippin' YT accounts. My initial account was setup in 2006 before one had to have a Gmail to use YouTube as an account holder. The settings are radically different since Youtube was purchased by Google later in 2006. Some of the legacy settings absolutely do not transfer verbatim from account to account. It is important if one has an older account like mine that you have to pay attention to such things, which I did not.
Summary:
1) Check age/birthday is in full on your google account. I went ahead and also made my birthday public. i cannot verify whether or not this makes a difference. I did it just to be sure that I could get it working. I do not think I will tinker anymore with this.
2) Reset/Remove Youtube app on your Roku.
3) Reboot Roku the proper way. Settings --> System --> Power --> System Restart.
4) Reinstall Youtube app on your Roku.
5) Be sure to sign in with your main/primary Youtube account if you have multiple first. If you have multiple accounts on the same email, which you can do, just make sure your primary is the first/primary account that you sign into.
6) Those videos should work now. They did for me...
Hope this helps people that stumble upon this thread. Should be noted the replies from Roku admins are absolutely worthless. These are either autoresponders or these admins are clearly not reading what is being said and that is like tech 101. If they are missing that bad then get help from other areas. My solutions came from years and years of just tinkering with these devices and understanding how lax they are. I mean when you walk into Wal-Mart and purchase a 50-inch TV for under $300 what do you expect 🤦♂️ 🤷♀️
