We bought a new Streambar Pro a few weeks ago to replace our Roku 3, which still works, but is getting a little long in the tooth anyway.
For the most part the new unit works fine, but we have an intermittent problem that sometimes makes shows unwatchable.
It mostly seems to happen in the Apple TV+ app, but also happens occasionally with Amazon Prime video and rarely some other apps.
The problem seems to happen if the video would buffer, but unlike all our older Rokus that give a buffering animation, the audio starts crackling, then cuts out while the video keeps playing. Then the video will start to stutter. The remote becomes unresponsive or slow. If I hit the “quick rewind” button sometimes it works, and sometimes the Roku acts like I pressed it even if I don’t touch the remote - it will back up to where the problem started and start playing the video again.
Often it will do this repeatedly, never progressing very far, retrying over and over until we exit the app. If we exit to the main menu the problem may or may not go away. Rebooting doesn’t always help either.
We can’t tell for sure if it’s a network/buffering type issue since it never says anything to that effect, or if something else is wrong. We’re kind of guessing this because it most often happens when we try watching a brand new episode of a popular show, like Ted Lasso, right after it comes available.
We have high-speed DSL with consistent downstream speeds of 40-50Mbps, and it happens even if nothing else is using our internet at the time. We started with the Soundbar on WiFi, literally 3 feet from our mesh network router. But as a test I also plugged it into ethernet via the recommended USB adapter. It didn't make an appreciable difference.
I’ve also tried reducing the display from 4k HDR at 60 (which our TV supports) down to 1080p, just to see if it was some kind of bandwidth problem, but it didn’t help.
Honestly we’re about to return the unit and just go back to the Roku 3, despite the lack of 4k support, because we’d much rather see an occasional buffering animation than what’s happening now.
Any suggestions before the return period ends?
