Network - Wireless & Wired Connections

[chris_tate]

I have a Roku Express 3930 bought through Amazon UK in December 2019.  It has worked great for the past 5 months until a week ago.  We have it in the living room and it is only 8 feet from our WiFi router (ASUS DSL-AC88U).  The signal strength had been "excellent" as I would expect being so close to the router but we have had problems streaming Netflix and BBC iPlayer - I then checked the WiFi signal and it now shows "fair".  Nothing else has changed in our set-up.

Has there been a recent software update from Roku which is causing a bug in the WiFi connection, or does the device now have a hardware issue related to the WiFi receiver?

[makaiguy]

How is your wifi environment?  Might you have neighbours that started up a new router that is causing interference?  If you reconfigure your router to use a different channel you might get a cleaner signal with less interference.  You can get a wifi analyzer app for most mobile devices that can show you the wifi channels being used in your environment.

[chris_tate]

The WiFi environment is generally good and I have up to 15 devices connected through 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels.  The router wireless status shows that the Roku device should have a full 4-bars of connection because it is only 8ft from the router, whereas on the device it still shows "fair".  We are in a detached house where neighbours are quite a distance away and very little other WiFi interference.

Is there any potential benefit to do a factory reset and start connection again?  At the moment I see a difference from what the Roku device should see for WiFi strength from the router compared to what it is showing.

[makaiguy]

Before doing a factory reset which would necessitate reinstalling all your channels, I'd try a total network reset. Settings > System > Advanced system settings > Network reset

As long as you're messing with things, you might as well restart your router, too. I know this doesn't seem to make much sense, especially when other devices are connecting just fine, but it's helped me several times.

Then set up your net connection again. Settings > Network > Set up connection

[MichaelMedina]

Same here. Morning #3 of my Express disconnecting after about an hour.  Gotta be the update.  Literally with 3 first of both routers that mesh the house.

I just bought it in December as well. Lemme guess, the D+ launch?

[chris_tate]

I have found a solution!  I had done the factory reset as suggested but no improvement. 

However, going into the router wireless settings for 2.4GHz and 5GHz I changed the channel setting from "auto" to specific channels and by trying through a few different channels, managed to get to one which seemed to give a better performance - in my case channel 11 on 2.4GHz.  Now WiFi signal strength as seen at Roku back up to excellent.  I hope it stays that way!

[makaiguy]

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@chris_tate wrote:

I have found a solution!  I had done the factory reset as suggested but no improvement. 

However, going into the router wireless settings for 2.4GHz and 5GHz I changed the channel setting from "auto" to specific channels and by trying through a few different channels, managed to get to one which seemed to give a better performance - in my case channel 11 on 2.4GHz.  Now WiFi signal strength as seen at Roku back up to excellent.  I hope it stays that wa y!

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Yes, interference from neighboring wifi systems can slow things down, so you probably found a channel with less interference.  Just be aware that you may need to do this again sometime as neighbors change THEIR router settings.

[sarorb]

We have four different Roku devices in 4 rooms of our house.  Yesterday, three of them quit being connected.  Our network name isn't listed to connect to all of a sudden.  All other devices in the house including one newish Roku still work.  We have tried every troubleshooting of the router, Roku device, and connection that we could find online. We have gone through each setting in our router, done a speed test, and even tried a factory reset. What is going on all of a sudden?

[makaiguy]

I've had Rokus that stopped listing my wifi nets before. I haven't a clue what caused it but so far at least the following has always fixed it:

I've found that when I've encountered wifi problems with my Rokus I've normally been able to solve them by restarting the router. After the router comes back up, restart the affected Roku (Settings > System > System restart) to start with a clean slate and try to reconnect.

This makes no sense to me and I don't understand why it would work, especially since other wifi devices in the house work well, but it has worked for me.

[BGF1973]

I am having a similar problem which started several days ago after a roku software update was installed. I suspect that there is a bug in the latest software update.