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glu
Newbie

Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

Recently my Roku Ultra has started acting up by turning on the TV every morning, around 7am PT. This has never happened before, for years, and then suddenly it started happening with annoying consistency.

I'll wake up and walk to the kitchen and notice that the TV is on and sitting on the Roku home screen.

Things I've done to test what is going on. I've tested each one for 4 consecutive days before coming to the conclusion that my Roku is probably haunted:

  • I've disabled CEC setting ("1-touch play") - no difference
  • I've removed the batteries from the remote (overnight) - no difference
  • I've unplugged the power cable from the Roku (overnight) - obviously worked
  • I've unplugged the HDMI cable from the Roku (overnight) - worked!
  • I've unplugged the ethernet cable from the Roku (overnight) - no difference (have never used wireless on the unit, so it can't even connect to my WiFi)

I also shut my curtains every night, so it's unlikely that somebody's insanely powerful IR device is accidentally triggering the TV itself. This gives me the suspicion that my Roku is not adhering to the "CEC off" feature, and triggering it daily around 7am.

The thing is that this didn't start happening until around early March. I'm not sure if some Roku OS update caused this or not? It never happened before for 5 solid years, then suddenly it's a daily occurence.

Is there a way to view logs or similar on a Roku to confirm my suspicion? I've read a few other threads here (Roku community), on Reddit, and a few other sources, and nobody seemed to have any solution to the issue.

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6 REPLIES 6
DBDukes
Community Streaming Expert

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

What about your TV's CEC settings?

If you have your TV powered off, and you press the HOME button (not TV power) on the Roku remote, does your TV power on? If so, that's a quicker way to troubleshoot. Stop that and you'll stop behavior.

What I think is going on (and I could be wrong) is the nightly updates that Roku devices do are causing activity on the Roku and causing the TV to power on.

Did this start happening around the time Daylight Time started? If the updates are happening at the same real time (not Daylight) then they're now happening an hour later by Daylight Time clock. Perhaps it's been doing this all the time and you never knew because it happened when you were asleep, and the four hour timer to shut down was happening before you got up.

DBDukes
Roku Community Streaming Expert
Note: I am not a Roku employee.

If this post solves your problem please help others find this answer and click "Accept as Solution."

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glu
Newbie

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

Thanks for your reply, DBDukes

To your point about the Roku's remote "Home" button (or most any other button on the remote for that matter) - that's the "1-touch play" feature that I've already tested. Supposedly disabling this option on the Roku should prevent the Roku from waking up the TV. I have confirmed that indeed disabling that option does stop the remote from waking up the TV via CEC. That means there's something else on the Roku that uses CEC that's not remote-specific... hmm...

Also, I've considered and checked my TV's CEC settings. Obviously with the TV's CEC setting off, the Roku doesn't wake up the TV. I've tested this, but didn't include it in my list above just because unplugging the HDMI cable is a much better test than software configuration within the TV. (I have a couple other devices that also use HDMI-CEC (Raspberry Pi, Playstation), which is why I leave the TV's CEC setting to ON.) Having to turn off the TV's CEC setting shouldn't be the solution for the problem of a single device abusing that HDMI feature when other devices are tested and confirmed to not abuse the same features. None of my other CEC-enabled devices abuse that feature, so why is the Roku suddenly doing it?

To your point about the Roku's nightly updates, is there a detailed release notes for each release? Seems like they only have release notes for major releases, not point releases. And how come only the recent nightly updates might be causing the Roku to kick on the CEC "on" command? For many years it didn't do this. Why now? Release Notes don't imply this from what I could gather (having read 9.4 through to 10.0).

I've been working from home since day 1 of the pandemic in March 2020, so I would have noticed if the TV was on regardless of DST. I don't know precisely when the TV gets turned on, but it's definitely on before 7:30-7:45am, or at least when I typically notice it. I haven't set up some camera or anything to record the behaviour; it's anecdotal based on when I walk past the TV to get to the kitchen each morning since around late March 2021.

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blives49
Newbie

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

We have 2 roku ultras that are turning on our Samsung Smart TVs every night at 12:31 am.  I have trouble sleeping and this wakes me up at times.  I was about to trash both of them as I can load the apps I watch into the TV's apps instead of using the Roku but we just started to switch to Direct Stream and it only works well on the Roku.  Why is this happening?  It doesn't happen on the Samsung Smart TV that does not have a Roku device so it cannot be blamed on the TV.  Checked system updates on TV and Roku, they are up to date.

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Strega
Roku Guru

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

My parents' Samsung TV was turning itself on at night (they don’t have a Roku).  About a month ago I updated its firmware due to another problem that was a bigger deal for them but since doing that, it hasn't been turning itself on at night.  Oddly, when I told it to check for firmware updates, it claimed to be up to date.  But when I manually rooted around the Samsung site I found much newer firmware and updated it via a USB drive.  Since then, neither problem has occurred.

I mention this, since Samsung wasn't mentioned in this thread until your post, so your problem could be more like my parents' than like the OP's.

I thought about turning off the Anynet+ in the TV too (Samsung's name for HDMI-CEC) since possibly their cable box or blu-ray player was turning it on, but they were complaining about the other problem much more, so I went after that one first and it seemed to fix the turning on issue too.

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blives49
Newbie

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

I don't think that is the issue here because when you turn the Samsung tvs on, they go to a different screen display.  The screen that is coming up only occurs when you power on the TV through the Roku. Like your parents, the TVs all say they are up to date.  I'll search for a newer firmware on Samsung's site.  thanks!

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Fes3
Newbie

Re: Roku Ultra turning on TV daily

It’s not just Samsung TVs, what **bleep** are they selling with no support 

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