Roku Direct Publisher

[StratusGrid-rc]

I am updating an unpublished Roku Channel using Direct Publisher and have had to manually re-ingest the content feed many times today while working through errors. At about 5:45 EDT today, I was able to get the feed to be manually re-ingested for the last time in hours. It has been over 6 hours and I still cannot get Direct Publisher to reprocess my updated feed.

Is there some type of limit on how often you can re-ingest a feed?

[37mediagroup]

I believe Roku just periodically re-caches channels, so they update periodically or randomly throughout the day. So if you submit a new update, that re-cache could be 30 minutes away, or 6 hours away, really just depends on timing. But it isn't a set 1-2 hours until re-cache on your channel, more of a global thing.

[Baradanikto]

You may want to uninstall and reinstall the channel. That sometimes forces an update.

[StratusGrid-rc]

Thank you all for your responses. After waiting about 12 hours and still not seeing an update, I changed the filename of the content feed and updated the feed URL in Direct Publisher. The changes were re-ingested almost immediately. Since then, it seems like most refresh requests are completed within 30-60 minutes.

I would like to better understand how the re-ingestment process works. I'm just speculating at this point, but, it seems like clicking 'Refresh' may just add my request to a queue rather than scheduling something or being instant. If so, perhaps a service at Roku processes the requests synchronously and so demand determines how quickly requests are fulfilled? Just a guess.

Does anyone here have some technical insight on how the process works? May be helpful for the community to understand so that expectations are set accurately.

[37mediagroup]

I thought now you had to 'schedule' for a channel update/new file feed name?!   Otherwise, basically if you keep a generic feed like www. mysite. com/jsonfeed and keep replacing the feed on your hosting platform (ie. GoDaddy), then Roku only randomly re-caches every 6 hours or so.  But if you were to rename the feed name, such as by date www. mysite. com/jsonfeed0324 then you need to resubmit it, which based on their scheduling would be a day or two out.

[jsonnentag]

I have wondered exactly the same thing. . . .  Exactly HOW does the process work and how is it setup?

Just like you I have waited forever and seen no updates and found (just like you) the easiest way to force it to do something is to change some channel item that requires a new channel version (a background color or some small thing) to be published.  When that happens the feed will be re-ingested and the changes will appear.  It was quite a pain when last experimenting with a test channel while trying to figure out Series and Seasons formatting.

There is too much "black box" just sit and wonder what is happening with the whole system.  They act like nobody needs to know how things really work (or when there are changes to how things work).

I have 2 channels setup and you never really know when the feed contents will appear.  Sometimes at the next ingestion and sometimes not for 24 hours!  I just noticed during the last update that the ShortForm things updated before the Series ones did.  It took another 2-3 ingestions before the Series items updated.

[StratusGrid-rc]

I wonder if we can get any attention from Roku in this thread. It sounds like a quick explanation of the process would be helpful to others, too.

Does anyone know how to get their attention on this matter?

[Baradanikto]

There are several potential issues that could cause a failure to update the channel.  Have a look at the Partner Success article I added videos to my feed.  Why hasn't it updated on the channel?

Additionally, the Roku documentation makes this statement:

Updating the feed
You can add, edit, or remove entries in the content feed anytime without having to re-publish the channel. It typically takes a maximum of six hours for changes to the feed to be reflected in the channel UI.

You only need to re-publish the channel if you change the feed URL or add a feed URL for another language.

If the above does not apply to you, consider contacting Partner Success.

[jsonnentag]

I have contacted them before and it is kind of iffy.  At one point updates were made to a channel and they never appeared for DAYS.  The only thing that would get them to appear was either either creating a new channel version OR having people REBOOT their device.  Once the device was rebooted the channel updates did appear.  But there is no way to tell users that and who is going to think, "Hmmm.... I wonder if I'll see channel updates when I reboot my device?"  That's NOT how things are supposed to work and the Roku answering person didn't seem to comprehend.  Their wondrous suggestion was to export the Direct Publisher channel to the code.  Not exactly a great solution.  (Apparently things that are not made with Direct Publisher are not ingested by Roku so each device does the ingestion itself.)  So to save figuring out how their system is screwed up they suggest you don't use it.  Good one!  😄

At the moment I have a question in about how to get feed items to appear in the Roku search results list.  It used to work fine until somewhere around the beginning of the year.  Now only the channel name appear in results and none of the contents available on the channel.  It worked fine before, nothing changed on this end, and it doesn't work the same (or right) now. . . .