Solving playback issues

[notpaul]

I have been VERY PATIENT with Roku.

I use a TCL Roku TV ... and for a couple of years, felt it was a fantastic device for streaming channels via Roku. 

NOTE:  I have been a faithful Roku customer since the FIRST generation device, and have owned many.

About six months ago, I noticed (along with thousands of other PAYING customers) that none of the HBO channels (HBO Max) will play consistently on my Roku TV. 

NOTE:  These channels ALWAYS played flawlessly before.

YES - I have tried *ALL* of the suggested fixes, most of which (as a final step) suggest:  "contact HBO."  What a joke.

Now I find that I cannot get my FUBOtv channel to play, either. Same as HBO max, it freezes and causes a reboot when I try to launch the channel/content.

THIS IS CLEARLY A PROBLEM WITH THE ROKU STREAMING SOFTWARE.

NOTE:  I have been to many forums, and hear consistently that this is a problem which is largely unique to Roku ... and that the company has offered basically NO HELP other than:  "reboot your router" ... "restart your Roku" ... or "contact the channel vendor".

Again - THIS IS A JOKE. The folks at Roku KNOW THIS IS A PROBLEM.  Clearly, it is something that they are having trouble fixing, because literally months and months have gone by with pretty much "crickets" coming from them.

Time to switch to a Firestick?  

Honestly, I love Roku ... but unless someone gives me a real reason to hope that they get their act together, I am about done.

[andyross]

How old is the TV if you are using that as your Roku device? Many of the apps are getting fat and memory hungry and older devices do not have enough speed or memory to run some of them properly. It's up to the developers to write their software to work properly. If they don't want to support older devices, they can configure things to not allow it to install on them (Apple and Peacock are two that come to mind.)

You can always get a newer stand-alone Roku. Avoid the plain Express model (newer one is better, but not sure if it's available yet or what it's model number is.) I would keep the Express 4K as the minimum to be safe.