Solving playback issues

[Ca5torTr0y]

When starting a program, Hulu on demand plays through until the first commercial, then it goes to a black screen. Sometimes the audio for the show comes back with no video but sometimes not. Either way I have to exit back out and resume the show. For the rest of the episode and all following commercial breaks, everything works fine. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, changing auto-play settings. . . Nothing works.

[makaiguy]

I am guessing the problem occurs because the commercial may be at a different resolution and/or frame rate than the program it's inserted in.  When the Roku/TV combo has to shift to accommodate the change, something screws up, either going into the commercials or coming back out.

See if this helps.  System > Display type.  Set it to your TV's actual resolution rather than the "Auto detect" setting.  When you get to the countdown screen click the "yes" option to lock that resolution in.

Let us know how you make out.

[Ca5torTr0y]

I was actually switching this over when I received your reply last night. After testing, it's a bit better. I still have issues, though. Most of the time, if I try to pause before the first commercial, it completely fails and the screen either goes blank with audio or cuts audio and video. As far as losing video on the first commercial break, it's still about every third episode. Better, but not flawless.

Is this all because this Roku is so new? i've read in other Answers that there was an update to Roku late last year that was supposed to fix this. My Roku and Hulu are all up to date, but it's acting far, far less stable than my Roku that's 3 or 4 years old.

[makaiguy]

When problems are confined to a particular channel, it may be that the channel installation has gotten corrupted. A reinstall may fix the problem, so give it a try. Remove/reinstall procedure:

1. Highlight channel on home screen.
2. Press * key and choose Remove channel option.
3. IMPORTANT- DON'T SKIP:
   Restart the Roku to clear its memory via Settings > System > System restart. (On a Roku TV, this is Settings > System > Power > System restart.)
4. Reinstall the channel. Note it will be added to the END of the channel grid.
5. If channel requires a login, you may need to log in anew.

[Ca5torTr0y]

Went through the extra reboot after uninstall then reinstalled and jumped in. Right out of the gate, black screen on the first commercial break. Very frustrating. I upgraded my Roku to improve functionality and our most-used service has turned painful to use.