Solving playback issues

[pam120800]

Very disappointed to see how long this issue has been occurring with absolutely zero effort to address it from Roku. I've been a Roku user for well over a decade and have had multiple devices over the years. I currently use 2 Roku Ultra devices. One is connected to an LG TV and LG sound bar. The other is connected to a Samsung TV using only the TV audio. I experience the random distorted sound issue on both devices across multiple apps. I notice it the most with older programs on Hulu and Max, such as "Castle", "Blue Bloods", and "Chopped". But this could simply be a coincidence because these are the apps and titles I watch the most. Sometimes it begins with a popping sound, sometimes it just goes right into the garbled, distorted audio. Sometimes it also suddenly becomes very loud with the distortion, but not every time. The one thing that remains constant is the problem is resolved by rewinding (I usually just hit the 15 sec back button) or by exiting the title and resume watching. 

Yes, the HDMI cables and ports have been shuffled. It is quite annoying how many HDMI cables I've had to purchase over the past 4 or 5 years to address issues with the Roku devices. Do I need to just give up on Roku and move to a different product?

[RangerDoc]

I did. I moved to Apple TV and I couldn’t be happier with it. 

[RokuMary-F]

Hi there @pam120800,

We appreciate you being a valued customer over the years, and we are grateful that you shared your experience with us.

We apologize for your experience and acknowledge that you are having sound difficulties with your Roku Ultra, but that is not our goal. In order to help you further and resolve the problem, we will work together with you to determine what went wrong.

As you mentioned the issue is mostly happening in Hulu and Max channels, we recommend removing the channel, restarting the Roku device then adding it back in may help.

You can visit this Support article for detailed instructions on how to do it: How to resolve a channel playback issue | Official Roku Support

One additional suggestion we would like for you to try is changing your Audio settings to the default and seeing if you notice any difference.

We would also like to invite you to this discussion @atc98092 @AvsGunnar @DBDukes @makaiguy @Tivoburkee @renojim our amazing experts if they can share with you any helpful inputs on how to try to resolve this issue.

Please keep us posted and we'll continue assisting you from there.


Best regards,
Mary

[atc98092]

Sorry, but I have nothing to offer here. My grandson uses my Ultra 4800 on a daily basis on YouTube and sometimes Prime Video. This Roku is connected to a Yamaha AVR and uses an excellent 5 GHz WiFi connection. There are no sound issues of any kind. I have another Ultra (4640) connected to another Yamaha AVR that also has no issues. I have other Roku devices connected directly to Samsung and Vizio TVs with no reported audio issues either.

My only suggestion would be to ensure any audio "enhancement" (such as night listening mode or volume leveling) is disabled, as those sometimes can mess with the audio output.