Solving playback issues

[atc98092]

Roku Media Player hasn't been updated for at least 3 years, and for video playback it's been more than four. I don't know what Roku is doing but at the moment RMP seems to be completely ignored. I can't even get the beta team to acknowledge any work being done. 

There is no update to roll back to that will resolve the issue. They need to fix something in the core OS, and I don't think they know what they broke.

[Phorrest]

At least as far as I can tell, the only update possible is one that updates the OS, so yes, it sure seems to me that reverting back to the last good OS would fix this issue, at least for now.

Back in April 2022, an OS update broke USB functionality, and a subsequent OS update was issued about three weeks later that fixed this functionality.

I was using the USB feature both before, during, and after this last OS catastrophe, and I can affirm that it is an OS update this time that has broken the USB functionality in Roku.  It was working before the update to 14.0.4, and now it doesn't.  It's not at all unreasonable to suggest that rolling the OS back to the version that was running just prior to 14.0.4 would restore USB functionality to Roku's devices.

Roku 3 no longer recognizes Seagate external USB

[atc98092]

Except Roku won’t roll back an OS update unless there was a catastrophic failure, and that isn’t the case here. Unfortunately, we who have a use for RMP are a very small minority of users, and they won’t roll back the OS version for everyone just for us. As I mentioned, RMP hasn’t received any updates for a very long time, and so far there doesn’t seem to be any effort to improve it. 

Not the answer you want, and not the one I want either. But it seems to be the case at this time. 

[Phorrest]

Yep, Roku's gonna do what they're gonna do.  As will I.

I will say that Roku lost at least one customer over this latest snafu (namely, me).  I was in the market for a new TV, and I had been considering a Roku smart TV (e.g., TCL) until this latest fiasco.  Roku's timing to roll out its new (broken) OS, a month before Black Friday, could not have been more fortuitous.  Thus, my new LG TV from Costco will be delivered this Wednesday.  It should play videos via USB as well.  But you know what?  If it doesn't, I'll be buying a streaming device for the LG that can, and it won't be a Roku device.

I will put the older "non-smart" TV upstairs.  I was hoping to continue to use my Roku streaming device with it, but I guess I'm in the market for a new streaming device for that TV as well.

[atc98092]

For my local media, I use the Nvidia Shield, since it passes all audio through to my AVR. But sometimes a family member uses my Roku to watch stuff from my media server, mostly because of the easy user interface. I have good reason to use both devices, so this issue is just mildly annoying, but not a deal breaker. And with some streaming services the Roku is actually the best solution. There is no single media player that “does it all “. 

[Phorrest]

Thanks for the suggestion (Nvidia Shield) - I will definitely check it out!  I'm guessing a company like Nvidia will know what they're doing in the A/V world... 😏

[atc98092]

There's a few things the Shield doesn't support, YouTube HDR being one of the big ones. As I said, there's no single device that can do it all. Besides the Shield (I have three throughout the house) I have Roku (about six or seven devices), a Fire TV Cube (got it for testing purposes but really don't like the Amazon-centric interface) and an Onn 4K Media Player (Walmart house brand, it's similar to the Shield but less powerful and still doesn't pass all the lossless audio codecs to an AVR). 

[atc98092]

I have been testing my Ultra 4800 this afternoon. I can't say what build I'm running, since this Roku is part of the beta test and I have an NDA for anything related to the beta builds. While my Roku is connected to an AVR, it was turned off for most of this testing so the AVR was being bypassed and the TV handled all audio.

I tested Roku Media Player with both some files on a USB drive as well as streaming from my DLNA server. To be clear, everything I tested from my server is being sent as is, with no transcoding necessary. This testing included files in the MKV, TS/M2TS and MP4 containers, with video codecs MPEG2 (H.262), AVC (H.264) and HEVC (H.265). The audio codecs included AAC (5.1), AC3 (2.0 and 5.1) and DTS (5.1). In every case I had audio for every file. The only exception was the DTS file, since my TV doesn't support that codec. But when I switched my AVR I had audio.

I could find no combination of files, codecs, or server/USB based that made any difference. The one file that would not play had FLAC audio, and I have a hunch that file is corrupt (the same file on my server played fine) so can't be played by anything. 

I don't think the fact I'm running a beta OS build is why it's all working. I've tested these files since this thread was first posted and hadn't had any issues. But it appears Roku is addressing whatever was occurring for the users with problems. 

[Phorrest]

Thanks for sharing that info; I'm hopeful that it means that Roku is indeed working on the problem.  At least for a stable-release-channel user like myself, the OS / build versions have not changed yet, and I'm therefore still encountering the no-audio issue.  BTW, although I didn't mention it before, I have also tried going through the DLNA server of the AP that feeds my Roku 3, but that (not surprisingly) resulted in the same outcome.

I would like to continue using Roku if possible; I find their UI very intuitive and easy to navigate.

[atc98092]

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@Phorrest wrote:

 BTW, although I didn't mention it before, I have also tried going through the DLNA server of the AP that feeds my Roku 3, but that (not surprisingly) resulted in the same outcome.

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That's dependent on the DLNA server and how it streams the media. I am the author of the Roku profiles included with Serviio, and I can say that none of the profiles will transcode any Dolby Digital audio, regardless of the container. Since it's a supported codec for literally every TV and AVR available, there's no need for it. But there is one profile that I believe transcodes everything (audio and video) although I'd need to look at the profiles file to confirm. I believe the DirecTV profile will do that. However, I think it transcodes the audio into AC3. So it's debatable if that would help. I could pretty quickly create a profile that transcodes any audio into PCM or AAC, and that shouldn't be a problem for the Roku. But it's not something that I can get added into the Serviio installation quickly so that's something I would need to provide directly to a user. 

If you used a DLNA server built into a router/access point, none of them have any ability to transcode anything (video takes a lot of power but audio not as much) so they're simply sending the media intact without changes. That would be why you didn't see any change.