Solving playback issues

[MostWokeOne]

I too am now having this issue having just purchased a new Ultra.  This is my 2nd Ultra and no.1 works flawlessly.

As an I.T. Dev. I'm wondering if anyone else also has two Ultra's connected to the same home network and if somehow that is creating confusing communication in the servers on the Roku end terminals.

Initially it was a challenge to get it activated and signed in between loops and now that is is signed in it is frozen on the main menu but produces action sounds for attempted menu selections.

I'm strongly leaning towards the Roku servers encountering issues communicating with 2 Ultra's on the same network.  This one I have came as a cyber Monday 2 pack deal so I'm judging by the time stamps on others posts that this is their unique circumstance as well.

For reference sake, I own a Premier and an Express 4kHD and this issue doesn't occur when different models are connected.

However, could just be a bad batch.  Ultra no.1 has never had issues.  Maybe it's an LT though.  Not sure.  Need to double check.

Hopes this helps anyone and if you're having issues with cameras connecting to your router reset the router to default and use the default WiFi password.  Not sure why the cams didn't like my custom wifi name and password but that's what it took for me.

Love being Netgear18 now instead of FreedomWiFi

[zachnole]

I too have the exact same issue with my Roku Ultra which is mow more then 2 years old and out of warrenty.

Was thinking of buying a new one but am scared it might do the same thing. Has been working ok after I replaced the HDMI cable. But today 8/5/2024 it started again. Ver very frustrated.

[Phabius]

I am also having the same issue with Roku Ultra.

Every single time I used it, it restarts before loading and takes a few seconds to reconnect,

I have tried all the troubleshooting suggestions and nothing worked.

Any other suggestions?

[Portalogem]

I hadn't thought of this when making that prior post, but if all the troubleshooting tactics I posted above had failed to work and my Roku Ultra kept crashing every time I tapped the remote, I would switch to trying the basic Roku remote (*see below) to see if it had something to do with the rechargeable remote or the gaming remote that came with the Roku Ultra. And if the Roku no longer crashed after switching to the basic remote, then I would try to re-pair the gaming/rechargeable remote since perhaps the culprit is that the newest OS update had somehow messed up the pairing, which caused some type of overload with every key press. If re-pairing the remote didn't work, yet using the basic remote kept the Roku from crashing, then I would either post about this or contact Roku and let them know it was a pairing issue due to a faulty update and that they need to issue an update to fix this. Then unfortunately, if I'm right about this, yet re-pairing the remote doesn't work due to a faulty update, you would have to do without that gaming/rechargeable remote for the time being and use the basic one until the issue is resolved. However, don't wait for another OS update to try your remote again because I have found that Roku delivers updates behind the scenes -- meaning this update fix may not even appear on the manual update screen, yet everything suddenly works again -- so try to use that gaming/rechargeable remote each day to see if the problem had been resolved. 

If it's not a pairing issue, then I don't know what else it could be except a faulty update which I explained in my prior post. I thought my Roku Ultra was bricked after this recent 13.1.4 OS update because after it reloaded, it would no longer connect to the network to finish updating the channels. But after I turned the Roku off (by unplugging it), waited a bit, and turned it on, it finished updating fine. My issue ended up being with the micro-SD card which I had to reformat in a computer, but these new Ultra's don't have one of those micro slots because they created too much of an issue.

Here are the steps to re-pairing the gaming/rechargeable remote:

Go to Settings/Remotes & devices/Remotes and from there you should be able to re-pair your remote which hopefully fixes the issue. I can't give further instructions because I had found that after using the basic remote, the gaming remote was rather clunky, so I stopped using it altogether, which may be the reason why my Roku Ultra isn't experiencing this issue since the basic remotes don't require any pairing. Although, from what @MostWokeOne posted above, I deduced that this update issue doesn't seem to have affected all Roku Ultra's equally since not all Roku's automatically update at the same time, and by the time that first Roku updated again, the issue was resolved so that first Roku no longer received the faulty update by the time it auto-updated, yet unfortunately, that second Roku wasn't spared from this faulty update which then requires an update patch to fix this (this is all mere speculation on my part because I don't work for Roku and haven't the foggiest on how the Roku works behind the scenes). 

*Note: You might not be able to re-pair your Ultra gaming or rechargeable remote if it's the reason your Roku is crashing, so you'll have to find or purchase a basic remote which you can get for under $10 on Amazon, so you can use that to get to the pairing menu -- they are handy to have around, especially if you like to watch TV while you're eating and don't want to use greasy fingers on an expensive remote; just make sure it's compatible with the Roku Ultra since the one's for the Roku TV and Roku streaming sticks are not compatible. You'll be amazed at just how light this cheap remote is.

[Phabius]

I was able to fix my issue by repeating all the troubleshooting again.

- Disconnecting Roky and Power Supply from power for some 30 minutes or more,

- Resetting to Factory Settings

- Reloading  all my Apps

- Restarting.

The one thing I found that is really nice is that after the reinstall, if you activate with your phone, Roku will reinstall ALL your apps automatically. So, if you are hesitant about resetting the machine, use your phone to activate, Very easy procedure.

[Portalogem]

Yes, resetting to factory settings is probably the best thing to do in this situation if you don't want to purchase a basic remote on a whim (because I might not have been right about the pairing issue), and a hard reset should re-pair your non-basic remote to your device if the update caused this issue to occur. But if anyone has a basic Roku remote laying around and wants to test that pairing theory, I'd like to know if I was right, so you wouldn't have to do a hard reset if this update issue occurs again. There's no way for me to know if this was the issue since I don't use the gaming remote that came with my Ultra.

Now, @Phabius, if you were able to use your rechargeable or gaming remote to go the menu to hard reset the Roku, this would mean the remote wasn't crashing the Roku, at least not all the time, unless you reset your Roku in a way that didn't use your remote, such as through your account, or perhaps after plugging the Roku back in -- this allowed the Roku enough power to allow you to go to the factory reset menu before another crash occurred.

This just sounds to me like an energy issue since this same thing usually happens with the Roku Express when it's not plugged in correctly -- like something was causing the Roku Ultra to use too much power, and it makes sense to me that if the remote isn't paired right due to an update issue, that trying to access a channel with that remote could potentially cause the Roku to crash. Although, it could have been anything due to a problematic update, in which a hard reset or any of the other troubleshooting tactics I mentioned paired with a patched update would hopefully fix the Ultra.

After a hard reset, Roku will restore all your channel apps even if you didn't activate your Roku with your smart phone since everything is stored on the cloud. The issue I had with a hard reset is that if you have a lot of channel apps, Roku will restore them, sure, but in a random order as then you have to re-order everything on top of re-doing all of your settings along with your wallpaper and screensaver, and that was not a fun time for me as I have over 170 channels. So perhaps there is another way to fix this in the event this happens to other Roku Ultra's in the future, after another OS update? So, to those who are still having this issue, does using a basic remote stop the crashing from occurring if no other trouble shooting efforts work with the exception of resetting the Roku to factory settings?

[Phabius]

Just FYI: The remote was working fine.

And, yes, I had to reorder the Apps, however, I have only about 20 or so, so it was no big deal! 🙂

[Charles10002 · Accepted solution]

I solved this exact problem by not using the TV to power the Roku device and instead plug the USB cable in a block which can be plugged directly into the wall(like for phone chargers). I also used a different HDMI port which could have made a difference.