Solving playback issues

[RokuTakashi]

Hi, @liquidgecka

Thanks for posting, and welcome to the Roku Community.

We appreciate you for sharing your experience here with us, and we acknowledge your effort in the efforts taken to resolve the issue. May we know what specific Roku device you are having issues with? Also, is this issue only happening with the YouTube channel, or have you noticed it with other channels?

Please keep us posted.

All the best,
Kash

[liquidgecka]

This happens exclusively with YouTube, and only on one of our three Roku devices. I just double checked and apparently its an Ultra LT not an Ultra.

The tree devices are as follows:
1) 4670X - Roku Ultra running 12.5.0 (4178-46)
2) 4660RV - Roku Ultra running 12.5.0 (4178-46)
3) 4801RW - Roku Ultra running 12.5.0 (4178-DE)

Only #3 appears to exhibit this problem, though we don't watch a ton of YouTube on #2.

So far the steps I have taken to debug/reproduce are to reboot which sometimes allows it to work for approximately one video. I have uninstalled, rebooted, then reinstalled YouTube and it worked for one video as well. Sometimes returning home, then opening a different app (Netflix for example) helps, other times it doesn't. If the roku has not been rebooted immediately before though it has never worked. I have also tried streaming from my phone and that doesn't work either.

Again, this ONLY happens on #3, the -DE build. On #1 we are able to watch YouTube without any issues and do so every 2-3 days.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help debug further. I have a software engineering background so don't be afraid to get technical. 😃

[RokuERey]

Hi @liquidgecka,

Welcome to the Roku Community!

We appreciate this detailed information and for sharing it with us about the behavior you're seeing when using YouTube.

To learn more about this, could you tell us if you have seen this happening before?  If not, could you please tell me when you first noticed this and whether using a different network—such as a mobile hotspot—made a difference?

Tell us more about this so that we can further work on it.

Thanks,

Rey

[liquidgecka]

I have never seen YouTube exhibit this behavior on any other device besides Roku. At the same time that this failure is happening I am able to view the same exact videos from a phone, laptop, or even the other Roku upstairs. This happens with streaming videos as well as standard recorded videos. All of the Rokus and laptops are hardwired, the phones are obviously not.

I just tried to recreate it as I was going to make a video and suddenly everything works again. I will get more information as I find it. I did also realize though that the Ultra LT that has this issue is also the only one of the three that has a ARC soundbar attached as well.

[RokuJanadeeK]

Thanks for letting us know, @liquidgecka.

May we know when did you start having this issue? Additionally, have you already tried the following?

• Reboot your router or modem.
• Remove the YouTube app.
• Restart the Roku device through Settings > System > Power (skip if option unavailable) > System Restart.
• Adding the app back.
• Have you tried connecting the device to an alternative network (e.g., a mobile hotspot) just to check if there will be a difference?

Please keep us posted so we can work on this issue together.

Regards,
Janadee

[liquidgecka]

Never fail.. as soon as I start debugging aggressively the problem more or less goes away.

So in the last three days I have been watching closely. It only happened one time, and going home, then restarting youtube and replaying the video cleared the issue completely. During the black screen its possible to hit back or forward and it will render the UI elements still, the video is just black with no audio when it happens.

When I have more debugging information I will post here to try and help.

[liquidgecka]

Okay, I have caught it in the act again. This time while streaming Youtube Music to the Roku.

When starting it played for ~5 seconds then went black. I let it play through ~10 seconds so I could get some data. During this time the Roku basically did nothing for network traffic. It was not fetching songs or doing any calls to Google. However on my phone it showed as playing the whole time without error.

Once the phone had moved on I tried hitting "back" on the roku remote which caused it to start playing a small fragment from the very first song that I had cast for about 2 seconds before going black again, all the while the phone showed it as still casting a totally different song without error. Hitting back again flashed the screen and played 1/10 of a second of audio before blacking out. Hitting back a third time got me about 6-7 seconds.

Returning to the youtube home screen and starting a video directly from the app resulted in the video playing for about 10-15 seconds before going black. Hitting just "up" on the remote results in the YouTube UI displaying and the video starting again for a few seconds before blacking out. Returning to the youtube home and restarting the video resulted in the video working without any errors for at least the first three minutes. I was also able to play a second, previously unseen video without any problems. I did not experience any black outs after this point. I did notice that the volume buttons where not working with the ARC audio device that was playing sound. I rebooted the ARC device and the volume buttons worked again.

I will follow up with any more information as I debug. Not sure what happened though because this never cleared itself before and always resulted in YouTube being completely unusable so something is different at least.

[liquidgecka]

Okay I am back. I got a chance to debug a bunch and I think I figured some things out.

First off, rebooting the roku does nothing. I was getting black screens, rebooted about 4 times and every time the black screen would come back within 20 seconds of starting the video. Resetting YouTube is also equally useless besides taking a ton more time. So i my specific case neither of those are a fix for the issue.

In my last comment I realized that the Arc sound system was unique to the system experiences the pauses so this time, after rebooting and doing the suggested fix I tried turning off the Arc system (and not rebooting) then restarting the video. This *worked*. The video played for several minutes with no audio of course, but without black screens. I turned the arc system back on and within a minute the video black screened again. I repeated this a second time without rebooting. I turned off the Arc soundbar, hit "left" to move in the stream and then let it play over the point where it black screened. It didn't black screen and was able to play several more minutes of video without any problem.

I am fairly convinced that the problem appears to be some kind of bad interaction between Roku, my TV, and the Arc soundbar. that manifests as a black screen in Roku. Its not a black screen over top of the roku because YouTube stays at the same timestamp and the UI becomes available over the black screen when pressing "up" on the remote.

[liquidgecka]

I replaced the ARC soundbar with a new one of a different brand in order to complete my testing and after doing so I have not had a single black screen in youtube again. So at least from my perspective this is solved.

[RokuJechealR]

Hi @liquidgecka,

Thank you for letting us know about this!
We appreciate your patience in this matter and we're happy to hear that the issue is already resolved.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know.

All the best,

Chel