Wi-Fi & connectivity

[ARFstudios]

Last month. The connectivity on two different rocky devices crapped out. 
 

I have a TCL TV with Roku in one room, and a Roku Premiere in the other. Both with sudden and unexplained connectivity problems. The Premiere says the WiFi connection is poor, but the TCL TV says the connectivity is excellent. Yet both will not seem to play anything, either at all, or without constant buffering/freezing. 
 

I’ve prowled the Roku Support channels and while there have been similar problems, it seems the fixes are never explained. They always end with someone at Roku Support taking the troubleshooting private! 

Im looking at purchasing a new WiFi router next week, but this problem never happened before and no matter of advance network resets, it WiFi unpluggings or removing multiple devices off the WiFi seems to make it any better! 

Meanwhile, my Vizio Smart TV in the living room (not a Roku device) works fine.

I love(d) Roku, but I’m starting to rethink its longevity in my house. 

[makaiguy]

@ARFstudios-

Both units failing to connect at the same time may indicate a network problem.

There are a couple of network connection problems recently being reported that have been caused by updates to routers. These have primarily been reported with routers supplied by internet providers, but it's possible they could also occur with user-owned routers that have received updates.

• ROKU LOCATES NETWORK BUT CANNOT CONNECT
  Some router updates (reported for Xfinity and Cox but there could be others) have changed the router's security setting from b/g/n to just g/n, causing some Roku models to lose their ability to connect to the network. The solution is to set the router's configuration back to using b/g/n security.
• ROKU CANNOT FIND LOCAL WIFI NETWORK
  Some routers have had their 2.4 GHz wifi band turned off, leaving only the 5 GHz band operational. Devices with single band wifi radios, notably Roku Express and Premiere models (but not Express 4K models) as well as many other single band devices can not even see the 5 GHz band. The solution is to reconfigure the router and turn the 2.4 GHz band back on.
  
  If this problem was not caused by a router update deactivating the 2.4 GHz band, often a restart of the router (even if other devices are still connecting) followed by a restart of the Roku via Settings > System > System restart (for Roku TV it's Settings > System > Power > Restart) will allow the connection to be reestablished.

If you need to make configuration changes on equipment supplied by your internet provider but you have no access to its settings, you may need to request your internet provider to make the changes for you.