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EricHogue0's avatar
EricHogue0
Channel Surfer
4 years ago

HDHomerun and Plex crash out on Roku, Windows App works fine

I have multiple Roku TVs all updated and with up to date Plex and HDHomerun apps. I'm trying to use them to watch live OTA TV, but HDHomerun consistently drops out to channel select and Plex reloads and freezes on channels. The really weird thing is the HDHomerun app for my Windows laptop works almost flawlessly at the same time that I'm constantly dropping the same channel with Roku. 

Any ideas?

29 Replies

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  • To roku support, All the roku tvs in my house will not play HDHomerun or Pluto since thisupdate that so many people are complaining about. I tried to force the ver back to 10.0 by following the posted instructions. 'settings, system,system update, check now'. All I get 'all software up to date'. I tried to uninstall the apps that don't work, reboot the roku, reinstalled the apps. Still the same. Please fix this.

  • I am having an intermittent halting problem while watching HDhomerun streaming video and have been trying to isolate what it is.


    I have the HDhomerun Connect Duo device on my network and have used it for several years on different networks without issues. The problem started several months ago and sometimes occurs very frequently, other times it may run for hours with no problems. I have been using Roku devices exclusively with HDhomerun on my home network for years, also.

    *** IMPORTANT: The problem exists while running Roku's Media Player channel/app without HDhomerun channel/app installed. ***

    Last night (11pm-ish) the problem was occurring very frequently (every minute or two) on our living room TV. This morning (7am-sih) two different TCL Roku TVs, one running Roku's Media Player channel/app, the other running HDhomerun's channel/app BOTH failed at the same time after running for ~1.5 hours. Within the last hour (10am-ish), they are running about 10-15 minutes before halting. The Roku Express and Ultra are also experiencing the same problems this morning.

    It occurs while running all my Roku devices: Ultra, Express, and my two TCL Roku TVs.

    It occurs while using 2.4 and 5 Ghz wifi or ethernet cable.

    It does not occur while running HDhomerun on my AppleTV device on my TVs.
    It does not occur while running HDhomerun on my Windows 10 PC.
    It does not occur while running HDhomerun on my IOS devices.
    It does not occur while running vintage/first-generation FireTV stick on my TVs (although it is very slow and it often pixelates at approximately the same time as my Roku TV fails).
    It does not occur while running my NVIDIA-TV PLEX server on Roku devices with PLEX channel/app.
    It does not occur while mirroring HDhomerun video from my IOS devices (iPad/iPhone) to Roku devices/TVs.

    To me, it appears to be an underlying Roku software/driver issue handling the digitized streaming TV video signal since the problem exists when using the Roku's Media Player channel/app (and Hdhomerun channel/app) and is not an issue running on any other hardware device.


    It seems to be related to the handling of signals that lose quality or strength (or other factors) related to the signal. Rather than being "forgiving" of the signal quality/loss/buffering like other devices/implementations, the Roku device/driver/software stops processing the digitized signal entirely - and the channel stops, whether Roku's Media Player or HDhomerun.

    When HDhomerun channel/app is running, it is using Roku's underlying MPEG processing software, the same as the Roku Media Play channel/app. Both channels/apps fault because of this underlying problem.

    Unless I'm missing something, it appears to be a Roku processing issue that needs correction.

    This is a real irritation.

    HELP!

    VR, Carl

    • gil1peterson's avatar
      gil1peterson
      Newbie

      Have the same problem with Roku stick recently = when trying to fast forward receive a message that states Roku does not support fast forward for HDHomeRun = this happened just recently - so I think it they changed their program as a way to get more $$$ from HDHomeRun = they recently had an issue with Amazon. Looks like it is time to try Alexa

  • wb2dyb's avatar
    wb2dyb
    Binge Watcher

    I have 9 Roku devices. Mostly Express. Five currently in use. I just added HDHomeRun at my house. It works way better than expected on my Samsung TV, through my Sony Blue Ray, etc. But with the Roku devices...it loads the channel, discovers the device presents the channel line up and select one, any one and they play fine...for 30 seconds, then blank screen with a partial "horizontal bar". On four I have tested so far. Looking at the HDHomeRun stats the reception is good but stream was stopped by the Roku, as reported in the log file of the homerun. So clearly a Roku issue. Unfortunately been here before with Roku's total lack of support and no engineering effort to fix a network problem last year. I have bought my last Roku device unless they fix this issue which I'm sure they are not capable of. Horrible company. Very poor management. 

    I dare Roku to fix this problem, but pretty sure they won't. And don't hand me this nonsense of "remove app and re-install". That's nonsense.

    • Karter59's avatar
      Karter59
      Reel Rookie

      I have same issue. Periodically hd app video drops out to a loading bar and it freezes. Have to constantly restart app. Signal strength is 90+. Very annoying.

      • Nanomatrix's avatar
        Nanomatrix
        Reel Rookie

        Rokus app unfortunately seem to have no tolerance for signal variations. If you watch that same stream (90%) on your PC using the app from Silicon you will likely see it simply breakup or pixelate the display when it happens, but tge show goes on. Some HD stations also require more bandwidth so slower to start too.

  • wb2dyb's avatar
    wb2dyb
    Binge Watcher

    Social media has zero impact on Roku. Their only interest is in selling more devices, after you bought it, problems and all you're on your own. Went thru several months of heartburn last year over network issues, many, many complaints in these forums. Zero resolution. Roku's universal response is limited to "disconnect then reconnect power". I also now went to HDHomerun and it plays 30 seconds and stops the stream. Also at that point it does not release the receiver which still will show as being active. Firestick much better but more confusing to use.

    • cqcq42's avatar
      cqcq42
      Binge Watcher

      Yeah. Talk to the hand (I guess). Once in a while an HDHomerun show will play on Roku, and firestick is reliable, but I'd rather watch from my iPad or desktop PC. (Mac Mini is choppy.)

      • RokuDanny-R's avatar
        RokuDanny-R
        Retired Moderator

        Hi everyone,

        Thanks for the post.

        Can you please provide us the following information:
        -Roku device model, serial number, device ID, and software OS/version (these can all be found in Settings > System > About)
        -does this issue occur on a specific channel? if so, what channel and what version/build is the channel (this can be found be selecting the channel on the Home screen and pressing the * button)
        -tracker ID when this issue occurs (when you see this issue occur, press the Home button 5 times, followed by the Back button 5 times)
        -steps to reproduce the issue you are seeing

        Once we have this information, we will be able to investigate further.


        Thanks,
        Danny

  • I have multiple Roku devices and Roku TV’s. All of them have the same exact issue I’m about to explain. Thanks in advance for reading and any constructive input.

    I have a computer running a Plex server. I also have an HDHomerun connected. Everything performs flawlessly on IOS and FireTV devices. But with Roku, when launching the HDHomerun app, a message appears saying that the HDHomerun software is not up to date. I have confirmed that both the HDHomerun and Roku software are up to date. Plex is also kept up to date. Clicking ok on the software message takes me to the HDHomerun main screen for a brief moment and then crashes, returning to the Roku home page. On a rare occasion if I continuously repeat (many times) the launching of the app it will launch. A workaround is of course to use the LiveTV option in Plex. So here’s the funny thing. If I shutdown the Plex server software on the computer the problem remains the same. But if a shutdown the computer running the Plex server the HDHomerun app works flawlessly on all Roku devices.

    So I’m curious if there is anyone else running a similar setup and perhaps having similar issues. Thanks.

  • Nearly two years later and the issue persists.  How unfortunate.

    • RokuDanny-R's avatar
      RokuDanny-R
      Retired Moderator

      Ghostdog6

      Thanks for the post.

      We would be more than happy to look further into the issue for you but will need more detailed information. Can you please provide us the following:
      -Roku device model, serial number, device ID, and software OS/version (these can all be found in Settings > System > About)
      -does this issue occur on a specific channel? if so, what channel and what version/build is the channel (this can be found be selecting the channel on the Home screen and pressing the * button)
      -tracker ID when this issue occurs (when you see this issue occur, press the Home button 5 times, followed by the Back button 5 times and provide us with this ID)
      -steps to reproduce the issue you are seeing

      Once we have this information, we will be able to investigate the issue further.


      Thanks,
      Danny

      • EricHogue0's avatar
        EricHogue0
        Channel Surfer

        Has Roku actually been investigating this issue? I can see that you've been merging other threads into this one and promising to investigate the issue, but obviously Roku is still not all that compatible with HDHomerun despite the time that has passed. It's hard for me to believe that Roku lacks the technical expertise to actually get HDHomerun functioning on the same level that it does for all my other devices.

        The error today is "Roku player error: malformed data." I'm having no issues using the HDHomerun app on any other devices.