Roku rebooting

I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t been able to reproduce this although I didn’t have the problem for a while, but do since a Tablo Roku app update a few weeks back - and now it is just about reproducible on demand. Just FFW a few times in quick succession and bam - locked up Roku that eventually reboots.

It’s about time. Although I think it is now obvious how little attention this has received. They haven’t reproduced it. Have no idea how it happens. Has less idea how to fix. And thus far has “hoped” it would go away. How did that work out for you?Unacceptable!

We have been working directly with Roku, providing them with a steady stream of information about the reboot issue which we believe is based on a problem with their firmware.

I have only seen the issue once, so not hard for me to see why it is hard to reproduce. And I watch a lot of Roku )

There are many of us that cannot reproduce the reboot behavior and have never experienced this problem before or after the Roku app update. It is undoubtedly a real problem but not a problem that impacts every user.

Didn’t say it did impact every user - and how to you know how many users “never” experienced the issue? I’m am confident that the problem is widespread enough, that if Tablo or Roku wanted to reproduce it, they could. It would simply take time.

We who have reboots will continue to complain until we give up the system or it is fixed. This is not what we bought into. And most of us enjoyed the system without reboots previously. How come most all other developers have managed to make their channels work for most all people?

I have not been the torch bearer for this. But I am very frustrated by 5 months passing and table having NO idea why? It won’t get fixed until someone bothers to find out why?

I honestly think it may be a combination of network/hardware issues. When I first started seeing these I had never seen the issue. Then all of a sudden one time. And not since have I seen it, so I am wondering if your Roku 3 is different than my Roku 3. Maybe parts made someplace else and firmware on yours does not have the same affect. I would almost suggest to Roku/Tablo to offer to get yours and send a new one to you. Just a thought :wink:

I mean if it can be reproduced on yours and @RetiredEngineer over and over, might be something to look into?

That’s exactly the point we’re at here @Jestep. We’ve tried a lot of different ways to figure this out, to reproduce it on both sides of the fence. It seems to require several planets to align but when it does, it obviously produces consistently bad results which is not what we want.

I suggested @luker work with us because I think he is local so we can either borrow his Roku unit easily (which I’m still not convinced will be the sole factor) and/or work with his unit in its environment (which I think will yield more useful results). If I’m imaging his locale or he’s not willing to assist, we’re open to working with others so we can get this dealt with.

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Nope. I have tried and tried and tried and tried, but I can not get the reboot issue to repro here either. I have had occasional FF reboots in other channels but not in Tablo for several months. It appears to be isolated to specific users, and I suspect it is tied to specific configurations. Maybe specific routers, switches, network adapters or ?? but to simply say it can be reproduced with time is incorrect.

Yes I am local and willing to help out. Reboots occur almost daily, sometimes on the first show, sometimes on the third. I’ve tried to “make” it happen without success though, but it will happen sooner or later.

Thanks @luker - Can you PM me your email address so I can connect you with our dev team?

Just wanting to throw my frustration into the ring as well. I’ve had the Tablo for 8 months and the reboots are constant with the FF/RW on recorded shows (which happens 2-3 times during a 1-hour show). When it happens, there is a collective “sigh” heard throughout the household. At least the wife has gone from complaining and sighing to just sighing as it has become expected that the Roku will reboot.

My son now says “Uh Oh Roku Reboot Time” when it happens, kind of funny really.

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Same here, I would be willing to help!
My Roku3 box is fine now, but as soon as I download the new Tablo preview app into it, you can reproduce the issue easily after a few tries ff/w’ing and pausing and rw/'ing quickly.
Also I noticed when it does happen it’s usually at the same spot of a show over and over, like it is tied to the actual video file it is reading somehow.
Thanks
Doni

My Roku 3 does it as well (Tablo connected to router via ethernet, Roku wireless). Happens around 1 in 20 times if I ff or rewind). Problem is seen on both the preview app and regular app).

Send them your Roku box, maybe they can reproduce the issue with it.

@jdoe

Apparently the Roku Beta Test forum is not indexed or searched by any of the major search engines, since none of these FF reboot issues show up except for Tablo. I have now seen exactly one and only one complaint other than Tablo’s dozens, the single post of one Hulu complaint made in May. I again invite users to do their own searches using whatever search techniques they can employ to show us that this is indeed widespread or even shows up at all elsewhere. With over 10 million Roku boxes out there, one might think that a few complaints about fast forward rebooting might have shown up elsewhere on the web, certainly more than 1 single Hulu post. Please spend a few minutes and do a search and prove me wrong.

Regarding my reason for “reprising” this complaint, it is entirely a result of month after month after month of no improvement, no visible evidence of a fix being either attempted or achieved after 2 more Roku updates, no Tablo update since April whatsoever, a lack of ownership to this day of software development to fix it, and, most of all, a very inferior user experience of crashing and reboots from a system which worked beautifully for my first 5 months of ownership.

No doubt this is dependent upon technical matters beyond just Tablo firmware and thus can be described as configuration dependent. Only certain Tablo users are seeing this problem. Shortening my ethernet cable from about 70 feet (well within the 100 meter limitation of ethernet) to a short 2 foot wire between the router and the Tablo did improve things somewhat, and perhaps certain Tablo boxes have weak / defective ethernet transceivers or faulty RJ-45 sockets or bad solder joints in some boxes. Who knows? The fact that all ran perfectly fine up uintil the firmware update doesn’t prove it is a firmware issue, only that the new firmware is sensitive to something which the prior version was tolerant of. Debugging and beta testing software is not about testing it under a limitited set of lab conditions and declaring it to be flawless. Proper quality assurance takes the vastly larger population who use the final production release and derive from their problems some additional remedies and fixes to the code which can then be released to those still experiencing problems.

This is entirely different from releasing a firmware update 5 months ago, dismissing complaints and problems by blaming others, and letting the unhappy customers sit with no relief, no evidence of any progress, and marginal performance which brings a groan of disgust over and over again during viewing.

Thus, raising the subject again, and offering repeated concerns, is the only thing remaining, other than waiting for another Roku update 2 months from now (maybe). My first 5 months of Tablo ownership were essentially flawless, and made last winter’s long and cold duration much more tolerable. Thankfully, the bug hit over the warmer spring and summer where TV viewing goes way down. I would hope that perhaps by this coming winter my “reprise” may have some payoff.

Thanks for reading this.

Larry

This is actually my biggest beef with this problem as well. All the lucky folks who don’t have this problem love to point out it must be something other than the software and unique to the user’s environment, when in fact, it worked perfectly for many months (my case 6 months) in the exact same enviroment when suddenly it went to crap - after a software update.

Precisely !!

And in the absence of any real, focused, legitimate technical involvement by the design and development folks, we wind up with people drilling holes in their Rokus, buying and trying different routers (several in my case), questioning their keystroke patterns, dumping other channels, etc.

It’s called “Blaming the Victim”. Or “that’s not my job, man”, or passing the buck, or pointing the finger, or “I can’t see that problem from MY house so it must not exist”. The fools who continue to post here that they do not have this problem are, to me, the ones who should NOT reprise their comments.,

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