Beginning in September 2018, switching programs while using Chromecast no longer causes the Tablo app to abort. And stopping and resuming casts no longer causes app aborts.
Prior to this, any attempt to switch from one program to another while casting caused the Tablo app to abort, and left the cast stranded in such a way that external cleanup was required before the app was restarted. Even stopping then resuming a cast while watching a program caused similar problems.
A byproduct of this was that you also lost your position in the stream, and had to search for where you left off as part of resuming play.
In early September, all of these problems suddenly disappeared from all of my Android devices: two Nexus 7 tablets, one Pixel 1 phone, and one Pixel 2 phone.
Also, it became possible to turn the screen off while casting; control is no longer lost, and the Pause, Resume, and Volume buttons remain active.
Furthermore, reconnect now seems to be working, so it is now possible to reconnect to an ongoing / orphaned stream.
I have not reexamined viewing Live TV streams with Tablo, since I don’t use that facility. I watch live programs straight off the antenna, since there is no setup, and quality is better than the 1080i or 480i recordings.
I’m not sure what fixed the problems. My network and Chromecast hardware haven’t changed in several years. All devices are set to automatically update to the latest builds. The first indication it was fixed was on September 10, at which time I captured the following version numbers. [I added the release dates later.]
Tablo App
1.5.0 30004904 (201803220957), Mar 27 2018
Tablo Firmware
2.2.22, Jul 26 2018
Google Play Services
12.8.74 (100400-204998136), July 26 2018
Pixel phones
Android 9, Aug 6 2018
Nexus 7 tablets
Android 6.0.1, Dec 7 2015
If I remember correctly, Google Play Services includes Chromecast support.
Google Play Services 12.8.80 was released Sep 10 2018, which seems to coincide with the fix. This makes me wonder if I captured the version information correctly on September 10th, but I think I did.
In any case, Tablo for Android is now very much improved, and generally usable with Chromecast. This is very good news for Android users who previously had to struggle with workarounds for all of these Chromecast problems.
cc- @theuser86 @snowcat @beastman @getcashmoney @cjcox @TabloTV @TabloSupport