Roku outage shows the dangers of overly connected smart TVs

Roku remote with a Netflix button among others in front of a TV.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Did your Roku terminate working the way it was supposed to on Wednesday night? Well yous weren't the only one, thanks to some serious disruption to the visitor's services that rendered Roku devices and Roku TVs pretty much useless.

Users took to social media and the Roku subreddit to study their problems. Meanwhile Down Detector shows the problems began at around seven.30 p.thousand. ET and lasted for nearly four hours.

Roku outage graph on down detector — (Image credit: Dowm Detector)

Meanwhile, Roku acknowledged the problem at around eight.thirty p.m. ET. "Roku is enlightened of an upshot reported by users who are unable to access some Roku services," information technology said on its community forum. "If you are trying to actuate your device, please effort again later."

The company after announced at 1 a.thou. ET that they believed the state of affairs to be resolved. However, there was no confirmation equally to what acquired the outage, and why it affected Roku devices the fashion it did.

Plain the state of affairs is worse for people with a Roku Television receiver. Not beingness able to utilise your streaming device is very annoying, just not as annoying as the fact your TV won't boot up due to bug beyond your command.

Some users fifty-fifty reported that they couldn't employ whatever TV input, including cable boxes and DVD players, despite the fact they have absolutely nothing to exercise with Roku.

Dear @Roku when is this outage going to be fixed?! I did a reset on my TV not realizing information technology was a Roku outage that had caused it to freeze. Now I tin't gear up my tv back up to admission my Blu-Ray player. Nada. Until I can access my Roku account….this night at home is superb…January 20, 2022

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Some Services = All Services. Can't even watch my ain cablevision provider or whatsoever input to the tvJanuary 20, 2022

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If a streaming stick suffers connexion problems you can always do something else, such as play video games or watch traditional TV. If your whole Goggle box fails, y'all're substantially up the creek without a paddle.

Fortunately, some people did detect workarounds, including switching the Television receiver to 'store manner,' or unplugging the Ethernet cable to disconnect the unit from Roku servers. Unfortunately, that concluding ane would only work if you had a hardwired TV connection in the beginning place.

Here'due south hoping, for the sake of Roku TV owners everywhere, that the company realizes this is a problem and fixes information technology. That doesn't stop further outages affecting the bodily streaming aspect, simply when you're consuming content that relies on the net there isn't a huge amount you can do well-nigh that.

Tom is the Tom's Guide'southward Automotive Editor, which means he tin ordinarily be found knee deep in stats the latest and best electric cars, or checking out some sort of driving gadget. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He's usually establish trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining that Ikea won't allow him buy the stuff he really needs online.