Chromecast Update Bringing Grief For Many Users

An anonymous reader writes: Last week, many Chromecast users were automatically "upgraded" to build 32904. Among the issues seen with this update are placing some users on the 'beta' release track, issues with popular apps such as Plex, HBO GO, (more embarassingly) YouTube, and others. Google so far has been slow to respond or even acknowledge the issues brought by customers, save for the beta release mishap. If you're a Chromecast user, what's been your experience?

Comments

Google Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

Their software never seem to leave the "beta" stage, whether labelled as such or not...

Acknowledgement of issues is also not their forte, as seen again here. Neither is it Apple's except Apple releases pretty well polished stuff.

I guess the conclusion is if you have the money choose Apple. If you have time choose Google. That's how they segment...

Re:Google Beta

[SCPRedMage]

I am a Chromecast user, and I report that my Roku is working fine.

Re:Google Beta

[HighPerformanceCoder]

We had significant problems with ABC iView a couple fo weeks ago. It would display the leading advertisement, then go into an endless download loop, needing the chromcast to be power cycled. This happen 3-4 times, after which time (half an hour wasted), we gave up trying to watch that episode. Haven't used chromecast since - maybe the A/B testing is our problem?

Re:Google Beta

[steveg]

At least with Android you get a pop-up asking if you want to perform the upgrade. And you can say "not now."

I've been refusing to "upgrade" my phone to KitKat for a year and a half now. You do have to face the annoyance of the pop-up every 24 hours, but at least you're not forced into a regression.

Chromecast the clusterfuck

[Coolhand2120]

I work for a pretty large video streaming company out of Hollywood. Our chromecast implementation for our streaming player has been doing crazy stupid shit for the last two weeks. Maybe this is why. Knew I read slashdot for some reason.

Less junk from Google is actually good

[Anonymous Coward]

Less junk from Google you got on your systems, better off you are. Chromecast? Why do you even need it? Seriously, why?

Re:Less junk from Google is actually good

[perryizgr8]

Amen. I really need a solid alternative to Chrome, that's all.

Re:Less junk from Google is actually good

[Tyrannosaur]

[Raises little flag]

Opera is still here... Yeah it runs off Chromium... But it still runs fast and is free of a lot of the annoyances of Chrome

Re:Less junk from Google is actually good

[Cramer]

The key annoyance of "chrome" is chrome. Opera is nothing more than a different skin on the same steaming turd. (and their devs have all but said so. They aren't happy with chromium's extreme memory consumption, but there's only so far they can go to "fix it".)

Mysterious power-on

[Tea-Bone of Brooklyn]

I've found my TV and receiver on a few times when I was sure I had turned them off. I love that Chromecast can tell the receiver and TV to come on and select the proper input, but I'd prefer it limited the behavior to when I was casting something.

Re:Mysterious power-on

[thegarbz]

Isn't that a function of a TV sensing a sudden state change of the HDMI input?

Re:Mysterious power-on

[dave420]

Mine has never turned the TV on unless I was casting something. Are you sure your TV is following the spec?

Works Great. Thanks for asking.

[gavron]

My two ChromeCasts are working great.

I love a good hysterical conspiracy and am disappointed not to be part of it.

Go on, keep on making up stuff. Perhaps some of it will turn out to be true!

E

A/B Testing

[darkain]

Looks like Chromecast has gone the way of Google Chrome: Arbitrary and random A/B testing that you're never notified of, and no way to opt out of.

This seriously pisses me the fuck off with Chome. The browser works great on like 20 machines, and then fucks up on one. You think it is the machine's fault, until you dig and dig and dig into vague forum posts on Google's boards. Then it turns out to be a hidden A/B test, where you have to go into the hidden Chrome settings to force enable/disable some very specific feature to get out of the that one and only that one particular test.

This is EXACTLY what happened to my primary development machine. Chrome had a hidden A/B test for ASync DNS requests. This feature is bugged to shit and back during the test. It would lock the entire browser session (all tabs) for 30-60 seconds at a time while making only certain DNS requests.

Another example is with the internal cache system. There was a bug for a while which would also lock up Chrome for 30-60 seconds at a time just waiting to see if a URL resource is locally cached. There was no fix for this that I could find. My resolution was eventually to have the installers handy for both Release and Beta Chrome laying around. Sometimes Release was the broken build, sometimes Beta was the broken build. So when shit got fucked up, I'd just toggle between the builds.

Re:A/B Testing

[teh dave]

Why do you insist on working with that rubbish? Switch to Firefox, it is a better browser anyway.

Re:A/B Testing

[Alumoi]

We're all but beta testers in the eye of $software_company

There, fixed it for you!

Re:A/B Testing

[gstoddart]

Looks like Chromecast has gone the way of Google Chrome: Arbitrary and random A/B testing that you're never notified of, and no way to opt out of.

And gmail, and google maps, and pretty much everything else.

Google's stuff, while mostly cool and interesting, is essentially perpetually in beta, subject to arbitrary changes, or simply being made to go away.

Google products are endlessly fiddled with, with the users as testers in a lot of cases.

I honestly don't think anybody should be surprised by this. Because I'm hard pressed to think of a single "product" (and since most of them are free betas that's debatable) which Google has never treated any differently. It's their service, you're just using it in whatever state they give it to you today.

Re:A/B Testing

[mileshigh]

We're all but beta testers in the eye of $software_company

Correction: We're all but beta testers in the eye of $advertising_company. Ever notice that their advertising platforms rarely suffer from this kind of flakiness?

Google's stock price would barely quiver if Chrome, Android, GMail, etc all evaporated overnight. Might even go UP like when companies announce staff cuts. Those little freebie side-projects are largely there to convince the public and Google's own employees that they're a do-good technology company. Delivering tested, bullet-proof software apparently isn't part of the agenda in that "cool" part of their shop.

Re:A/B Testing

[Gazzonyx]

Because I'm hard pressed to think of a single "product" (and since most of them are free betas that's debatable) which Google has never treated any differently. It's their service, you're just using it in whatever state they give it to you today.

You seem to be confused about their product. You are their product; the advertisers are their clients. That's the service they don't mess with. There's a reason that they don't understand why enterprise customers need Java in the browser or wish they'd stop crying wolf on every SSL cert - selling services to a business isn't their model or one that they really want.

Probably because those customer would say "we need Java to access SuperMicro's IPMI interface on our internal networks. That's the same reason we don't want to click three times every time we use a self-signed/vendor signed cert or a cert that uses older crypto. We're on our internal network. Stop breaking stuff for no reason and fix the outstanding bugs we have open."

Re:A/B Testing

[tlhIngan]

Google's stock price would barely quiver if Chrome, Android, GMail, etc all evaporated overnight. Might even go UP like when companies announce staff cuts. Those little freebie side-projects are largely there to convince the public and Google's own employees that they're a do-good technology company. Delivering tested, bullet-proof software apparently isn't part of the agenda in that "cool" part of their shop.

No, the purpose of Chrome, Android, GMail, etc isn't to show the public they are a do-gooder technology company. It's to attract eyeballs. Android was a response to iOS - Google was worried that Apple's dominance in the area would be bad news for their mobile advertising aspirations, so they needed a mobile OS in order to retain and attract eyeballs.

Google's products are merely an attractant to get eyeballs. When you are the product, they need to make stuff to keep you coming back. They sell advertisers access to those eyeballs.

The whole point of their testing and adjustments is seeing if it will attract or deter eyeballs.

HOAX

[gavron]

The OP includes a link to an IRAQ user saying he can't set up his Chromecast...

and a 9 day old post from someone saying they're now on the beta track and google saying they'll fix it.

Are we really to believe there's a great google conspiracy to disrupt chromecasts, and
in a week and a half NOTHING has been discussed, but now the only two links are
an IRAQI WINDOWS USER and someone who accidentally got into beta.

My money is on hoax.

Ehud

Re:HOAX

[Anonymous Coward]

Google defense force, activate!

how can this be if Googlers are super geniuses?

[faway]

the journalists all claim that our beloved Googlers are super geniuses, completely without flaws. indeed I have interviewed a Google and I can assure you that their arrogance matches their Status is mega geniuses. please please don't tell me there was all vapid hype and that their egos are like inflated balloons!!

What are you talking about Willis?

[fahrbot-bot]

Among the issues seen with this update are placing some users on the 'beta' release track, ...

Google has a non-beta release track for something?

Youtube casting fatally broken. No longer usable.

[DustinB]

This update hosed casting Youtube from my Android phone. It constantly loses the queue. It constantly plays audio only with no video. If another user connects to YouTube the queue is lost. Users constantly booted from being connected. The currently playing box in the lower right disappears preventing any way of controlling the remote device you're casting to. There could not have been any testing prior to this release.

Re: Holy shit

[AvitarX]

Proven cracked? It openly states it has no security I thought.

What does cracking a Chromecast mean?

Re: how can this be if Googlers are super geniuses

[phantomfive]

He's probably been afflicted by Google bugs and the shutdown of some Google projects. With Google, you never know what will still be around tomorrow.

Re: how can this be if Googlers are super geniuses

[faway]

That's a dumb response. What are you, 12 years old?

Re:We have 5..

[Anonymous Coward]

It has become a running joke at the office. They are buggy, shitty, and mostly sitting in drawers.

Plug them in and they'll work better.

Re:We have 5..

[Zontar The Mindless]

It has become a running joke at the office. They are buggy, shitty, and mostly sitting in drawers.

Whether or not you approve of the über-casual dress code, that's still not a very nice thing to say about your co-workers.

Problems here too

[bazmail]

Came downstairs this morning to find the TV on and the Chromecast setup screen. Complete with new Chromecast device ID number, (e.g format ChromcastWXYZ).

YouTube stopped working, didn;t try netflix. God dammit Google.

It never worked properly anyway...

[DrVxD]

...so I doubt this update will make things any worse.

My Number One problem with Chromecast was the dumb setup procedure - the bloody thing is forever losing it's connection with my WiFi, with the only recourse being to do a hard reset and then wade through the interminable setup process again and again...

Of course, Google provides no customer support for the thing - they just send you to a web forums full of raving fanbois who get offensive when you suggest that it's possible for any google product could be anything other than perfect.

</rant>

Re:It never worked properly anyway...

[Sir Foxx]

This is the problem I've been having for a couple of months. I no longer can get it to work through my router as it just says it can't connect. I have to do a hard reset every time now, try to hook into my wifi, then I have to cast directly to the Chromecast, which completely sucks because I now can't stream from the internet anymore. I have to download what I want to watch, then play it through videostream extension on Chrome, and cast to my chromecast. Which ones of the other options should I get to replace my Chromecast? Amazon Firestick anygood?

Re:It never worked properly anyway...

[virtual_mps]

They're down to about $25 on ebay these days. How much support to you honestly think you're going to get? A heck of a lot of people have chromecasts which connect to their network just fine. So while it's possible that the chromecast is fundamentally broken, it's more likely that there's an incompatibility between your access point and the chromecast. I'd tend to suspect the AP more than the chromecast based on general experience with those vendors. Is your AP even getting firmware updates anymore? Do the updates address issues with the radio & low level functions like association & rekeying, or only high level issues like "gui doesn't load properly"? Assuming that it is an issue with the AP, how much money should google spend trying to work around the issue?

Re:It never worked properly anyway...

[caseih]

I've never had any luck with any of these streaming stick devices. The only thing that works for me a a full-blown computer connected to HDMI.

Of course there are bugs there too. It took Gigabyte two years to release a EFI firmware that fixed the HDMI audio bug where after turning off the TV, HDMI audio would disappear until you rebooted.

Re:It never worked properly anyway...

[wiggles]

I was having problems because the TV was interfering with the RF signal between the Chromecast and the WAP. Here's what I did, with excellent results:

https://productforums.google.c...

$20 worth of cabling, and I got the thing connected via Cat5. Works great now, no disconnects anymore, and it no longer takes up a spot on wireless device list in the WAP.

Re:It never worked properly anyway...

[TheGratefulNet]

the DRM in hdmi really sucks, but its getting a bit more tolerant.

5 or 10 years ago (back when hdmi was first out) video cards were too strict and the chipsets were, too. if you didn't boot things in the right order, you'd get a race condition. would have to 'reboot the monitor' after the computer started up or you would not get hdmi.

turn off the av receiver and this might turn your tv actually off (switched ac outlet)? that might also cause hdmi to 'go away' and need your pc to be rebooted.

finally all this got worked out, mostly; but I still see remindants of strict drm. I have amazon prime and sometimes I like to fall asleep to a documentary (many of amazon's docs are boring so its a good fit, lol). I start off watching, then I put the stereo on sleep timer and turn the video display off. if amazon is playing at the time, the audio drops out for a few seconds before coming back on again (right after I turn the display off with my remote). at first, I thought there was a bug, but later realized that a few seconds after - the audio came back on. I guess they realized that it WAS a valid use case to 'watch tv' and have the video off (no hdmi link) and yet still let audio thru (spdif out on my win7 htpc).

its getting better but that audio drop out is still annoying and 100% not necessary. sigh.

No issues here

[wbr1]

Chromecast + plex + Netflix + homemade db4 on the bedroom TV is our only video location. Worked fine Saturday with plex, my girlfriend binge watched some old TLC show. Will keep an eye on it.

Chrome updates cause more problems than they solve

[sjbe]

Looks like Chromecast has gone the way of Google Chrome: Arbitrary and random A/B testing that you're never notified of, and no way to opt out of. This seriously pisses me the fuck off with Chome.

Amen brother. I used to have our company use Chrome but there was so much flakiness after updates that it became impossible to use. In our particular case weird behavior with PDFs was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. We use a lot of PDFs and Chrome just couldn't handle them in a sane manner, kept changing things and then it would randomly break for a user. It was always a pain in the ass to figure out why there was a problem and then then behavior would change a few weeks later. We don't have the most sophisticated group of users here and random changes in behavior are NOT helpful even if they are made with the best of intentions.

So we're using Firefox which is the best of the alternatives. (Safari has issues and IE is just a nonstarter) Firefox has its issues too but it don't create needless tech support issues for me which is what I really care about.

Why Firefox pisses me off the least

[sjbe]

Amen. I really need a solid alternative to Chrome, that's all.

I keep using all the various browsers and despite its warts I keep coming back to Firefox as my primary browser. Chrome keeps "fixing" stuff that didn't need fixing and breaking it in the process. Safari has some behaviors I find annoying and (surprisingly) I run into a fair number of website that break on it. Plus Apple never seems to do Windows software very well and you can't get it on Linux. And IE isn't available on anything other than Windows even if I wanted to use it (I don't) so it's a non-starter.

Firefox isn't perfect by any means but it is cross platform, generally stable, generally predictable, and fits my particular work style. Basically it pisses me off the least of the major browser options. It's been my daily driver (so to speak) for quite a few years now. If something better came along I'd drop it without a second thought but none of the alternatives really seem to be meaningfully better.

Re:Why Firefox pisses me off the least

[hairyfeet]

Luckily this isn't the bad old days where it was just IE and netscape, today you DO have options! There is Comodo Dragon (what I use, better security features and no phone home to Google) Chromium, SWIron, and Opera which my oldest boy swears is the greatest thing ever (boy is he still pissed they quit using presto) and on the gecko side there is Firefox, PaleMoon (the other browser I use, I prefer the UI over IceDragon and it seems snappier), SeaMonkey, IceDragon, if you need really low resource there is always Kmeleon which runs really well even on a P3 running Win98SE and if you want to avoid BOTH the Chromium and Gecko engines you can go with QTWeb which is just what it says on the tin, a cross platform browser that uses Webkit and QT.

Re:Why Firefox pisses me off the least

[whathappenedtomonday]

Opera [opera.com] which my oldest boy swears is the greatest thing ever (boy is he still pissed they quit using presto)

Don't recommend it. It all went down after they abandoned presto. Compared to the Opera I loved, the chromium version, to quote Dr. Cooper, sucks the big one. They even started rolling out silent updates, and the last one broke the bookmarks (they are gone -- you need to install a 3rd party extension to access your old bookmarks). Alienating their user base this way, they'll be gone sooner rather than later.

Re:Why Firefox pisses me off the least

[hairyfeet]

Actually talked to the oldest today....he went back to the last Presto version and disabled updates because of them pulling shit like that LOL, once a diehard Opera user always a diehard Opera user. BTW I hear some of the ex-Opera team are making their own browser, maybe the oldest will get lucky and they'll make a new port of presto.

Anectode != Data

[sjbe]

My two ChromeCasts are working great.

I know this might be a shock but it's actually possible for products to break in ways that affect some users and not others. Weird I know.

Seriously just because it works for you don't mean there isn't an actual problem. Consider yourself lucky.

Re:Anectode != Data

[dave420]

Judging by the number of affected people, it seems the affected people should consider themselves unlucky...

Their tech support is a three ring circus

[TwoEyedJack]

I got a Chromecast for Christmas last year. Getting it set up was a major PITA. The WiFi radio was constantly loosing its mind. So in Feb. I unplugged it from the USB connector on the back of my Visio TV to re-set the radio and it killed the TV. I think it was an ESD event. I sent a message to their google groups explaining what happened. To make an extremely long story short, they asked me to send the unit back, which I did. After weeks of no response, I posted back and the comedy started when they asked me to log on to their site, pay full price for a new unit, then they would refund me when they got my failed unit back. The fact that they already had the failed unit was lost on them, and no kidding, at least 20 e-mails and half a dozen phone calls before I finally got someone not retarded on the phone. Around mid-April I tried the TV again and miraculously it turned on. They finally got a new (actually refurbed) unit back to me last week. They are in no way shape or form ready for dealing with tech support.

Re: how can this be if Googlers are super geniuses

[faway]

Hardly. The media have built up Google as the perfect company. Tech people have enormous hubris because of the media and techies themselves.

Re:I'm not, but on the subject of updates

[dkman]

I did have one user with a skype issue. I had her reinstall skype and it was fine. I'm not sure what broke it.

My Experience

[bobbutts]

The thing is not heavy enough to make an effective paperweight. It just wasn't something that me or anyone in my household used.

chrome bookmark fiasco

[goombah99]

Related to chormeos autoupdates are chrome browser updates. A couple of months ago I woke oneday to find that all my bookmarks where gone in chrome when I was logged in as myself on google. Furthermore they did not just vanish but rather they were all merged into my wife's account. So basically both of us had wrecked user accounts in chrome. Considing I had many hundreds of book marks carefully curated for more than 15 years across browser changes and computer systems, this was a staggering loss. I was able to export her book marks so I didn't lose them and re-import them into Safari (that was the last day I used chrome forever.) but now they are all out of order, have lots of her book marks, and have many duplicates with my old safari bookmarks. I'm still slowly organizing it.

I'm still puzzled how that could have happened. The only clear link between these two accounts is that on at least one of 7 computers in the home, one of them we share. So obviously that must be the source. But how this mode of failure happened I'm puzzled. Without knowing that I will never use chrome again.

Re:chrome bookmark fiasco

[Binestar]

Something this important over 15 years and no backup? Frankly, your post should have been:

Related to chormeos autoupdates are chrome browser updates. A couple of months ago I woke oneday to find that all my bookmarks where gone in chrome when I was logged in as myself on google. Furthermore they did not just vanish but rather they were all merged into my wife's account. So basically both of us had wrecked user accounts in chrome. Considing I had many hundreds of book marks carefully curated for more than 15 years across browser changes and computer systems I had a backup of everything and was able to restore. It wasted a couple of hours of mine as I tracked down the issue and resolved it, and caused me to switch from Chrome forever.

More of the same?

[BytePusher]

In general my experience with Google took a sharp downturn in the last quarter of 2014. Largely it seems they're riding on momentum, because they really did do some ground-breaking work. Android was an awesome answer to iOS. Not quite as slick and clean maybe, but I had no trouble with the FroYo, ICS or Jelly Bean. Lollipop on the other hand has really provided no additional functionality I felt was missing and has only served to drain my battery and randomly reboot when apps aren't crashing or freezing.

Inbox and email tabs just hide new important emails.

Hangouts is creepy(animations pop up here and there just to let you know someone is listening in) and the voice/video call functionality is an exercise in frustration.

Google search seems to be gradually leading me away from the things I'm looking for toward pages of links I can't bring myself to click.

I'm ready to switch to anything that provides something resembling quality.

Response from Chromecast Community Manager

[JackyGoogleCast]

Hi Everyone,

I'm the Chromecast Community Manager; I noticed your thread and wanted to respond.

I don't know if you saw my response in our forum, but we posted the below around the Beta issue some users were seeing:

"We've recently updated Chromecast and a small percentage of users received a debug message on the home screen. This update should not have any material negative user impact. We are pushing a fix to those impacted users shortly. If you would like to update immediately, please reboot your device (you do not need to factory data reset your device)."

The OP posted links to our forum but if you have specific issues with the release not being addressed, please post in our forum.

Jacky

Re:I'm not, but on the subject of updates

[ihtoit]

ah, the main power coupling adjustment. Got it :)

Re: Holy shit

[AvitarX]

I can't tell if you need to be already on the network to use it based on the video.

But, Chromecast had in its FAQ even that anyone on your network had access.

They had some shot in the video of disconnecting and reconnecting to the phone, was that resetting it to search remotely? seems likely that it is possible to do that (play videos on someone else's device in range), but hardly devestating. People have TVs with IR remotes too, they can be "hacked" in pretty much the same way.