Google confirms Android TV casting from Google Home has been re-enabled for all but a few users

Ben Schoon | Apr 23 2019 - 3:10 pm PT

After a nasty bug hit some Android TV users, Google pulled the related functionality for all users for the sake of privacy. Slowly, some users have seen the functionality restored, and Google has today confirmed to us in a statement that Android TV casting from Google Home has been re-enabled.

In case you missed the original story, a bug related to Google Photos affected Android TV in recent weeks which potentially revealed private photos from other users on another’s account. To quickly fix that problem, Google pulled Google Photos from Android TV, as well as the related casting functionality from Google Home/Assistant.

However, over a month went by with the functionality disabled. It even affected the Nvidia Shield’s ability to be controlled from a Google Home speaker.

Now, Google has confirmed to 9to5Google that Android TV casting from Google Home, and by extension Assistant, is back. The majority of Android TV users should see this functionality back. Google does say that a small number of users – apparently under 10 – are still impacted by this problem. Until a permanent solution can be found, the related functionality will remain disabled.

We appreciate the patience of our user community as we continue to investigate the bug. We have re-enabled the ability to remotely cast via the Google Assistant and view photos from Google Photos for unaffected Android TV devices. To protect user privacy until a permanent resolution is identified, these abilities as well as additional voice functionalities will remain disabled for impacted Android TV devices.

Reports over the past couple of days – documented at Android Police, Android Headlines, and from forum posts – note that this fix seems to have been rolling out for some time now.

However, if you’re like me, the problem was still affecting your device. Google has an answer for that too. Apparently, the process of disabling those functions may not come back on perfectly for all users. The company says that a factory reset (for the Android TV device) should fix the issue going forward, and I’ve been able to verify that on my Nvidia Shield.