An issue that caused a degraded YouTube TV experience for some Roku users is the result of an update from Google, and it’s doing more than disrupting background playback.
Some users began reporting that the Live Guide in YouTube TV was broken, and by all accounts, that appeared to be the case. The issue sprang up in late May and has since been followed by more reports concerning a shortened Live Guide list.
According to Google’s official community forums, YouTube TV has intentionally disabled Live Guide background playback and shortened the future program list to just 24 hours into the future. The response has been pasted onto several forum reports regarding the Live Guide issues. This information comes from a trusted product expert, but it appears in several posts spanning the last few weeks, and Google has not officially dismissed this information.
A change was made recently for older and less powerful devices and smart TVs. For these TVs and devices, background play is no longer supported. The amount you can scroll into the future is also impacted.
This is done in order to prevent crashing and create a more seamless experience for those devices. Again, this is mainly on older, lower-end devices.
It appears Google’s YouTube TV update has kneecapped a number of Roku devices, in particular.
Most of the posts that mention these specific issues flag their problem with “Roku TV or devices,” indicating that this update has affected plenty of YouTube TV users on “older” Roku units. Our initial post witnessed the same trend.
Advice offered in the expert replies is echoed throughout those several posts. It’s recommended that users upgrade to newer hardware to enjoy the full YouTube TV experience. If not, it looks like some Roku users will have to watch without background playback and a shortened program list.
It’s also unclear how many other devices this affects, and which ones will see the same change in the future. The hardware requirements don’t seem to be specific. Google’s latest information notes devices with less than 512MB of memory “may have a slightly different experience and some features may not be available.”
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