The IT Nerd

Users of Roku products have been waiting for Version 9.4 of the Roku OS for a while now. This is the version that will bring AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support to their streaming devices and TVs that use the Roku OS. That’s something that has been on the wish list of many Roku users for a long time.

But judging from threads on Reddit where there has been so many people complaining about the OS update a “mega thread” was created by the moderators of the Roku subreddit, and there’s Twitter where people are also complaining about problems, there’s only one conclusion that you can draw. The rollout of this new version of Roku OS appears to be problematic.

Here’s some examples of what people are complaining about:

And I have not been immune from this. I still have the Roku Streambar set up on my TCL TV and it got the 9.4 update that enabled AirPlay 2 and HomeKit. But after unplugging it and moving it, that update has been lost and has not returned. But what’s even more maddening, when I brought this up to Roku on Twitter, and was directed to DM them with the issue, Roku went silent on me. Here’s a screenshot of my interaction with them. The interaction starts at the bottom of the screenshots and the most recent message is at the top:

Roku as of yet hasn’t chosen to respond to me. Not to say that they’re looking into it, not to say that they have a solution. Nothing. As apparently that’s becoming common based on the Reddit and Twitter posts that I am reading. That likely implies that whatever is going on, is quite serious. But in the absence of hard fact, that’s just speculation.

Now I am reaching out to Roku to get their side of the story, and I will update this post when I get it. But here’s the main issue. If Roku does have some sort of issue with Roku OS 9.4, you as a Roku owner can’t stop it from hitting your TV. Roku has to stop pushing it out from their end. Perhaps they have done that. I don’t know because they haven’t said anything about that as far as I can tell. Roku would really do themselves a favor by clarifying what is going on and what they’re doing to remedy whatever is going on. Because at present, they have a lot of upset users out there who are looking for help.

UPDATE: So the issue with the Streambar that I got from Roku for review purposes was due to the fact that it was a review unit. Roku has fixed that and the Streambar is now fully functional with HomeKit and AirPlay 2. Roku is apparently looking into the issues that I raised in my story and I will update this post when I hear back from them.

This entry was posted on November 23, 2020 at 8:26 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.