Chromecast home screen is unusable

by LordOfMyDomains

It worked late last night, but today it has lost its mind.

When the Chromecast is on the home screen, and I try to move down to my row of apps, it hangs up on the advertising frame that cycles through ads for stuff I'm not interested in on channels I don't subscribe to. And instead of those ads cycling through every few seconds like I'm used to, they're cycling fast enough in only seeing the residual images of one or two. It's really just zooming by. Then I can't move off of that.

I have a workaround for when it's stuck. I can use the Home key to put the cursor back on the menu on top of the screen, then move to Apps, and choose the app I want to use (usually YouTube).

I have reset the Chromecast to factory spec and it didn't correct this problem.

Any ideas?

bloodyhippo

Maybe your remote is malfunctioning? Try using your phone as a remote and see:

Download Android TV Remote by Google and open the app. Select your TV, and a code should pop up on your tv screen. Enter the code on the phone and your phone becomes a remote.

LordOfMyDomains

I fixed it. I think.

I reset the Chromecast a couple more times. Each time I got an odd error that the 'home page can't be loaded' because I'm not connected to the internet. The WiFi is set up during the initial setup after a reset, of course. There's no explanation as to why it's not connected.

So I'd reconnect to WiFi, go to the Home Page, and get stuck again.

During this process, I also discovered a menu option I hadn't seen before. Under my email address in settings, there's an option to make the Home Screen only show your installed apps. It has the effect of turning off Google suggestions, which is the broken thing on the home screen. It also warns that you won't be able to save anything to your watchlist. Well, that's the watchlist on the Chromecast, not in each app. The watchlists in the apps are not affected.

So I turned it off. Then I reconnected to my WiFi. Then I turned it back on.

And it works just goddamned dandy. Perfect. Like it used to in the good old days. Like... just yesterday.

Turning that option to 'Apps Only' would have been an acceptable workaround, to me. But I accidentally fixed it. In about an hour of further testing, reinstalling my apps, logging into each one, and making sure each one works, it also completely ran down the batteries in my remote. I don't have any AAAs laying around, so I'm going to have to get some. I can use the Android Remote app (thanks for the suggestion!) in the meantime, because I wasn't planning a trip out today, but the thing does work now.

I don't know how it broke. I'm not that sure how I fixed it, or if I was a part of the process at all. The procedures I went through could have been totally irrelevant and it just started working on its own. I will never know.

But it works now.