After returning from playback remote suddenly does not work at all

January 4

As a preamble I just want to say that it will be very hard for me to troubleshoot and even test this problem as the Roku involved is in my bedroom and I cannot get up easily after going to bed due to my health issues. Thanks for understanding.

Very intermittently my Roku Ultra will become unresponsive to my remote except for the home key.
If I watch a movie and reach the end credits I often FF to the end and exit playback using the back button. Once the movie browsing page shows and looks normal but it is totally unresponsive to any keypress on the remote, except home. That is I cannot move to a different movie or even play the selected one. Even the back button does not allow me to go to the previous menu.
However when I press home it exits back to Roku's home screen and upon reentering Emby everything works normally, until the next time which has been as long as 5-6 days and as short as 2 hours.

This is a little irritating but it does not prevent me from using my Roku.
This has not been observed on my Shield or my Fire stick that I use during the day.
I also have a Fire stick in my bedroom but it is very rarely used but I can use it if the above problem gets too bad. The server I am using is the Version 4.9.4.1 beta. This problem has been on at least the last 5-6 (probably more) beta builds. So I do not really think it is a server issue.
BTW: My Roku is connected wired.

Thanks for reading this.

January 4

Hmmm... It sounds like either the batteries in that remote are dying, or the app has lost focus, which is entirely possible. When the remote loses battery strength it should show up on the TV with a low battery icon indicator and display it. But sometimes it doesn't do that I've found. But the fact the home button worked when no other button would indicates that focus was lost. Focus is used to tell the app which exact thing on screen the user is interacting with. With video the input handler has focus. But sometimes when exit video and the Roku is very lagged it might forget to give up focus from the input handler when the video player closes. The video player always exists it just loses visibility when it closes.

The Roku has this oddball way of interacting with objects through fields and observers. Its like a handshake, but if so many are queued, the other handshakes that would've happened are just discarded, aren't even queued. The garbage collector on the Roku determines when that happens and we have no control over it really. The garbage collector will happen usually at the end of scenes, but it can also happen at any time if the memory runs low. The time when memory runs the lowest is right as video begins to play back, and you guessed it, right when video is told to exit.

When starting lots of clockwork happens to start the video. When stopping the same clockwork starts to tell the server you stopped playing, and to update possible resume points, the watched status, and refresh the items on the screen which might need watched status updated like continue watching and others. It also has to tell the server to delete any active encodings and remove it from the dashboard. There is lots of server traffic right as the item begins, lots of server traffic right as the item ends.

Some of the older units do not have as much memory available for the apps runtime sandbox or texture memory, like the older Roku 3.

We also have updates coming to the app which do correct some bugs. Not sure if those would have touched on the issue you are having and corrected it though. Once the new version of the app is released we can see if that changes anything. The Roku app store is on Holiday blackout for publishing. The blackout ends January 5th, 2026. The new version would have to go through Beta testing first. That should be coming soon. Then shortly after that would be released to the store.

https://developer.roku.com/en-gb/docs/specs/hardware.md

Which Roku model are you using when having the problem?

Edited January 4 by speechles

January 4

12 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I often FF to the end and exit playback using the back button.

Can you ever make this problem occur if you just back out instead of first FF to the end?

January 4

57 minutes ago, ebr said:

Can you ever make this problem occur if you just back out instead of first FF to the end?

I do not think so but I never do it that way because it leaves the movie in a partially played state and then I have to manually mark it a played manually. I suppose I can test but if it does not happen I would not know if it was because of the way I exited or if it was just because of the problem being being intermittent.
But I do remember one time that I exited because the movie was boring and i exited directly because I just decided that the movie would never be played again by me, and the remote was dysfunctional. But I have no way of knowing how to do that again.

FWIW: Now that I think about it this has been happening for a longer time than I initially thought as I remember it happening a little over a year ago. At that time I blamed it on something wrong in the encode but the symptoms were exactly the same. The only difference was that the back button would not take me out of the last frame of the movie. I had to use home to get out.

January 4

3 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I do not think so but I never do it that way because it leaves the movie in a partially played state and then I have to manually mark it a played manually

You should be able to adjust your resume settings in the server to alleviate that.

It sounds to me like the app is crashing as opposed to anything wrong with your remote and, I suspect, this may be related to the FF to the end...

January 4

Just now, ebr said:

You should be able to adjust your resume settings in the server to alleviate that.

It sounds to me like the app is crashing as opposed to anything wrong with your remote and, I suspect, this may be related to the FF to the end...

The problem with that is that some movies have 8-15 minutes of credits while others have 15 seconds or even less. This is so intermittent that i would rather deal with it on the rare occasions when it manifests than have a movie that will not correctly resume when needed.

January 4

47 minutes ago, ebr said:

It sounds to me like the app is crashing as opposed to anything wrong with your remote and, I suspect, this may be related to the FF to the end...

If it were crashing the app would exit to the Roku homescreen. Rudely and without warning you are just returned to the Roku homescreen abruptly. This sounds more like a loss of focus. Where the visibility observer for the video player is keeping focus. Then when it exits back to the normal view you've lost focus since the observer was never rendezvous. With apps running in the DEV sandbox the app will not crash back to the Roku homescreen. That is so we can keep context of the error in the logs so you can see it with telnet.

If it happens when fast-forward to the end it might be the video player has already closed/became invisible earlier and the seeking function is attempting to set focus back onto it. If it happens when pressing back to exit video playback it might be because the refresh timed out. Because to me it really sounds like some kind of focus issue. With every other crash in the app you get terminated as the brightscript interpreter crashes. This would either be a timeout happening, or a visibility issue, and then it doesn't rendezvous the observer which would take focus. That is likely the culprit.

@Gilgamesh_48Which screen do you play from where this issue happens? From the continue watching using the Play button directly? Or from a details view using the on-screen play button? Knowing how that is done and which screen will allow us to investigate. The view should automatically get granted focus through the observer. There should also be a refresh happening on that view you are returned to. That refresh should steal focus back if it doesn't already have it. But if it doesn't refresh because of a timeout on the server you might get stuck in the land of lost focus. I will put this on our tracker. I have experienced this one or twice before but for me it was due to the aforementioned timeout issue.

Reference: Issue #1759: [Videoplayer] Stopping playback can lose app focus for some users (only home button works to exit app)

Edited January 4 by speechles

January 4

1 minute ago, speechles said:

@Gilgamesh_48Which screen do you play from where this issue happens? From the continue watching using the Play button directly? Or from a details view using the on-screen play button? Knowing how that is done and which screen will allow us to investigate. There should be a refresh happening on that view you are returned to. That refresh should steal focus back. But if it doesn't refresh because of a timeout on the server you might get stuck in the land of lost focus. I will put this on our tracker. I have experienced this one or twice before but for me it was due to the aforementioned timeout issue.

I am playing directly from the movies library scree as i browse until I find a movie I want to watch and then press play directly on the movies screen.
I never use continue watching for movies and i never play from the details screen.
I keep everything as simple as possible and playing directly from the movies library seems simplest to me. I do use Next Up to play TV shows but I almost never watch TV shows from my bedroom. Also I have never seen this issue when playing TV shows.

January 4

10 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I am playing directly from the movies library scree as i browse until I find a movie I want to watch and then press play directly on the movies screen.
I never use continue watching for movies and i never play from the details screen.
I keep everything as simple as possible and playing directly from the movies library seems simplest to me. I do use Next Up to play TV shows but I almost never watch TV shows from my bedroom. Also I have never seen this issue when playing TV shows.

The grid. Okay. I can check to make sure that the grid will always take focus, triple check observers, and ensure proper fail safes are there. Since it isn't using the rowList it cannot refresh since it does not know how far down into the grid you have scrolled and it might take too long for a full refresh. On the grid presently there is no refresh and I suspect this might be the cause. If the videoplayer drops the ball on the focus hand-off, there is no recovery through the refresh. We can look into making the grid more robust when focus is given too it so it understands when focus is lost and can recover it when the element that has focus is no longer visible. That might be the best way to handle this. Rather than know why just defensively get focus back from whatever took it.

Edited January 4 by speechles

January 4

2 minutes ago, speechles said:

The grid. Okay. I can check to make sure that the grid will always take focus, triple check observers, and ensure proper fail safes are there. Since it isn't using the rowList it cannot refresh since it does not know how far down into the grid you have scrolled and it might take too long for a full refresh. On the grid presently there is no refresh and I suspect this might be the cause. If the videoplayer drops the ball on the focus hand-off, there is no recovery through the refresh. We can look into making the grid more robust when focus is given too it so it understands when focus is lost and can recover it when the element that has focus is no longer visible. That might be the best way to handle this. Rather than know why just defensively get focus back from whatever took it.

Thank you for looking at it. I know it sounds like I am a little old lady with the vapors but I am tiring rapidly so i will have to withdraw from this conversation for now. I will check back either later today or tomorrow. Again, thanks

January 5

8 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Thank you for looking at it. I know it sounds like I am a little old lady with the vapors but I am tiring rapidly so i will have to withdraw from this conversation for now. I will check back either later today or tomorrow. Again, thanks

Thanks very much for the bug report. On checking, it looks like we can add an extra observer to watch for lost focus of the video player and immediately grab it for the poster grid. The videoplayer is supposed to do this on its own, but if a timeout occurs, it might not be able to rendezvous with the observer. Having the grid itself also check for the lost focus will ensure we always do the right thing and take over focus to the grid when it lands on that view.

At no time do I think you are an old lady with the vapors. I know it is maddening having something you love very much do something unappreciated. It makes you want to use discipline. If the Roku was a grandchild it might get a stern lecture. It is okay to hold us to a very high standard. In fact, I would rather the bar be unobtainably high to assure we never get comfortable or take things for granted. The bar is always being raised. What you did yesterday means nothing today. That is a very good thing. Please continue to hold us to a very high standard and if things appear amiss or displeasing please mention it as quickly as humanly possible so that it can be corrected. Your input is appreciated. Thanks for your time on these forums too. Have a very awesome new year.

January 5

@Gilgamesh_48the next time this happens, smash a few buttons on the remote that don't respond (not home) and then wait at least 60 seconds. Does the screen stay the same or does it automatically return to the Roku home screen?

Also, at that time, can you see a focus indicator on any of the posters or tabs or anything?

January 5

1 hour ago, ebr said:

@Gilgamesh_48the next time this happens, smash a few buttons on the remote that don't respond (not home) and then wait at least 60 seconds. Does the screen stay the same or does it automatically return to the Roku home screen?

Also, at that time, can you see a focus indicator on any of the posters or tabs or anything?

It happened last night. I went through every button on the remote at least twice and some more than once and nothing happened. There is no focus indicator shown anywhere and the screen never changes.
The screen never automagically returns to the home screen but I do remember once I just left it sitting and it eventually timed out and returned to the home screen. I believe that was simply the Roku timeout and it was the Roku OS causing that.
After letting the Roku sit for a while I finally pressed home and it did as it has always done and returned to the home screen.

I hope that is enough info to help a bit.

Would it do any good to use the app, after returning to the home screen, to send Roku logs as I believe, if my old brain is remembering correctly, that can be easily done from the Roku without access to the server? I can do that if you want but I seem to remember that I was told, in the past, that the app's logs were wiped when the app exits.

Thanks.

BTW: I can, if you think it would be a good idea, switch to using my other Roku Ultra in my living room for a while but I would prefer to continue to use my Shield in the living room. It would be slightly inconvenient but I use Emby more in the living room than I do in the bedroom so the chances of failure might be increased. But, mostly, I watch TV shows in my living room so the conditions that might produce the failure would be rarer. Again I can make that switch but I would prefer not to.

Don't waste a lot of time on this as it is not that common and it is not that inconvenient. But, if you can fix it, I would be thankful.

January 5

18 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I went through every button on the remote at least twice and some more than once and nothing happened. There is no focus indicator shown anywhere and the screen never changes.

Okay, then I think that confirms Speechles' idea that the app is just losing focus. Nothing has focus on the screen so nothing is there to respond to the keypresses. We'll see if we can figure out how this can happen.

Thanks.

January 8

@Gilgamesh_48would you mind running the latest beta to see if it impacts this issue for you?

If you are willing, let me know and I'll get you the link.

Thanks.

January 8

1 hour ago, ebr said:

@Gilgamesh_48would you mind running the latest beta to see if it impacts this issue for you?

If you are willing, let me know and I'll get you the link.

Thanks.

I will be happy to run the beta but I feel it well to inform you that I am having further health problems and I may miss problems or not be able to report them expeditiously. I will try and I want to report that I had the issue last night but could not test anything as my coordination sometime makes it hard to even exit and restart the app. But, if the beta actually fixes the problem, I might find it easier to run the beta than it is to run the release.

January 8

That's okay. You don't need to test or report on anything else. I'm just interested if it fixes this issue for you. I'll PM you the link.

Thanks.

January 8

1 hour ago, ebr said:

That's okay. You don't need to test or report on anything else. I'm just interested if it fixes this issue for you. I'll PM you the link.

Thanks.

I have installed the beta. I will check back if I have any further issues.

Thank you for understanding.

BTW: Do you know how long an installed beta will remain active? I know they get automatically removed after a time but I do not remember, if I ever knew, how long it takes before Roku removes an app installed by code.

Edited January 8 by Gilgamesh_48

January 9

This particular beta is going to expire on 2 Feb. If this fixes your problem, we'll get it released to stable before then.

January 9

2 hours ago, ebr said:

This particular beta is going to expire on 2 Feb. If this fixes your problem, we'll get it released to stable before then.

Thanks.
1st report: I used the beta in my bedroom last nigh and I managed to produce several of the situations where the problem usually manifests. (Of course it was so intermittent that I can't be sure) and I had no problems at all. I will report back at irregular intervals and I REALLY hope it is fixed.

January 15

On 1/9/2026 at 10:01 AM, ebr said:

This particular beta is going to expire on 2 Feb. If this fixes your problem, we'll get it released to stable before then.

I have now been running the beta for a week or so and the unresponsive remote issue has not happened even once.
Thanks Emby. I hope this is not just false good behavior.

I have, a couple of times, seen a different issue that is every bit as intermittent as the remote issue. What happens is that I return from playing something, it appears that what I was playing does not matter, and then quickly switch to a different library. The new library accesses with absolutely nothing displayed on the screen except a small amount of the top of the screen menu. If I exit and wait a few seconds and reenter the library displays normally. No amount of waiting or remote presses cause the screen to refresh when the problem shows itself but, every time but one, the library shows correctly after a slower exit and reenter. Only once did the problem not correct after an exit and reenter and that time I moved very fast so whatever resets may not have had time to do so.

This will be hard to test but I will keep my eyes open for it and try to get a bit more info for you to mull over.

Again the problem this thread was started for seems fixed.

Thanks.

Gee. It's fun breaking things. If you want you can break this issue out into a separate thread. I was just too lazy.
BTW: I did see this once or twice when I was running the release client.

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