Tablo is working on a fix for a software bug that’s causing its app to crash on Roku devices during live TV playback.
“Since Roku’s 12.5 firmware update, a subset of Roku devices have started running out of memory during playback of live TV causing the 4th generation Tablo app to crash,” a post on the company’s support page said.
Update: Tablo confirmed to Cord Cutters News that a update has started to roll out to address this issue.
The glitch isn’t happening for on-demand streamers like Netflix because it’s only showing up on broadcast TV video, or MPEG 2, playback.
According to the post, when the software processes the MPEG-2 video’s closed captioning track, it causes certain Roku models to run out of memory and shut down. This processing happens whether closed captioning is on or off while the user is watching live TV playback.
Tablo said impacted Roku devices include:
- 2021 Roku Express 4K+ (model 3941X and model 3941RW2)
- 2021 Roku Streaming Stick 4K (model 3820R2)
- 2021 Roku Streaming Stick 4K (model 3820X)
- 2019 Roku Express (model 3930X)
- 2017 Roku Ultra (model 4660X)
- 2021 Roku Ultra LT (model 4801RW, model 4802RW, and model 4802X)
“We have notified Roku of these findings and hope they can provide a Roku firmware update to fully resolve this so all Roku users can enjoy the benefits of closed captioning without encountering this bug,” the post said.
In the meantime, Tablo said it’s created an app update, which is now available, that provides a more stable workaround for Tablo users on Roku. Tablo details the process on its support page.
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Update: We have updated the story to make it clear that the Roku ran out of memory and not the Tablo DVR.