Latest YouTube TV update is making life miserable for some Roku owners

YouTube TV isn’t behaving how it should on certain devices. While it was initially believed to be a bug, YouTube has recently confirmed that this is by design.

Over the last few weeks, there have been several reports that YouTube TV no longer supports background playback after switching to the Live Guide screen, which lets you view upcoming programs for live TV channels.

While it was initially believed to be a bug, Google appears to have limited it for a reason. According to a product expert’s comment on a Community post, background play under Live Guide has been restricted on “older and less powerful devices and smart TVs.”

The change hampers usage for many people, and we’re seeing complaints, particularly from Roku device owners (via 9to5Google). While the expert does not define what they mean by “older and less powerful,” a recently updated support page for YouTube TV indicates that devices with 512MB or less memory will have a “slightly different experience,” with a few features missing. While the page doesn’t specifically highlight background play, we believe Google is only hinting at it.

What’s worth noting, however, is that users with Roku devices featuring much higher memory, including the Roku Ultra with 2GB of RAM, are also experiencing the same issue. And there’s no explanation for this downgraded performance yet.

In addition to limiting background playback in Live Guide, the change also appears to impact how far you can go in the future to view the upcoming schedule.

For now, the only solution, as per the Community expert, is to upgrade to newer, more powerful hardware. However, they do not acknowledge limitations in hardware that meets the requirements, such as the Roku Ultra, and we’re unsure when that could be resolved.