TL;DR
- Earlier this month, a serious error broke streaming on older Chromecast hardware.
- While Google developed a fix that started going out last week, it wouldn’t work if you factory reset your Chromecast.
- A new Google Home update finally allows users to restore functionality to even those reset devices.
Google helped define the early streaming landscape with its ubiquitous Chromecast hardware, empowering millions of viewers to smarten up their dumb TVs with an internet connection. These days, we’ve got much more capable options like the Google TV Streamer, but there are still mountains of loyal Chromecast users out there who intend to keep using their affordable streaming dongles for as long as they’re able. And while that should be a good long while, earlier this month some older Chromecast hardware ran into serious trouble. Google already deployed its initial fix, and today shares word of how it’s resolving things for everyone else.
Owners of second-generation Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices first started seeing authentication errors pop up a little over a week ago. It didn’t take long for Google to acknowledge the issue, advising users to sit tight while it worked on a fix, and to not factory reset their Chromecasts in an attempt to fix them. By the end of the week, Google had solved the problem… unless you couldn’t resist the temptation and factory reset your device anyway. At the time, Google advised those users to wait for more news, and that’s just what they’ve been doing up until today.
This afternoon, Google has an “Important update about your Chromecast” email headed out to owners, informing them of its work on fixing this recent issue. In addition to confirming that all non-reset Chromecasts should be back to full working order, the company has figured out a path forward for that factory-reset hardware, too:
For users who have performed a factory reset, you will need to update your Google Home app to the latest version (3.30.1.6 for Android and 3.30.106 for iOS) to set up your Chromecast (2nd gen) or Chromecast Audio device again. The app roll out is beginning today and may take up to a few days to roll out to everyone. Updates will be posted in the Google Nest Community.
There you go: Salvation is arriving in the form of a Google Home update. Like the company says, it could still take a few days for this new release to hit everybody, so while your Chromecast outage may take just a little longer still to fully resolve, you can finally rest easy knowing that Google has figured its fix out, and it’s just a matter of time before you can resume casting to your heart’s content.
