Yes, things can easily be mis-read when one is not paying attention, ignoring the obvious--typically for reasons of one's own.

The other day I was browsing through various channels trying to find something to watch, and came upon a documentary that interested me. It was over an hour long, and I was getting tired, so I paused the channel half-way through and went to bed. The next evening, when I wanted to continue watching the video, my Roku had returned to the Home screen. I couldn't even remember which of the several channels I'd been perusing was the one I'd been watching, never mind which menus and sub-menus I'd have to navigate to get back there. I gave up trying to find it. Very annoying!

I'm also in the habit of watching TV episodes sequentially on Netflix and Amazon, and like to leave the next episode cued up ready to play. With this new "improvement", to get to the next episode on Netflix I have to launch the channel again, wait 10 seconds for it to load and finish "retrieving", navigate to the 3rd row down (past My List and Search to get to Continue Watching), then navigate two places further left to get to the #1 slot on the grid row, then re-launch the episode, and only then am I back where I left it. Annoying! It's not much better on Amazon. Many channels, e.g. NowhereTV, even though they will bookmark the position within individual videos, have no "take me back to the last video I was watching" function.

Every channel I've watched in the past has made it easy for me continue where I left off; they just did nothing, and when I turned my TV back on, everything was as I left it. Now Roku has decided for unknown, undisclosed reasons to reset my device back to the Home screen. I don't remember seeing users clamoring for such a feature in these forums. It's not the end of the world, but it does seem very unnecessary -- and annoying! If I wanted to return to the Home screen when I was done using my Roku for the day, I'd just press the Home key before going to bed.

Anyway, I have an old legacy Roku 2000C lying around doing nothing useful, so I programmed it to continually ping my Rokus to keep them from going back to the Home screen. The paused video-player will still exit, but at least the channel and the respective details screen are still displayed.

RockYou wrote:

Yes, things can easily be mis-read when one is not paying attention, ignoring the obvious--typically for reasons of one's own.

One can also write in an unclear manner. Communication requires clarity from both parties.

This new 'feature' is really annoying. It would seem Roku is trying to get more views of its home page banner ad.

ginahoy wrote:

This new 'feature' is really annoying. It would seem Roku is trying to get more views of its home page banner ad.

I would guess it is more a "help" to avoid streaming for those that have data caps and inadvertantly leave an app running. But Roku should let users have a choice.

I don't have a dog in this fight, as I never leave an app running intentionaly and do not have a data cap.

dfgsrzwer wrote:

I would guess it is more a "help" to avoid streaming for those that have data caps and inadvertantly leave an app running. But Roku should let users have a choice.

I would be happy to be given a choice to disable return-to-home, but are data caps really an issue here? The return-to-home feature doesn't help if the user leaves the content playing. Otherwise, if the content is stopped within the app (e.g., either by running to the end, or by the user navigating to the content description screen or the app's top level menu), is there really any significant amount of data transferred after that?

The banner ad comment is a good one I never thought of, every time you go back to the home screen an ad loads and Roku gets paid. It's in Roku's best interests to boot you back to the home screen when inactive so they can achieve this. Nothing more than business and money taking charge and the user getting the middle finger.

Emissary35 wrote:

The banner ad comment is a good one I never thought of, every time you go back to the home screen an ad loads and Roku gets paid. It's in Roku's best interests to boot you back to the home screen when inactive so they can achieve this. Nothing more than business and money taking charge and the user getting the middle finger.

You know Roku is a company, right? And companies exist to make money?

mikebdoss wrote:

Emissary35 wrote:

The banner ad comment is a good one I never thought of, every time you go back to the home screen an ad loads and Roku gets paid. It's in Roku's best interests to boot you back to the home screen when inactive so they can achieve this. Nothing more than business and money taking charge and the user getting the middle finger.

You know Roku is a company, right? And companies exist to make money?

I'm sure Roku is a company out to make money just as sure as I am you are a troll ready to antagonize anyone voicing displeasure with Roku, Netflix, or Amazon as your past posts will reflect. These big companies don't need any apologists, they are doing just fine without you. Paying customers that buy a product and and pay for services have a right to complain however often they want.

I wonder why I do not see this behavior on either of my Roku 3s. I use Plex mostly and it is not unusual for me to forget to completely exit the channel.

ex. Last night I forgot to exit Plex before bedtime and I left my Roku on Plex's main screen. This AM I awoke and turned on the TV and my Roku was still on Plex's home screen. It remained untouched and not streaming on Plex's home screen for about 6 1/2 hours.

Also after I went to bed I started a movie on my Roku 3 in my bedroom. I fell asleep and the movie ended. I woke up about 5 hours later and my Roku was on the Plex movie browse screen. It had not returned to Roku's main menu.

So neither Roku 3 returned to the Roku home screen after a long period of inactivity.

I am running software ver 7.1.0 b 4062-04 which I think is the latest general release.

I do not think I have ever seen an exit to the home screen except when a channel crashed, I initiated it or the Roku rebooted.

I am just asking this because, since my Rokus do not return to the home screen after a long period of time there appears to be a way to avoid the issue.

BTW: I am connected wired and I do not have an SD card installed and I only have about 18 channels installed.

^^ I have noticed that sometimes the 'New' Plex app won't exit - RARflix will. I think it must have something to do with herculean efforts Plex has gone through to keep the dam thing awake for music playback 'after' the screensaver kicks in... or something.

I don't exit the channel with purpose because I have more than a few titles that are the absolute cure for insomnia. I'm lucky if I can set the TV sleep timer, get them started and get the remote to the night stand before coma sets in. The Doc keeps wanting to give me drugs, but I tell him 'The Atomic Submarine (1959)', and on difficult nights 'It Came From Outer Space (1953)' are far more powerful sleep aids than any chemical could ever be. If I could find movies to cure high blood pressure and cholesterol I could save a lot of money on Doctor visits and legal dope.

So disabling screen saver works or not? I guess I will try it and see if it works.

jckinnick wrote:

So disabling screen saver works or not? I guess I will try it and see if it works.

I have my screen saver turned on and I have not even once seen the behavior being discussed.

The channel I use 90% of the time is Plex and it has not exited back to the home screen at all but it does, after about 10 minutes, activate the Plex screen saver.

I do not think it is screen saver related at all.

jckinnick wrote:

So disabling screen saver works or not? I guess I will try it and see if it works.

Disabling screen save has no impact on the behavior.

DubTaylor wrote:

^^ I have noticed that sometimes the 'New' Plex app won't exit... I think it must have something to do with herculean efforts Plex has gone through to keep the dam thing awake for music playback 'after' the screensaver kicks in.

I can confirm that Plex Classic is not immune to the new return-to-home-screen 'feature' and my computer (WinXP) won't run New Plex

Elijah_Baley wrote:

...since my Rokus do not return to the home screen after a long period of time there appears to be a way to avoid the issue.

I'm not holding my breath for Netflix to go through herculean efforts to to keep its app active on Roku.