Something that happened to me in April happened again yesterday - namely a RokuTV network adapter would "fail" somehow. What is worse though is that at that point the TV stops being useful as a TV because it starts rebooting itself every minute or two! It will restart without a message (or 30-sec freeze) and when it comes back, even if not going anywhere near network settings but change to one of the HDMI inputs and let it be, it will bomb again shortly.

When it saw that for the first time (4/22), i thought i had it nailed down to the process of enabling developer mode on RokuTV. I.e. it happened after i had to re-enable developer mode after some FW change and after rebooting, suddenly there was not network and spontaneous reboots ensued. I tried different things and no one single item seemed to work - but at the end after some combination of driver reset, adapter reset, power unplug, factory reset - it seemed fixed. But then i was able to get it in that MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00 state again - if memory serves, through enable dev.mode reboot - and that time i somehow reset the adapter by lesser means factory reset and let it be, thinking i'll do a write-up on this later. Which i didn't.

Fast forward 10 weeks and the same thing happened yesterday, except i was not enabling dev.mode but simply rebooting the player (while researching the curious case of screensaver that has no name) when this happened. Same symptoms (all-0 MAC, spontaneous reboots) and driver reset, adapter reset, factory reset did not solve it but when i added to that removing the power cable, the network adapter was back.

Here are some screen captures i took back in April (then firmware was 6.2.3341, now shows 6.2.3486):

I don't know if that's more of a hardware or software issue - but the part where it keeps bombing when the adapter is "not present" - that's clearly a software issue. It should be doing "the next best thing" and work as a "dumb" TV if networks are down, not crash. It shouldn't be happening, any of this. A casual viewer is unlikely to have my bloodhound tenacity in tracking issues, taking photos, writing down and so on - they'd just pack it up and return (bonus: bad reviews).

Confirmed: enabling/disabling developer mode on RokuTV leads to MAC = 00:00:00:00:00:00 after the reboot.

I very intentionally just tested that and it is reliably reproducible (at least on my RokuTV). After enabling dev.mode & reboot, it gets into the "time bomb" mode.

Thanks EnTerr, I've filed a bug report.

- Joel

Ha!
This is still happening, RokuTV 5200 @ 7.0.9051.

This time i did not see it spontaneously rebooting but the WiFi failed (showed same MAC 00:00:00:00:00:00) after dev.mode toggle and restart. Subsequent restarts no help. Unplugging power seems to resolve it.

What could it be in a simple configuration change that fracks up the network adapter?!

RokuJoel -
can you follow up on this one, please?

I haven't heard anything from anyone ever since - but it is happening still in 7.2.4101, RokuTV #5200 (TCL) !
It happened the same way - during restart forced by disabling developer mode.
And RokuTV reboots itself after a few minutes but that does not fix the issue.
And i see the 00:00:00:00:00:00 MAC address again.
And it gets the double-blinking power LED (which was said to indicate network problem, color me surprised).

 got a haier roku tv with the same problem only that i dont use developer mode but i just got the same problem mac and wifi 00 mac address and restar itself

... and it just happened again, this time when scenography in @YungBlood's beta app hanged the RokuTV #5200 @ 7.2.4143 - after reboot the NIC again showed null MAC.

On a side note, i am surprised how reliably Roku crashes with this particular <app id="106006_01f4" type="appl" version="2.0.200">G4R-KaBoom!!</app>! The name is apt, coincidentally. All one has to do is start it and press "Back" button - and KaBoom!, the player is hanging in need of reboot. How come RSG can kill the whole player, 7.2 is supposed to work reliable - no? 

EnTerr wrote:

... and it just happened again, this time when scenography in @YungBlood's beta app hanged the RokuTV #5200 @ 7.2.4143 - after reboot the NIC again showed null MAC.

On a side note, i am surprised how reliably Roku crashes with this particular <app id="106006_01f4" type="appl" version="2.0.200">G4R-KaBoom!!</app>! The name is apt, coincidentally. All one has to do is start it and press "Back" button - and KaBoom!, the player is hanging in need of reboot. How come RSG can kill the whole player, 7.2 is supposed to work reliable - no? 

Although I have quite a collection of Roku's, I don't have any Roku TV's yet. I tested what you said, starting the app and pressing back. I tried this on a 3600X (Roku Stick), 4200X (Roku 3), 4400X (Roku 4), and none of them exhibited this behavior.

YungBlood wrote:

Although I have quite a collection of Roku's, I don't have any Roku TV's yet.

I am not sure i can recommend a RokuTV, given this propensity of mine to "lose" the NIC on reboots. What's even worse is that when that happens it does not turn into a regular "dumb" TV but instead keeps spontaneously rebooting every 1-2 minutes on its own (and no, such soft reboots dos not fix the issue)

I tested what you said, starting the app and pressing back. I tried this on a 3600X (Roku Stick), 4200X (Roku 3), 4400X (Roku 4), and none of them exhibited this behavior.

When i posted the other day, the issue was happening also on a 4200 @ 7.2.4100 - but not yesterday, when i re-tested (was a new version pushed since Sat?). Mind you, i did not post this to blame your app - rather i was in 10% mind (holding my breath 10%) that someone from Roku may look into that hangup, such behaviors are hard to reproduce on demand but with yours it was happening reliably, which is rather convenient.

May not be relevant but all players you tested are multi-core-ic and RokuTV isn't, AFAIR. Also firmware# may matter.