- 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.