I have always been able to stream using my roku plex app with no problems, however, now I am getting this error: HDCP Unauthorized. Content Disabled, on a bright purple screen.
My media manager works fine online it just wont let me stream to my tv anymore?
I would try reconnecting your HDMI cable on both ends. Also, try a different HDMI cable if you have a extra one.
This is apparently a hardware problem that may well be a loose cable connection as jftuga suggests. Netflix has a similar report with their app on the Roku. Here’s a link to their troubleshooting advice: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/12386
As others have said it could be the cable itself or the cable connections. Contrary to what many people think cables can fail even when just sitting there and not being stressed much at all.
This is a cut and paste from a post I made on another forum:
Most HDMI cables, most cables in general for that matter, utilize plastics for much of their construction. Plastics are, mostly, amorphous solids and that means, in simple terms, that they have no set crystalline structure and hence will behave, in some respects, like liquids.
There are a couple of properties that can, and often do, cause cables that incorporate plastic to fail:
Cold flow - Plastic will flow away from a point of stress. The stress does not have to be great. This can cause the spacing between the metal wires changing the capacitance and impedance of the cable and if this crosses certain thresholds the cable will effectively fail. This is also why a failed cable can, sometimes, work if it is reversed. The impedance and capacitance effects can produce standing waves and those can interfere with signals. When a cable is reversed the characteristics of the standing waves/interference will change and that may reduce the problem to the point where it works again.
Gas absorption - Gasses are often absorbed and passed by plastic.Plastic will also emit absorbed gasses over time. Hence Burt Gummer’s statement in “Tremors 2” about why MREs must be wrapped in foil: “Plastic is not an oxygen barrier.”
There are also other reasons why cables fail. But cables do fail and they do not have to be moved or extra stressed to do so. They will often appear to fail suddenly but the reality is that the failure took some time and the mechanism of failure just crossed some threshold and manifested suddenly.
EDIT: The metal parts can also have problems among those are corrosion of the contacts and that can build up and cause problems and even gold or other corrosion resistant materials can have foreign materials build up and change the characteristic impedance of the point of contact and that can have many of the same deleterious effects as above.
I don’t think it is a hardware problem. My setup has been rock solid for years and I am also now seeing HDCP handshake errors like this from my Roku. I have other sources hooked up and they are still fine.
@drinehart said:
I don’t think it is a hardware problem. My setup has been rock solid for years and I am also now seeing HDCP handshake errors like this from my Roku. I have other sources hooked up and they are still fine.
Your other devices are not using the same cables nor are they using the same connectors. A cable could have failed or even some corrosion or foreign matter could have crept into the connectors.
See my post above. Just because nothing changed or moved does not mean that the characteristics of a cable has not changed.
The Roku forums are reporting the same issue. It is related to the Roku itself, not cables, switches, or TVs. It started with the v7 OS. Some users report that lowering the resolution of the Roku down a step helps. I have not tried it yet.
Edit - removed unneeded verbiage and apologies to @Elijah_Baley.
Rebooting my Roku and TV fixed the problem, for me anyway.
@drinehart said:
The Roku forums are reporting the same issue. It is related to the Roku itself, not cables, switches, or TVs. It started with the v7 OS. Some users report that lowering the resolution of the Roku down a step helps. I have not tried it yet.Edit - removed unneeded verbiage and apologies to @Elijah_Baley.
FWIW, this is not a “solution” so much as a circumvention. HDCP only applies to HD, so of course dropping it down to 480p would mitigate the issue.
Update - replaced everything in the chain, including swapping out the Roku for another in the house. In my case, there is definitely something in ROS 7 that does not like my TV now that v6 did not have issue with. The problem stays with the TV. I swapped the “problematic” Roku with the one in the bedroom and it works fine. The one from the bedroom also periodically has the issue now on the TV in the living room. Who knows what changed that is having the issue…perhaps ROS 6 did not correctly implement HDCP and 7 did, but it is odd that no other devices hooked up (4 total) have issue with it, only the Roku.
My Roku 2 XD refuses to HDCP/HDMI handshake properly with my 2007 Toshiba Regza TV, but has no issue doing so on my newer, cheaper TV (2014ish RCA)…so I have a Roku 2 XD on a 2014 TV, and a Roku 3 on a 2007 TV…which makes no sense but it works.
When the handshake would fail on the XD, I’d get a solid purple screen but hear audio, btw, so that’s…not quite the issue you are having, but does lend some credence to the notion that it’s the Roku itself that’s mucking up the handshake, unfortunately. (In my case, a hard reboot by unplugging & plugging it back in would fix it for a while, but I was having to do that 2-3x/day, so it got old real fast)
Some hdmi splitters fail to reproduce the HDCP signal and might be useful in your case. Mine is only requiring a reboot at most a couple of times as week. If you look into it, you should find an option or two to help out.
