Google Is Rolling Out a Fix for Your Broken Chromecast

Credit: Google

A mysterious bug is affecting numerous older Chromecast devices, as per a lengthy thread on Reddit—specifically, the second-generation Chromecast and the Chromecast Audio, which both launched in September 2015. If you've been affected, hold off on trying to factory reset your device, as Google is now rolling out a fix.

The bug started appearing over the last five days, rendering affected devices pretty much unusable. One of the error messages reported reads as follows: "Untrusted device: [name] couldn’t be verified. This could be caused by outdated device firmware."

Further investigation from users suggests that this is a server-side problem—so the issue is at Google's end. It looks as though there have been complications with expired security certifications, so the Chromecast dongles that have been hit are being incorrectly identified as unsafe to connect to.

Because of this, there hasn't been anything for Chromecast owners to do to fix the issue other than to sit tight and wait it out, without any streaming audio or video to entertain them in the meantime. Various troubleshooting steps have been taken, including reconnecting to wifi and running a factory reset, but no easy workaround has been found.

In fact, Google explicitly said factory resetting your device is something you shouldn't do—even if it's the obvious first fix to try with a problem like this. It's still not clear exactly what's happened, but Google does have a fix on the way, as well as steps for users who may have tried factor resetting their devices to no avail.

A fix is here (for some users)

Google's first announcement about the issue was as follows: "We're aware of an emerging issue impacting Chromecast 2nd-gen and Chromecast Audio devices and are working on a fix. Do not factory reset your device—we will keep you all updated when the fix rolls out. If you have already factory reset your device, we will provide instructions to set your device back up as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience."

It was a bit light on details, but at least the acknowledgement was there. Then, on Thursday, Google posted an announcement on its support page, informing users it was rolling out a fix "over the next few days." Critically, Google says your device needs to be connected in order to receive the update. Hopefully, that timeline means that, by Sunday, the problems are all resolved.

If you did factory reset your device, Google acknowledges you might not be able to setup your device as new. The company's official solution is to simply wait, as they are working to fix this new issue on their end as well. There is a rather complicated workaround you can try that's detailed on Reddit, but unless it's especially urgent for you to get back up and running, I'd recommend sitting tight for now and waiting for Google to issue a fix.

Given that the bug hasn't hit more recent Chromecasts, including the Chromecast Ultra, there was some concern that Google might have quietly killed off its older devices, now they're approaching their 10th birthdays—but that no longer seems to be the case.

The Chromecast device line as a whole has now been discontinued, so we won't get any more streaming dongles in the future, but Google hasn't said anything yet about pulling support for existing hardware. Chromecast functionality continues to be available in televisions running Google TV, as well as the Google TV Streamer.