# Mlb.tv roku app has yet another starting year of stunning errors



## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

So here we are at another start of the major league baseball season, and MLB's premier streaming app failed to use the shortened pre-season to do any code review on their app, now costing yet another hike in price. Let's see what we get for our coin this year:

1. Failure of the app to properly display the score, either during the games or at the close, on their main game selection screen. Today's screwups include the Boston-Newyork game showing Boston winning. Reality is opposite. Same with A's v Phillies. LA v Colorado. Seattle v Minn. The list goes on, so many a first term programmer would spot the error. 

2. Selecting a game to join the feed live invariably results in starting at the beginning of the game, even if two plus hours previous.

3. Choosing a particular games home or away feed half the time jumps one to the opposite feed than the one you select. Neat.

4. Blacked out games are supposed to be available to stream video 90 minutes after the end of the game; I'll try and update exactly how long, if ever, blackouts on video are lifted. A plus is I haven't found any glitches with any radio feeds, live or replay.

May find more but one more year of incompetence from New York. Btw, these errors were reported yesterday at the start if the season and as of today, day 2 of the season, no corrections have been made.


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## wfs455 (Dec 15, 2021)

I only watched the Phillies - Oakland game on my Roku TV yesterday. Picture and sound were fine. I did not look at other scores.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Oh, the picture and sound quality is top notch on every game I've watched. The android app, changed a bit from last year and imho quite a bit more clumsy, seems however to work okay. 

But the roku app has been (finally) fixed up, but a lot of the navigation and layout changes from previous years on roku are like the android app, just a bit more clumsy than previous years, although not as bad. To me, the programmers of both dont listen to or get input from their user base. But that's pretty typical of programmers in general, or their design heads.

I'm sure if folks on other platforms see some off the rails things going on, we'll hear about it. I'm simply amazed that in 15+ years whomever they've got running this operation they trip over their own feet every, and I mean EVERY, season start up. Amazing.


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## juan ellitinez (Jan 31, 2003)

Which version of ROKU?
The older models don't seem to get all the software updates

Its like they ignore the older models to force you to buy a new roku. Usually any model that is over 5 years old gets ignored


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

On the top 'home' screen of any roku under 'system/software update' the unit lists both the last checked and last updated dates and times. Go further and it lists the current operating s/w version and build #. If you are 'camping' on a particular streaming channel, say netflix, it wont update right away but eventually in a day or so it will exit to the home screen and do the update. 

My older roku4 (model 4400X, I bought three of them when they first came out as they were the first to do 4k and I was a very early adopter with a 4k set, I now have three) all updated a few weeks ago to 11.0.0 build 4168-17; my one ultra unit on my home theater setup followed a day or so later. Compared to earlier firmware rollouts over the years, this last was very quick. Fyi, you can force a query ('check now') and if their system downloads it to you, it happens right then. In the past rollouts happened by region, and it seemed the far west was always last, but not this time. 

Fyi I know on these first gen 4k units they dont have dolby vision or hdr, but I'm waiting for the next gen unit at a good price to come out before replacing any, I just bought a new set that supports all the new whiz bang video; last years ultra model price has already dropped by some $30 which is typical a few months before they release the new model at the $100+ level. But this latest set is 1/4 the price (from 4+ years ago) and is a huge improvement even without a new roku and isnt even an oled.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Well, more programming errors cropped up today, which weren't there yesterday. Select 'watch live' and one gets instead a jump to the beginning, select 'resume' and instead of playing from where you exited the app it jumps to live. 

I give up. Third graders could do a better job.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Spent close to an hour yesterday with the so-called tech support at mlb.tv, a totally wasted time as they like most support these days were adamant in strickly following a pre-planned script, written by people who have absolutely no idea how to troubleshoot their way out of a wet paper bag. 

Final result: they both have no idea what's going on, they agree they have major problems, but refuse to advance the ticket because I refused to spent yet more time going through the script for a third time, as that script told them all problems were solved with the completion of that script. 

Typical New York thinking. Back when I was doing world wide engineering support, I would have to make at least two trips per month to the tri-state area because folks there would not take my word they were doing the troubleshooting wrong. More times than I care to count it the problem would be solved within as few minutes of getting off the plane and taking the car service to the location, in short an almost wasted trip. 

But like in recent years, I'll bet in a few more days they'll realize their errors, just like in every year I've been subscribing. Its pitiful.


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## juan ellitinez (Jan 31, 2003)

Why not try it on firetv?


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

juan ellitinez said:


> Why not try it on firetv?


 Johnny come lately. The wealth of streaming apps on roku 5+ years ago (most other units didnt even exist) including local tv and the first gen of streamers like netflix et al, so there it is. Holds the majority of users and apps still today. I'll bet that there are the same problems with that platform and many if their apps as well, I read about them every day on programmers blogs every day.

But my thinking is proving correct, by late this afternoon many of the major problems seem to be corrected; this has happend every season for years, I've subscribed almost every year since they started, except for the years it was 'included' with DirecTV exinn and the first couple on audio feeds only. Tossed sat 5 years ago and started up direct subscription once again, but it's amazing that every year the same ****. I just shake my head and figure some new ny drug has addled their brains, I shouldn't have wasted my time yesterday but folks who cant get the scores displayed right out of the gate dont need any paycheck for that week.

UPDATE: after working pretty much okay last evening, the app has of this morning reverted several steps backward. The only thing I can figure is that fixes that worked (maybe) for os 11.0 broke something in models that hadn't yet been upgraded to the new os. I only have two models and both were upgraded to 11.0 within a day or so a few weeks back, which compared to previous os rollouts in years past was extremely fast. So some wackiness is a high probability. 

So a lot of hoop jumping is still required to watch 'live'. Plus, I have to mention that video quality, even on at least NESN (will be interesting to see YES but the game is later on today), which along with YES have been the two most reliable supreme top notch video providers, and had so far this season remained in that position (nesn being 1080i and yes being 720P) but is now dropped several notches down today. Something is going on, an it isnt good.

UPDATE (16 Apr 22):
Variably working but mostly still wacky navigation. Most selections whether live or resume starts the game from the beginning. Picture quality has been improved up to where it should be, mostly great from yesterday evening.
Fyi complaints are no longer accepted from within the mlb.tv app, one has to install and run the android (and I assume the apple) app to register problems.

UPDATE (18 Apr 22):
Couple things still wrong. Closed captioning is on by default every time the app is launched. A couple days ago they seemed to have fixed that, but now its unfixed. The programming of the navigation appears not to be in the root of the app, but in each individual game; in short, on some games it works as it should (watch live actually jumps one to real time live, resume and start from the beginning also work correctly), but other games dont work correctly at all. This shows that the way the app is programmed makes no sense, as its basically a 50/50 guess as to whether any particular game will have the navigation work correctly. Like the scores being out of wack the first couple days of the season, one would have thought since they were all off and then corrected, that it was a global setting that was out of kilter and all it took was one global setting that was off. Now with the navigation, it seems it's something in each individual game tab that has to be corrected, not a global setting. 

As far as the closed captioning, it seems it would have to be a global setting, why it would be fixed a few days ago and now be unfixed, maybe just be dim thinking. 

But it's getting pretty old where the app invariably goes back to the beginning and one has to fast forward to get to the live game.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

21 April: navigation problems continue (but closed captioning is back to working correctly, ie, off by default; #!#!??), while complaint form at mlb.tv continues to be down (errors out and wont take your complaint, no matter how you word it), obviously they know there's a big problem but have decided that to ignore it is the corporate way to resolve it. Will have to continue to jump through hoops to watch games live. Truly pitiful.
If they ever resolve this I'll report it.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

They're going backwards; now when selecting a game (is still going on) all you get for a selection is 'condensed game'. You cant get to the live game at all. 

I'd complain again, but they're complaint system has been broke for at least a couple of days and I'm not going to waste my time on it.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Yet another weakness at mlb.tv, today's wtf is the date. Today of course is April 25, yet all over the mlb.tv site the current date is listed as April 26. 

That must be some really good dope making the rounds in NYC at the mlb.tv hq. Are they thinking they are in the other side of the international date line? Moved their operation to the Russian far east? Got a good deal on misprinted calendars?


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Finally, some 2+ weeks after the start of the season, all 13 games currently playing actually do go to live play after selecting 'watch live'. There are 3 other late games and one blackout but this is by far the most games where the navigation on the roku app works this close to 100%. We'll see if their system continues to work at this level or drops back to a fail.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Well, after close to three weeks since the start of the season, mlb.tv has finally settled down and fixed all the navigation problems with their roku app. The only wackiness remaining is the inconsistencies with the close captioning. I thought for a bit that if one had cc on in another app (say hbo max or youtubetv) that mlb.tv would see that and have it turned on by default when one started up the app, but it simply isnt consistant, and I hate inconsistencies. But that is minor compared to the navigation wackiness, as it has dissapeared over the last 5+ days, hopefully gone for the rest of the season.

But I sure wish that the roku app had all the options it had a half dozen seasons ago, like all the niceties the android app has like standings, ability to easily jump to an inning, player and team stats, etc. Oh well, I guess they'll never come back, too bad. Sad.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Of course, as soon as the pathetic east coast programmers fix one major problem with the mlb.tv system they fail in another.

I had listened to a radio broadcast of a game a week ago with no problems, the graphics updated right in sync with the radio. Of course, I kept watch on another game on my smartphone, again no problems.

Today, I tried the same, and the radio broadcast worked fine but the graphics failed to update; what was interesting in that other games graphics continued to update, both scores, innings, outside, etc, just not the game I was listening to. Tried several games, same failure. Any game that I was listening to the radio broadcast would not update the graphics while other games on the screen continued to do so. Of course, this is the roku app.

Pathetic.


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