- A serious bug has hit some older Chromecast devices
- 2nd-gen Chromecasts and Chromecast Audio dongles are affected
- Google says it's now working on a fix for the problem
A strange bug has hit 2nd-gen Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices, preventing these devices from casting normally – and users are getting increasingly angry as they wait for a fix to roll out to affected gadgets.
As reported by 9to5Google and Android Authority, the bug surfaced over the last few days, throwing up a couple of error messages. All users are able to do is dismiss these messages and nothing else, meaning the devices are virtually unusable.
One error message reads: "Untrusted device: [name] couldn't be verified. This could be caused by outdated device firmware." The other one says: "We couldn't authenticate your Chromecast." There are links to Chromecast support, but there's nothing on those support pages to help with this specific issue.
Over on Reddit, there's plenty of venting going on – venting about Chromecasts being buggy in general, and Google being slow to respond to the issue. However, it does now appear that an official fix is on the way.
Wait it out
Chromecast not working. from r/googlehome
Considering that newer 3rd-gen Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra models haven't been affected so far, there had been some speculation that Google was quietly retiring older devices without any warning for the people using them.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case. Some investigation into the issues on Reddit pointed the blame at a server-side problem (so out of the control of users), and specifically a security certificate that hadn't been properly renewed.
The good news is that an official Google account on Reddit has posted to say that Google is aware of the issue, and that engineers are working on a fix. In the meantime, the advice is to just wait it out, and not to factory reset devices – which is the logical first step to try when something like this happens.
If you have already done a full reset on your Chromecast, Google says it will give you recovery instructions in due course. In the meantime, we'll be keeping our eyes and ears open for the promised fix.
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