Google’s 10-year-old Chromecast is busted, but a fix is coming
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That's what I thought. Yet it happened at exactly the same time as the other outages (but not with an error message). Still shows TV available to cast to on phone. I've cycled power to all devices but it just doesn't cast anymore, from Android phone or Amazon tablet
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That's not entirely true. Netflix, for example, doesn't just cast to a device with Google TV. It opens the Netflix app on it instead. If you disable the Netflix app, it's not seen as a cast target at all.
I actually have a Chromecast Ultra hooked up to a TV with Google TV built in because it offers the same consistent experience when I try to stream something from my phone or tablet, something Google TV no longer does.
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Chromecast audio is a legitimately fantastic device. It's cheap and so justifiably crappy as an analog audio source. As a digital toslink source? It's excellent in it's own right and fucking amazing when considering the price. Audiophile brands charge sickening amounts of money for "streamers" that are basically just a chromecast audio with a few more options of digital output and a whole lot of licensing fees to charlatans. Chromecast was cheap and tiny, it worked great, plop down a JDS element or similar next to any comfortable chair in your house and a chromecast audio instantly turns it into a hifi headphone fixture.
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I would love this, because then we could add support for Firefox to cast to them. That was the only downside of my Chromecast (can't recall if it's 1st gen or 2nd gen, but it's definitely 10+ years old at this point)--I had to run Chrome to cast to it from a device.
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Why do all the streaming devices want you to use a separate remote and load device-specific apps? Seems like the old casting model from a phone with no apps and no remotes is simpler and lower overhead for both companies and users. Is there some kind of thinking that if you load an app, maybe you won't leave the app? If you get used to using the remote, you won't buy a competing product with a different remote? That's all I can come up with, and both feel way out on the margins of ROI.
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Imagine a world where you weren't price gouged for gadgets to the point where people felt like a modestly profitable device wasn't assumed to be a disposable piece of garbage...
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Hey honey, so a few years ago some hackers made the tech community overreact a bit so "we" decided that everything in the world needed to be encrypted. Besides wasting thousands of man-hours on troubleshooting and popping up super scary warnings on self-hosted sites, it has the added benefit of bricking our 50k car when it's past its "sell by" date...That's why you can't cast your show anymore.
God help us if there's ever a black death type scenario; no one will be around to rotate the certs or bring the datacenters back up.
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Bambu Labs. Purportedly the printer has a certificate that expires in October 2025, strongly suggesting everyone is supposed to move to the new round of Cloud Everything before then. Maybe a firmware update will fix it? And disable even more of the previously open previously local access options...
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You don't have to use the remote.
It loads the app but you can still select the video you want to play from your phone just like with the old Chromecast. Play, pause, disconnect etc.
The implementation of connecting to the app was a mechanism to add the cast protocol on platforms that don't support it. For example, on older LG TVs that don't have Cast support, installing the YouTube app on the TV provides cast-like functionality to the app on android devices.
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Certificate renewal is part of any IT infrastructure "must-do" calendar thing. Certs are everywhere - I'm more surprised Google paid for a 10-year cert for something as inexpensive as a Chromecast. I would have expected them to go with 3-year.
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If you cast, there's no opportunity to push ads at you. The entire Google TV home screen puts ads front and center.
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When is the last time you have been with a company 10 years later for that to still be on your calendar..? It's pretty rare for a tech worker to still be with their employer for a decade.
Edit: Ninja'd
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I don't know what you mean by ads. I don't see ads on my google tv. I've set it to apps only mode and I have the photos screensaver enabled.
The cast protocol is a Google invention. It would be nice if Microsoft added it to Windows, but it seems they don't care. The other alternative is Apple's Airplay, which is even less cross-platform than Cast, since cast at least works on some apps on iOS and Windows.
There's supposed to be some standard protocol called Miracast, I think Windows supports this, but I've never actually tried it out since I rarely ever find myself needing to cast anything from my PC.
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Thank you Ars, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why all the CCA throughout my house stopped working.
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Hey. I work for a cert authority. I actually think this is actually a lack of thinking. First of all, the mere fact that this cert is a 10 year certificate either means it was a root or major SubCA or a self-signed cert/private CA. Google themselves has been pushing cert validity down from 3 years to 1 year to something like 40 days. In theory, that is partially to prevent things like this and reduce reliance on CRLs and OCSP and force automated cert renewal. I think there was probably an assumption by an engineer somewhere that these devices wouldn't still be operational after 10 years or at least would have gotten a firmware update addressing the issue a time or two over the decade. I've been known to make an throwaway cert with a 30 year validity because if you are still using that cert after 30 years you have much larger problems. It definitely isn't planned obsolescence though. See Hanlon's Razor...
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I've repurposed some old Chromecast 2 devices as "Chromecast Audio" (newer CC can also be used) using a cheap, HDMI to VGA adapter, like this.
It's a passive device that adds a 3.5mm jack along with the VGA output. Audio quality may not be as good a CC Audio perhaps? But good enough for me.
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Just went out on the back deck with a loaded beer, tried to connect to my CCA and get some tunes going on my outdoor speakers.....nothing!
Its maddening to have my routine disrupted, yet I bought my Chromecast Audios many moons ago for very little cost. I've gotten tons of use out of it even after official support ended. I hope Google gets the fix figured out, but I can't say I didn't get a lot more than my money's worth out of the CCAs. So now it appears it will either be given another breath of life or be relegated to a fond memory.
Long live CCA
Its maddening to have my routine disrupted, yet I bought my Chromecast Audios many moons ago for very little cost. I've gotten tons of use out of it even after official support ended. I hope Google gets the fix figured out, but I can't say I didn't get a lot more than my money's worth out of the CCAs. So now it appears it will either be given another breath of life or be relegated to a fond memory.
Long live CCA
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There are relatively cheap HDMI splitters out there that appear to have pretty decent DACs and RCA outputs. That's likely my next solution if Google doesn't fix the issue on the CCAs.
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Begrudgingly "upgraded" just last week to a Google TV Streamer after our last true Chromecast kicked the bucket from constant overheating. What a miserable device. Forced Google accounts, no way to just make it into a cast target...
At least you can disable showing recommendations on the home screen. Not ads, unfortunately. It's like no one at Google has kids.
At least you can disable showing recommendations on the home screen. Not ads, unfortunately. It's like no one at Google has kids.
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If my Chromecast Audios ever die for software reasons, I am ditching every single Google home product I have.
They are literally the only thing that substantially distinguishes Google's ecosystem.
They are literally the only thing that substantially distinguishes Google's ecosystem.
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Solution: UDM Pro, wired network, traffic isolation on the port.
You could make a separate IoT net as well, but some devices don't handle locally routed traffic well. So port-level control is easier.
It's a pricey solution compared to the free gateway people get from an ISP. But its rock solid.
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I found my post where I gave my own little review. This may be different in different jurisdictions, but most of the negatives were about preinstalled apps and uninstallable crapware from Canadian companies (I called out Crave in particular). Aka things that I didn't want, but Google got paid to include so that their makers could access my eyeballs. So not quite ads, but unwanted crap.
What was funny reading the post is that at the time my thoughts were still on the positive side, "because you can still just use it as a chromecast". Remembering more, I think what happened is we still had our gen1 on another TV and found ourselves preferring that TV because it was still easier to use. Lightbulb moment: why don't we just put the other Gen1 back on?
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I bought an Amazon Firestick HD yesterday, as I figured it might take Google ages to deliver a fix. My second generation Chromecast stopped working on 10 March 2025. The Firestick works, but man is it complicated compared to the Chromecast! It took me at least an hour to understand the basic interaction with my Android tablet, the TV and the Firestick remote. Whereas with Chromecast you simply download an app to your tablet or smartphone, e.g. My5, ITVX, BBC iPlayer etc, find a programme and tap the Cast icon. It couldn't be simpler. Now I understand how Google sold 100 million Chromecast dongles over the years. It's a brilliant device and I really hope Google gets a fix up and running asap. Then I can chuck the Firestick where it belongs – in the trash.
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You're not seeing the ads if you're using apps only mode. I tried that myself for a while. But it has some negatives as well. You can't use Google Assistant or voice search, for example. And the Google TV home screen, while festooned with advertisements, lets me pick up where I left off in a show or a series without having to open the app first. It can also make recommendations across streaming services based on what I have watched, which can help with content discoverability.
The problem is that the entire top half of the screen is devoted to advertisements. It's more irksome that this is on a $2,000 Sony OLED TV. I have a little more patience with advertising when it's subsidizing the price of a super cheap device, although I find it annoying enough, I'm more likely to buy a more expensive one that doesn't have it. What's unfortunate is that the options for more expensive devices with fewer or no ads are minimal. I thought about an Apple TV, but I'm not fully invested in Apple's ecosystem, and they don't really play well with others.
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I remember when Google announced the new interface for Google TV, and PR swore up and down the top section would only show content you already had access to via your logged in apps. Took all of a few months for them to start stuffing ads in there.
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It probably was, but my guess is, that person left Google long ago.
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Yes, though it's also a case study in how NOT to handle expired certs in IoT devices. At the very least, include a decent error message when detecting an expired cert.
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Thanks very much! Yes, when I think about it, my mind just boggles at the idea of a 10 year certificate (or 20, in the case of CableLabs manufacturer certificates). It seems like the worst of all worlds! Long enough to be effectively infinite from a security perspective, but short enough to cause real practical problems for end users.
Respectfully, this model of security has the effect of enforcing an artificially short lifespan on all smart devices. That's a problem. There may not be any practical alternatives, but it deserves to be explored in detail! What are the benefits, what are the costs, what is the expiration date of that smart device I'm considering buying, etc.
Quibling over whether it is "planned" just isn't interesting.
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People keep throwing out the 10 year number, but you could buy a chromecast audio device directly from google up to about 5 years ago.
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We have old tvs so chromecast 3 is used for our main tv as they are not smart whatsoever. Other tv had chromecast 1 but is retired now (tv. Cc1 is in the box since 2022).
Anytime i visit friends and we play netflix, or youtube on their smart tv.
It seems so more troublesome than chromecast.
Feel slower, you have to use separate device instead of one which is in your hand, typing shows name is more hassle than onscreen keyboard on the phone, and selecting apps is easier (but change from youtube to crunchyroll is longer)
It does break though from time to time.
But from my limited experience with smart tvs
Chromecast trumps them
Anytime i visit friends and we play netflix, or youtube on their smart tv.
It seems so more troublesome than chromecast.
Feel slower, you have to use separate device instead of one which is in your hand, typing shows name is more hassle than onscreen keyboard on the phone, and selecting apps is easier (but change from youtube to crunchyroll is longer)
It does break though from time to time.
But from my limited experience with smart tvs
Chromecast trumps them
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And here my mother-in-law refuses to believe that it's Google that messed up, not me! She's been reminding me every few hours, it's still not working!
I'm innocent!
I'm innocent!
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Sure. Except the Ultras still work fine and will happily do 4K. Reducing them to e-waste (especially for a closet-treehugger like me) seems wrong on so many levels.
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Damn, I have a few chromecast audios I use semi regularly, I guess I just haven't tried streaming music to any since this went down. Given that Google seems to have abandoned the concept (plus with their relentless drive towards AI enschitifying everything) I've been pondering DIY alternatives but not seriously yet, if they can't fix this then that might be the push I need.
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They no doubt killed it on purpose. 'LOOKING INTO IT' is the likely code for 'stem the protests'.
There needs to be a law against 'planned obscelescence'.
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They announced the end of support for the 1st gen Chromecast a while back and even then, it still works.
What's more likely: that nobody who worked on the 2nd gen Chromecast is even with the company anymore, or if they are they've long since moved onto other things, because maintaining stuff gets you nowhere at Google? Or that they decided to piss everyone off by breaking a product intentionally without announcing an end of support and living up to it (which, despite the jokes about Google killing things, they have consistently done for hardware products, except Stadia, but they refunded everyone for that)?
Never mind that killing it "on purpose" doesn't make any sense because the only reason it's not working is due to an expired certificate that was issued ten years ago. That means they would've decided to kill it on purpose exactly ten years later when it was originally released, and not just end support (like the 1st gen Chromecast), but actively break it.
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