Roku streaming devices have been hit with a massive outage.
Sarah Tew/CNETRoku streaming players and TVs suffered a major outage Tuesday afternoon, with many users reporting they couldn't access Netflix, YouTube and other channels.
"Roku is aware of an issue where some channels may not install on your Roku streaming player or Roku TV, or they may fail to load," Roku said in a support advisory page on its website Tuesday afternoon. "We are investigating and working toward a quick resolution."
We are aware of a technical glitch affecting certain channels on your Roku player or Roku TV. We hope to have the issue resolved shortly. You can get a status update at https://t.co/mxCNxoG36N. We apologize for any inconvenience.
— Roku Support (@RokuSupport) May 15, 2018
The message is apparently a standard in-house message Roku sometimes uses.
"We use that warning when we detect content that has violated copyright," Roku said in a statement. "Some channels in our Channel Store displayed that message and became inaccessible after Roku implemented a targeted anti-piracy measure on the platform."
It wasn't immediately clear how many customers were affected by the outage. Injecting a bit of intrigue into the outage is that some users report seeing a message that the channel they sought to view had been removed "due to repeated claims of copyright infringement."
Hey @rokusupport here is the message when trying to launch YouTube on my Roku TV. Has Roku removed the @YouTube app? This seems very odd to get a FBI warning. pic.twitter.com/i8mwznWZQx
— willwinter (@willwinter) May 15, 2018
Roku representatives didn't immediate respond to a request for comment.
Updated at 6:30 p.m. PT with Roku statement on FBI piracy message.
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