Issue casting BT Sport from my Android phone to Chromecast

[JJ49]

My partner and I have a fibre broadband contract with Plusnet and we also pay an extra £10 per month to Plusnet so that we can have the BT Sport app on my Android smartphone.  We follow live rugby union matches on BT Sport and have a Chromecast device plugged into one of the HDMI ports on our TV.

We have watched matches on the BT Sport app most weekends for several seasons, casting from my smartphone to our TV via Chromecast.  But last weekend we are unable to cast from the app and I have been unable to diagnose the problem. 

We can cast from other apps on my smartphone (e.g. BBC Sport, BBC News & Youtube) which seems to prove that the Chromecast device and our phones are all on the same wifi network.  So the problem may be with the BT Sport app.

I have uninstalled and re-installed the BT Sport app twice on my smartphone and I have re-booted the Chromecast device.  All to no avail.  When I attempt to cast, all I get is a rotating circle at the bottom of my TV screen which continues for about a minute before giving up.

For information, my smartphone is a Sony Xperia L1 but I expect that to be irrelevant because we have been able to cast BT Sport from them for several years – since well before the Covid lockdowns.

Everything was working fine the previous weekend when we were able to cast BT Sport on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 9th, 10th & 11th December, but it would not cast this weekend (16th and 17th Dec).

Has something changed at the BT Sport or Plusnet end?  What advice does anyone have?

PS: I emailed tv.apps@bt.com about this on 17th Dec, but they haven't replied.  So I thought I would try this forum.

[DarrenDev]

Sorry - I saw your email along with 2 others reporting the same issue. I contacted a colleague straight away, but forgot to reply to the email.

We can't reproduce your issue at all on any of our devices, so at the moment we're blind as to what it could be. Due to a change freeze over Christmas, we're unable to add any additional logging to find the potential cause.

You say that the spinner stays on screen when you attempt to cast. What exactly are you doing in the app? Are you choosing the cast option from the main screen? Or inside the player?

If you choose from the main screen when you launch the app, does the spinner get stuck at that point? Or is it after you select something to watch?

[JJ49]

Thank you for replying Darren Dev.

You ask what exactly I am doing in the app, so I will describe it as best I can:
I tap on the BT Sport app in order to launch it.
Then I go to the channel schedule in the app and tap on a match that I want to watch.
If the broadcast has begun it displays on my smartphone's screen.
I then tap on the screen and the 'cast' icon appears next to the 'hamburger' icon.
I then tap on that 'cast' icon.

Until last weekend the Chromecast device plugged into an HDMI port on my TV would take control of the TV set after a brief delay and display the selected match.
But last weekend the Chromecast device turned my TV screen blank and displayed a rotating circle at the bottom of my TV screen which continued for about a minute before giving up.   I have tried to cast BT Sport again today before replying to you and the problem is still there.  Please see the photo of my TV screen which was attached to my email on 17th Dec.

You also ask what happens if I choose the 'cast' icon from the main screen when I launch the app.  I had not tried that until today and I am afraid that I get a black TV screen with the same small rotating circle at the bottom.  I have to switch my TV off and on again to get rid of it and control back on my TV remote control.

Does any of the above give you any clues?  Has anything changed at your end since the weekend of 9-11 December?

Thanks again
JJ49

[DarrenDev]

That's awesome, thanks for the detail.
So when connecting from the main menu, the spinner is stuck on screen before you even select anything to watch?
For it to get stuck like that, a script error must have occurred during initialisation. For it to happen on launch, and for it to only happen on some devices (and when we haven't changed anything at our end), we can only assume it'll be related to a software update on the device.
Do you have the Google Home app installed on your phone? From there, you should be able to confirm the software version currently on your device.

[JJ49]

Thank you Darren Dev for replying again.

When you say that you can only assume it'll be related to a software update on the device, I assume that the device you mean is the Chromecast device and not my smartphone which has not had a recent software update.

I do have the Google Home app installed on my phone and it says this regarding 'Technical information':
Cast firmware: 1.36.159268
Mac address: 6C:AD:F8:8C:5B:B7
Country code: GB
IP address: 192.168.1.73

Is that (or at least part of that) what you are asking for?

For info, I have rebooted the Chromecast device since the issue raised its head.

So.......  If you haven't changed anything at BT Sport since the weekend of 9-11th December and my phone hasn't had a software update since then either - there must have been a change in my Chromecast device.

I used to work in IT devlopment at Barclays Bank before I retired, so I do have some understanding of supporting apps and computer systems, but I know absolutely nothing about how my Chromecast device interacts with my home broadband wifi.  If I were to try to contact Google I wouldn't know where to start.  I am hoping that you can ask Google if there has been a change to Chromecast since 9-11th December. 

My Chromecast is a 1st generation device, if that helps.  It has worked fine with BT Sport and also any other app on my phone which I cast to it ......... until now.  And it still works with other apps.  I am willing to buy a new (more recent) Chromecast device if that is the only way I can cast from the BT Sport app.  But I would like and admission from Google that they changed something in the past 10 days, and also assurance that it would allow me to cast BT Sport again.

Hope that you get somewhere with Google because I think that they would take more notice of you than me.

Regards
JJ49

[DarrenDev]

The last update for 1st Gen devices was released at the end of November, so it is possible that you didn't pick it up straight away. I'll get one of the team to check that device with that specific version though, just to make sure.

Regardless of result, I'm straight it's going to be the first week of January before we'll be allowed to do anything about it

[gomezz]

One other thing to try is to Force Stop the BT Sport app and Clear Cache (do *not* Clear All Data / Manage Data which will lose you your login and other settings).

[DarrenDev]

There's nothing on the phone that could cause this. It's something on the Chromecast that is causing the script to fail.

[JJ49]

Gomezz,

You will see (from my initial post at 15:03 yesterday) about this problem that I have twice uninstalled and re-installed the BT Sport app on my phone.  Those actions will have cleared the cache.  I fail to see why you suggest clearing the cache again.

Indeed DarrenDev said in another post immediately after your intervention that there is nothing on my phone that could cause this.

[gomezz]

@DarrenDevNot familiar with the inner workings of how Chromecast works but the app has to tell the Chromecast device what to play so there must be some passage of information for this to happen.  Corruption in the app's memory usage could possibly lead to malformed data being passed over which just happens to trigger the symptoms seen - unlikely but not impossible, I have seen far stranger things in over a quarter a century of supporting computers.  But as said the app being re-installed tends to rule this out in this case.