Just keep your Chromecast plugged in, and it should come back to life.
2015 Chromecast dongles 2015 Chromecast dongles
Credit: Google
Google's venerable 2015 Chromecast attempted to self-destruct earlier this week, upsetting a huge number of people who were still using the decade-old streaming dongles. Google was seemingly caught off guard by the devices glitching out all at the same time, but it promised to address the problem, and it has. Google says it has a fix ready to roll out, and most affected devices should be right as rain in the coming days.
Google is still not confirming the cause of the Chromecast outage, but it was almost certainly the result of a certificate expiring after 10 years. It would seem there was no one keeping an eye on the Chromecast's ticking time bomb, which isn't exactly surprising—Google has moved on from the Chromecast brand, focusing instead on the more capable Google TV streamer. Even if Google is done with the Chromecast, its customers aren't.
If you left your 2015 Chromecast or Chromecast Audio alone to await a fix, you're in good shape. The update should be delivered automatically to the device soon. "We’ve started rolling out a fix for the problem with Chromecast (2nd gen) and Chromecast Audio devices, which will be completed over the next few days. Users must ensure their device is connected to WiFi to receive the update," says Google.
Chromecast audio and speaker
The Chromecast Audio, which is still beloved by audiophiles, was also affected by the outage. Credit: Google
Some victims of the Chromecast outage attempted to fix the issue in a time-honored way by factory-resetting the device. However, the glitchy devices cannot reconnect in their current state, which leaves them offline. "We are still working to resolve the issue that occurred for users who performed a factory reset during initial troubleshooting," a Google spokesperson said.
Some people with reset devices have had success manually changing their smartphone's date to last week before the outage occurred. They say this allows the phone to connect and configure the reset Chromecast without an error. That might at least get the device online so it can receive Google's fix. However, if you'd prefer to wait for a Google-certified fix, keep an eye on the official support thread.