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Device Utility App to Re-activate Chromecast

nickglp
Community Member

Hello,

I have factory reset an old chromecast gen 2 that I own and when i attempt to set it up using the google home app it prompts me with,

"Chromecast found. It needs to be activated before setup."

Then the next page sends me to the Help Center to download the Device Utility App to re-activate the chromecast.

The device utility app finds the chromecast but then shows up with an error message stating it cannot connect to the chromecast.

Has anyone had any success "activating" a chromecast or using the device utility app?

Screenshot_20220109-084201.png           Screenshot_20220109-084151.png

1 Recommended Answer

gpries
Community Member

I was able to figure out how to work around this garbage app:

1) Open Device Utility, and then turn wifi off as it says to

2) Let it find your device, tap on the name if you have multiple devices that need activation

3) Go back over to your phone's wifi and turn it back on (wifi is required for setup, even though they force you to turn it off. At this point in the app, we should be passed the blocking wifi check)

4) Go back to the Device Utility app and tell it to connect to the device

It should connect now and display the code on the screen.

 

Steps with screenshots

1) Let Device Utility tell you to turn off wifi

Screenshot_20220110-204041.png

2) Let it find your devices with wifi off

Screenshot_20220110-204055.png

3) It will either find 1 device, or multiple. If it finds multiple, tap on the device on the list. If it finds just one device, move on to the next step

Screenshot_20220110-194049.png or Screenshot_20220110-204107.png

4) Go into your phones settings a turn wifi back on, we've bypassed the wifi check and we need wifi to complete activation

Screenshot_20220110-204119.png

5) Go back to the Device Utility app now that wifi is re-enabled, and continue with setup. It should now actually be able to connect to your device and set it up.

Screenshot_20220110-204133.png

I must say that Google's Chromecast support was _very bad_ in my experience with them. I am a software developer and had to figure this out for myself, I can only hope that it works for others too.

View Recommended Answer in original post

202 REPLIES 202

This doesn't work on Google Home Mini. I'm using a Pixel 6 to activate.

??!??? Google home mini is not a Chromecast

Of course not. The same app is used to activate it in the same way.

The user gpries specifically shows a Home Mini in the screenshots.

RWPro
Community Member

I have a pixel 6a and a 1st gen mini. This worked for me!

Dhcosmo16
Community Member

What did you do different? I just got the pixel 4, no idea what I need to do?

Alan_D
Community Member

factory reset my chromecast
fired up device utility after I downloaded it from the play store (I've had it for a little while though).  
disabled wifi
enabled wifi and connected to the AP from my chromecast
on my pixel, there is a little warning that pops up saying this connection has no internet access.. tap on that and it will prompt you to stay connected, select that and hit ok.
go back to device utility and let it run right on through like you normally would... easy peasy.  

How...

I have the pixel 6 and nothing works 

Apart from above stated steps, please disable your mobile data connection on your phone.

OddJob
Community Member

This is not working for me. It tells me to connect to the Chromecast hotspot. So I turned wifi back on, connecting to the Chromecast listed in the available wifi's. It says connected to Chromecast, but nothing happens. If I switch wifi over to my network still nothing happens. I have been messing with this for hours. So frustrating when it should be simple!

Rec01L
Community Member

Same issue I had, put your phone in airplane mode then turn your Bluetooth on (app needs to see it's on even if your chrome cast is gen 1) and wife back on after the check as outlined above, connect to the Chromecast wifi, then try again. Most new Android and iOS devices won't communicate with an SSID that isn't connected to the internet (IE your unregistered Chromecast) so the phone is going to try and set it up using your 4/5G connection which won't work. Only option is to not give your phone ANY OTHER OPTION than to use the 1 wifi connection it has.

This is an issue for so many 3rd party products in my industry (commercial AV) 

Hope this helps!

 

 

Llebowski
Community Member

This is the way... don't know how much time I wasted on trying anything logical - thanks for posting this. 

__
Community Member

Same issue here: we got a new router & were forced to do the update utility. The workaround here didn't work at all, instead it just continuously tries to connect & never does. Thanks to Google our once perfectly good devices instantly become e-waste.

Rec01L
Community Member

Same issue I had, put your phone in airplane mode then turn your Bluetooth on (app needs to see it's on even if your chrome cast is gen 1) and wife back on after the check as outlined above, connect to the Chromecast wifi, then try again. Most new Android and iOS devices won't communicate with an SSID that isn't connected to the internet (IE your unregistered Chromecast) so the phone is going to try and set it up using your 4/5G connection which won't work. Only option is to not give your phone ANY OTHER OPTION than to use the 1 wifi connection it has.

This is an issue for so many 3rd party products in my industry (commercial AV) 

Hope this helps!

 

 

Alan_D
Community Member

Just did this with my pixel 4a and android 12 (beta channel).

Of course home sees it but says it needs to be activated using device manager.
fire up device manager.
it says turn off wifi, I do, and then turn it back on and connect to the ap hotspot the chromecast creates (did this on a 1st gen, 2nd gen, and 3rd gen in the last two days).
wait a few seconds and you'll see a message in your app notifications bar about the wifi  not having internet access.  Click on that and tell it to stay connected.  I suspect it's disconnecting before it can fully connect due to the internet check and thats screwing things up.
from there all goes exactly as suspected.  Screen pops up with verify the code, hit yes or enter or whatever it prompts.  Once thats done, activation works.  After that fire up home, add device, add it to home, add it to room, done.

Mobile data is on the whole time.. I don't think that's what the problem is at all (and it doesn't make any sense that it would be a problem).  The fact that they dang near hide the warning about no internet and that you have to select stay connected and cannot make that a default option is a serious flaw in the OS design ...  This may be an android 12 or bone stock android issue, with other mfg's having it fixed (folks are succeeding just fine on samsung devices)

Nictansh
Community Member

Anyone else finding that they still have the issue after using this troubleshooting method? 

agd
Community Member

Yes, but I think I figured out why.

Once you manually connect to the chromecast wifi network, my phone (Pixel 4a) detected the wifi network isn't providing internet. It pops a notification to tell you and give you 'options'. You need to go into these, and set it to remain connected despite the lack of internet.

If you don't do this, I think the phone just disconnects or disables that wifi again, before the device utility can finish doing it's job.

Utterly stupid design. Took more attempts going around in circles retring this than I want to admit before stumbling onto that tip.

dylanmmurphy
Community Member

Thanks!!! This worked where the other suggested things didn't.

Alan_D
Community Member

This worked.  As an additional percaution when I configured that network connection, I used the device mac vs. randomized hardware addresses... 

cmsigler
Community Member

@gpries -- *Thank*You*!!!  Like other replies, your discovery of turning WiFi back on at the correct step where it is needed solved this problem for me 🙂 

Thank you thank you thank you!! I just bought a new Chrome Audio from Walmart fro my Transparent speaker and was desperately stuck in Device Utility. Thanks a million for sharing this!

drdogbot7
Community Member

This works but seriously WTF?

Topper007
Community Member

Solution not working on Google Home 

After following the solution steps I get 

"Could not communicate with Google Home" message 

 

sreizes
Community Member

This did not work for my device, the utility cannot find it via bluetooth nor connect via wifi.

chela186
Community Member

This worked perfectly! Thanks so much ❤️

JVargasN
Community Member

1 hour fighting again this s**tty app, and now im able to use chromcast normally, thankiu arigato, u save my day!

Bmorn20
Community Member

Device ultility won't even populate any devices 

Furgus
Community Member

Amazing thanks so much i have spent ages on this!!  Turning Wifi back on fixed this perfectly for me.

But then it still says you can't connect to it so what then it's really frustrating

jibs_01
Community Member

Solution does not work on Gen 1 Chromecast. Device Utility times out after re-enabling wi-fi and reports "Unable to communicate with Chromecast"

I just posted a new reply as well, but disabling Mobile Data as suggested in this article seemed to work for me:

 

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Chromecast/Could-not-communicate-with-your-chromecast/m-p/209... 

farsder
Community Member

Thank you so much. I was getting so frustrated until I came upon your instructions. It worked instantly!

derat
Community Member

The key addition to the steps for me was to first turn off mobile data on my phone. Otherwise, after manually connecting to the Chromecast's wifi network, I'd always get a "Could not communicate with your Chromecast" dialog. Oddly, entering airplane mode and just enabling wifi didn't seem to work -- I specifically needed to turn off mobile data.

I'm guessing there's a bug where the Device Utility app's attempts to talk to the Chromecast are being routed through the mobile network interface instead of the wifi interface.

tom9
Community Member

Disabling mobile data worked for me, many thanks!


@gpries wrote:

I was able to figure out how to work around this garbage app:

1) Open Device Utility, and then turn wifi off as it says to

2) Let it find your device, tap on the name if you have multiple devices that need activation

3) Go back over to your phone's wifi and turn it back on (wifi is required for setup, even though they force you to turn it off. At this point in the app, we should be passed the blocking wifi check)

4) Go back to the Device Utility app and tell it to connect to the device

It should connect now and display the code on the screen.

 

Steps with screenshots

1) Let Device Utility tell you to turn off wifi

Screenshot_20220110-204041.png

2) Let it find your devices with wifi off

Screenshot_20220110-204055.png

3) It will either find 1 device, or multiple. If it finds multiple, tap on the device on the list. If it finds just one device, move on to the next step

Screenshot_20220110-194049.png or Screenshot_20220110-204107.png

4) Go into your phones settings a turn wifi back on, we've bypassed the wifi check and we need wifi to complete activation

Screenshot_20220110-204119.png

5) Go back to the Device Utility app now that wifi is re-enabled, and continue with setup. It should now actually be able to connect to your device and set it up.

Screenshot_20220110-204133.png

I must say that Google's Chromecast support was _very bad_ in my experience with them. I am a software developer and had to figure this out for myself, I can only hope that it works for others too.


Hi everyone, I have this same issue but with my Sennheiser soundbar. Doing this "hack" still results in no WiFi network being displayed, and manual entry of the WiFi details gives the same error message. Any advice?

Google should be focusing more on this than other subjects. The support for home apps has been very regretful

Solved it Saturday. The only way was factory resetting the Chromecast.  Then the device utility app.and home app where able to recognize 

Quinnktm
Community Member

I could kiss you. Thank you for solving this for me. 

EhsanKia
Community Member

I'm honestly curious what the cause of this is. Is it android 12 related? I am also an engineer and struggled for 15m, then my friend with an old Samsung phone was able to setup without any issues...

Pixel 6 with Chromecast Audio on April 5th 2022.
Device is "Registered" now lets see if we can get Google Home to configure it...