Are all Chromecast with Google TV like this?

[potatomutt]

I bought two of them and I am setting up the first one.

At first it seemed fine: Home app detected it and connected to wifi and everything seemed to be going great. It got to "Setting up your TV" and just went on endlessly until I checked my phone and it wanted me to answer some questions about data collection on the Home app. I answered them, hit submit, then it said it failed to submit and there was some "Domain" error with a number which I searched and someone said my iPhone might be set to the "wrong" language. I switched it to English (US) and returned to the app, but the questionnaire was gone and it showed the Home app "home" screen, I guess. The chromecast was still showing "Setting up your TV, please follow instructions on your Home App" or whatever.
The Home App no longer detected the ChromeCast. I hit the back button on the ChromeCast remote because I was "having trouble" and that's what it says to do. I manually set up the rest of the ChromeCast and things seemed to settle down and I could stream normally.
So then I wanted to see if I could control my TV's power and my soundbar's volume.
When I went to the Home Screen of the ChromeCast, I could not highlight the gear at the top to change the settings. Holding down the House button on the remote did nothing no matter how long I held. I unplugged the Chromecast, removed the batteries from the remote for a few minutes, then put the batteries back in and plugged the power to the Chromecast back in. Then I could access the gear. I could set the TV power as the power button, but when I went to change sound settings, my soundbar wasn't there (I hadn't expected it, so not a problem).
When I went to add a device and selected "Soundbar" I got a brief "working" circle animation, then back to the remote button assignment screen, but nothing had been added and nothing had prompted me to add what type of soundbar or anything like that.

After some research on this, the only success anyone has had was to FACTORY RESET THE CHROMECAST AND START OVER AGAIN.

So I did!
Now the Home App won't connect to wifi after finding the chromecast and initializing setup. My password has not changed. My wifi is 3 feet away. My PHONE, ON WHICH THE HOME APP IS INSTALLED, can connect to the wifi just fine. So now I am looking at the same situation I think: Some of the setup completed in the Home App, some setup completed "manually" with on screen prompts/entry.
Are all ChromeCast installations this horrible?

[virnab]

Hi potatomutt, 

Thanks for posting in the community.

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you've encountered setting up your Chromecast and soundbar. Your detailed feedback is incredibly helpful as we work to improve this process.

The Chromecast setup should be straightforward, because you just have to follow the tutorial provided through the prompts in the Google TV main screen and/or the Google Home app.

I understand you're still having trouble connecting your Chromecast in the Google Home app. Could you please tell me which device you used to set up your Chromecast with Google TV (Android or iPhone)?

Since you've already performed a factory reset and your Chromecast isn't connecting to the WiFi network, I recommend trying these troubleshooting steps:

1. Make sure that you have the Google Home app updated.
2. You can adjust the settings of the setup device.
   • Android devices: Open the phone’s Settings, then turn on location services, then try to set up the Chromecast again.
   • iOS devices:
   • Go to Settings, then go to Bluetooth, then turn on Bluetooth.
   • Check if access to the Local Network is turned on. To enable Local Network, ask the customer to go to the phone's Settings, then tap Privacy, then tap Local Network, then select the Google Home app.
   • Try to set up the device again with the Chromecast.

If the issue persists, try with the following instructions:

1. Uninstall and reinstall the Google Home app.
2. Reboot the WiFi network:  Unplug the power source for about one minute before plugging back in.
3. Reboot the Chromecast device: Unplug the power cable from the Chromecast device, then leave it unplugged for one minute.  Plug the power cable back in.
4. Reboot your smartphone.
5. Turn WiFi off and on from your mobile device that you are using to set up the Chromecast device.
6. If you have a dual-band router, try setting up Chromecast on either the 2.4 or 5 GHz bands.

Dual-band routers might broadcast two networks with similar names but have 2, 2.4 G or 2.4 GHz as part of the 2.4 GHz band name, and 5, 5 G or 5 GHz as part of the 5 GHz band name. For example, if your Wi-Fi network name is 'Home', you might find 'Home2' and 'Home5' in the list of available networks.

If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Best regards,

Virna