cancel
Turn on suggestions
Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type.
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Help
Replies are disabled for this topic. Start a new one or visit our Help Center.

Chromecast Ghost Activation

Lawdog2012
Community Member

‎10-05-2023 08:49 PM

 

Copied from another submission that never got a response...

 

‎01-21-2022 02:05 AM

I'm often up very late in the evening. I have a Chromecast (2nd gen) connected to my Samsung Smart TV (plugged into my HDMI 3 port). For some unknown (to me) reason, almost every night sometime between 2am and 3am (it's not exactly at the same time each night, but most often within that hour), I'll be watching my Samsung TV (watching regular cable TV, or possibly Netflix) and suddenly, without any actions by me, the Chromecast will automatically come on and take over my TV. It comes on showing the "ambient" setting which is set to display photos from my Google photo albums. The only way to get back to what I was watching is to grab my Samsung remote, then switch the input from HDMI 3 (my Chromecast) back to the source I was previously watching. Why is this happening (regularly, every night), and how can I stop Chromecast from suddenly turning on when I've done nothing to prompt it to turn on? I don't want to kill the ability to cast from my Android phone or Chrome web browser (so I know I don't want to permanently turn off the setting on my Samsung TV for "Anynet+ (HDMI-CED), as I've already tried turning that off and it eliminated my ability to cast to my TV).

0 Kudos
Reply
2 REPLIES 2

Kimy
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

‎10-12-2023 02:54 PM

Hi Lawdog2012,

 

Thanks for posting here in the Google Nest Community. This situation is quite bizarre. The Chromecast 2nd Gen has no hardware or software that can manipulate the TV’s input on its own. We can break it down into options such as moving to a different HDMI port or testing it on a different TV. You can attempt a factory reset for a full clean-up, then set it up from scratch, but if it persists, it means it’s not the device itself.

 

Let us know how it goes with the steps I suggested.

 

Thanks,

Kimy

0 Kudos
Reply

HowdyImSWIM1
Community Member
In response to Kimy

‎10-30-2023 04:22 AM

"If it persists, it means it's not the device itself"

Well that is a potentially false statement when one takes into account the possibility of the TV being told to switch over to the Chromecast input because of HDMI-CEC technology.

My guess would be that the Chromecast's "Ambient Mode" being ”activated” could very likely be the cause; with it "telling " the TV that an HDMI-CEC device has turned on causing the change. 

Lastly it may be seemingly random, yet with some consistency as a result of the OP's TV/Chromecast use habits; if OP uses the Chromecast at around the same on most nights before switching over to other Input device then the fact that "ambient mode" turns on with a delay sometimes (similar to a screen saver) which if HDMI-CEC theory is correct, then that would explain the issue occuring during a certain time window each night without any user input.

 Also would explain the quick fix of simply switching back to previous input because now Ambient mode is on (and will stay on till Chromecast is used again) so won't cause the change again and/or OP is likely asleep and/or TV is turned off entirely before ambient mode has the chance to turn on again.

 

Sorry for the long reply but thought I'd chime in.h

At the very least to address one of the things that drives me nuts; someone stating something to be an inarguable fact when the reality is one inarguably cannot correctly do so because their "factual" statement is inarguably NOT a fact. ofen in reality one cannot make such a statement

0 Kudos
Reply