Thanks for your reply, @AndrewMueller!It was my conspiracy that Google
was crippling the older model Chromecasts to promote the sales of the
newer models. However, @Niiilss below shared that his new model
Chromecast unfortunately had the same problem...
I wonder who asked you these questions... With so many reports here of
the same issue with sufficient details, I don't think it's fair to
further waste users' time by asking these non-sensical blanket
questions.
More disappintingly, it seems that nobody from the product team is
monitoring this forum - the original post is 6 months old now but it's
still only users complaining and no Googler following up.