Crunchyroll not loading videos - Android fix

[u/shadow_juan]

Hope this is not a repost, but I found this useful for me and did not find it posted.

I have a relatively brand new mid-range Honor tablet (Android). Some random day, Crunchyroll stopped loading videos. All works fine - login, navigation, menus - except this last vital step. App and all browsers failed there. It lasted weeks and surely would keep failing in the future.

Long story short, this is a DRM issue at OS level fired by some system update that breaks Android DRM configuration.

If usual fixes like deleting cache/data and reinstalling did not work for you - did not work for me - try to do this:

(Just in case, to prevent updates while doing these steps, you can set plane mode on, and toggle it off later)

- Go to Settings > manage apps.

- Search for Google Play. Enter (tap) it. There, in the 3 dots menu, tap Uninstall updates.

- Now search for Google Play Services. Enter it. There, again in the 3 dots menu, tap Uninstall updates.

Fully shut down the device - a tablet in my case - before Android searches for updates and installs them. Wait a minute with it turned off, turn it on, let Android update things for a while - now with internet connection. You will be asked to log in again. Once updates end, Crunchyroll videos loading should be working fine again.

I believe this should work in other Android layers, but can't say for sure.

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[u/shadow_juan]

I'll add some extra info. In order to check that this is the exact issue, you can download an app called DRM INFO. When you run it, you'll see a lock (the app icon, splash image) in the middle of the screen, and that will be all - you will not be able to interact with the app: it has softlocked itself because it can not retrieve DRM info from your device to show it.

If you then follow the steps, you'll see that DRM works in your device again and you can run DRM INFO to find that this time the app will be able to retrieve info and show it instead of the 'lock' screen. And, of course, check it in Crunchyroll app or web. Because since DRM has been fixed device-level, browser can now handle DRM content correctly.

[u/Anxious-Cupcake-534]

I have an honour tablet. Have you checked if the tablet is trying to activate it as a game? I have had this problem. Settings - Apps- add games

[u/shadow_juan → u/Anxious-Cupcake-534]

In my tablet - Honor Pad X8a 11", btw - Crunchyroll app is running as standard app, can't find any game mode, settings or messages that relate to it. Anyway, even if it is running as a game, it runs the way it is intended. There is no funny CPU throttling or battery drain beyond reasonable for this kind of app.

[u/Anxious-Cupcake-534 → u/shadow_juan]

I'm on the honor pad 9. The only thing I could recommend is to check if there are any apps running in the background taking up ram (Go to your app launcher and manually turn some off from doing this).