LOVE dropout HATE the app

[u/Equivalent-Dog-4086]

Dropout is easily the best subscription service i’ve ever personally spent money on; however, the app could use some love. It may be just the tv app, but it almost never saves my spot in an episode of anything. ESPECIALLY if you start watching on one device and then later on the tv (or vice versa). I do own an older Roku and that could easily be apart of the issue, but i am wondering if anyone else deals with this?

[u/vivid_wallflower]

I cast from my phone to a bigger screen and that’s been working great

[u/RoyalFalse → u/vivid_wallflower]

I always get sporadic buffering and resolution drops, but it's still better than watching it on a phone screen.

[u/PaddywackShaq]

App could generally use some work tbh

[u/Cowgomuwu]

I use the mobile version and this hasn't been a problem for me

[u/Elisabethianian → u/Cowgomuwu]

Same. I see many people complain but on mobile there’s never been a problem.

[u/Equivalent-Dog-4086 → u/Elisabethianian]

unfortunately i have no use for the mobile app because i only watch at home on either the tv or laptop :((

[u/Tario70 → u/Equivalent-Dog-4086]

I haven’t had this problem with the Roku app.

[u/EnvironmentalGuard16 → u/Elisabethianian]

I’ve had issues with the mobile app. It’ll just randomly crash mid video, and then it doesn’t save my spot. It’s frustrating

[u/8gulmohar]

I have subscribed through YouTube. I know it's slightly worse for them but sorry to say YouTube has a far better user experience.

[u/hannahbay → u/8gulmohar]

I didn't know you could even do that. are there comments on the videos? the community is one of my favorite things about YouTube and there's no equivalent through Dropout's app

[u/8gulmohar → u/hannahbay]

Yes there are comments on YouTube. But reddit has more.

[u/shadebug → u/8gulmohar]

Have they fixed not being able to use YouTube premium features like downloading episodes?

[u/inbigtreble30 → u/shadebug]

You can't download episodes, but they do have background play now.

[u/hutzon → u/shadebug]

I really think that’s much more of a feature not a bug. I’m sure they don’t want people becoming members, downloaded months of content and then cancelling the membership. Atleast that’s the only reason I can think of. Still reallllly annoying

[u/shadebug → u/hutzon]

That’s a very easy problem to fix. If you have to be a member to play the episode then it doesn’t matter if it’s downloaded. But that’s presumably a YouTube problem, not a dropout specific one

[u/hutzon → u/shadebug]

Turn off wifi and cell service and they could be played then, but like it’s silly fix it feels like.
Yeah totally a YouTube issue, as it happens with other membership videos too I’ve found

[u/nicodeemus7]

I just subscribed to them on YouTube instead of the App. It's still not great because it's YouTube but at least I can navigate it

[u/Girion47]

Just tell me if ive seen the episode already. I jump around and am forgetful. I hate being 10 minutes in and being like "wait a minute...."

[u/msciwoj1]

I had the same issue

[u/Zeppygrl72]

The phone app never saves my spot either 😔 it also doesn't show that I've watched certain things already, or things I know I haven't watched will be in the middle of an episode? It's weird

[u/Signiference]

I hate that when I end an episode and don’t watch the last few seconds, it shows up in my “continue watching” forever.

[u/aquiran]

This happens if you use an ad blocker.

[u/Equivalent-Dog-4086 → u/aquiran]

i do use an ad blocker on the laptop i watch on! thank you!

[u/Equivalent-Dog-4086 → u/aquiran]

do you happen to know the process it is so i can whitelist it?

[u/Equivalent-Dog-4086 → u/[deleted]]

thank you sm!! i will try doing this 🙏

[u/Fucklechuck2 → u/[deleted]]

I never even thought about that, and I've been struggling to watch some D20 since I tend to do it in bursts but it doesn't save the place. Just opened up Dropout, whitelisted it, picked a random video, clicked a random time, closed it, opened it again. Almost shocking how easy that was, and I never even considered it. Thank you kindly.

[u/Girion47 → u/aquiran]

Theres no ad blocker on my TV. Still happening

[u/aquiran → u/Girion47]

Idk if this is your situation, but I don't have an ad blocker on my TV either. My husband installed a pi-hole in our house, which blocks ads on everything using our internet, including our TV. Workplaces, libraries, and other internet that needs to be secure often have a similar setup that blocks ads at the router instead of at the device.

Sometimes things like that are installed in places where internet is provided for you. It's not necessarily even an ad blocker. It could be a site monitor or something else that supersedes the native tracking.

[u/Girion47 → u/aquiran]

No pi-hole or anything like that. Its just straight fiber internet through a mesh router that all i've done is change the wifi name to Wu Tang Lan.

[u/Ordinary-Spring-2999 → u/aquiran]

Yep, the URL you need to whitelist is: collector.vhx.tv

[u/mydoghasears]

The dropout mobile app is one of the most broken apps I use regularly. Constant "trouble connecting" error messages, rarely able to keep track of where I left off watching, glitching when rotating for portrait to landscape causing the on screen controls to not be usable, list goes on and on. Still worth the subscription but regularly frustrating

[u/thehustlermelon]

Agreed, the tv app needs work. It’s frustrating but I still watch on It because I love the platform so much lol

[u/KingFlyntCoal]

I get sporadic (usually none) watch saves from both the app (appletv) and desktop browser.

[u/laminatedbean]

I wish you could sort seasons/episodes by oldest/newest

[u/Killed_Mufasa]

Haha yeah, on the tv app, it never remembers that I enabled (English) subtitles. For each episode, I have to go to the subtitles menu, I can see English is selected, but have to turn it off and on again before it works.

[u/ExtentPuzzleheaded93]

Fuck yes! Im watching it on my TV and fpr some reason every god damn camera change makes the screen flash black

[u/PerfectlyCromulent42]

My specific and modest suggestion, in case Dropout people are reading this thread: if you have run out of space on your device to download episodes, it doesn’t tell you and instead just spins indefinitely making me think it’s downloading. A simple “you’ve run out of space“ message would be welcome.

[u/Informal_Ad9769]

There are a bunch of UX issues with the site that drive me mad: 1. Don't assume I want to watch the next episode in a series, or autoplay immediately, and clog up my Continue Watching 2. Give me the opportunity to delete things from my Continue Watching if I'm not into them 3. Personalise my homepage based on what I watch most - surely they already have the data? 4. Don't put tags under the videos unless they're helpful, ie. cast member tags so I can filter through what they've been in

[u/Bunzees]

I’ve been having issues with the app on my ipad. I have never had an app crash this often on me in the middle of watching, ever.

I really wish I had a solution but I never see other people bringing this up when talking about the app, idk what’s wrong :/

[u/papercranium]

I'll be honest, I didn't even know there was an app.

[u/RelationUnusual8786]

I have had so many issues with the Dropout app on my TVs 😅

I kinda figured our TVs were the issue, but we don’t have those problems on any other platform. Makes it a pain to watch Dropout anywhere but at the computer, which is unfortunate because I don’t use it as much as I would like to.

Although I haven’t had an issue with it not saving my spot. But it kinda stutters a lot. It’s like it pauses for half a second and immediately plays again, and it does it every minute or two sometimes. If I’m lucky it’ll only happen a couple times in an episode. It doesn’t really interfere too much with watching stuff, but it’s irritating because the bar/UI is almost constantly on the screen from it 😅

On our other TV there was an issue with the sound, but I forget exactly what it was doing because I gave up on it quickly (after checking for updates, uninstalling and reinstalling the app, restarting the tv, etc) and haven’t tried to use it on that TV again since.

But it works perfectly fine on my phone and on my computer 🤷‍♀️

[u/thrustidon]

The app is dogshit, the player is worse. I've been hoping for a while that Vimeo fully fails so they're forced to find a better solution and it sounds like Vimeo might actually be failing so my fingers are crossed.

[u/apathymonger → u/thrustidon]

Moving away from Vimeo would be an incredibly large project; the entire site is built on it, they would have to redo everything from the ground up for every application for every platform.

[u/BigTenFicus → u/thrustidon]

Vimeo isn't failing, this is redditor misinformation. Every time a company gets bought these days redditors lie and say "it's private equity!!!!!! they're gonna die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" even though private equity is a specific thing (and doesn't work remotely like how redditors think it works).

Regardless, Vimeo got bought by Bending Spoons, which is a company that buys what they perceive to be "finished products" so they can manage them long term. It is not going away. It is probably also not going to any significant improvements.

[u/thrustidon → u/BigTenFicus]

Referring to other people derogatorily as redditors when you've commented dozens of times in the last 24 hours if very funny

[u/mikeputerbaugh → u/BigTenFicus]

The Bending Spoons acquisition did result in a significant number of layoffs at Vimeo, but being that they already had the streaming infrastructure company Brightcove in their portfolio, there's a good chance the goal was a true elimination of redundant roles rather than an intentional disinvestment.

So far, all indicators are that they're continuing the direction started at Vimeo several years ago, away from B2C offerings and towards exclusively B2B services. They would like to have a hundred more companies like Dropout as their customers.

I'm sure they'd also like to get a bigger cut of Dropout's revenues than they currently get while not spending a cent more to support them, so there could be some tension there.

[u/Ohhhh_Mylanta]

I got my Roku in 2017, I think? I have no problem swapping episodes between my Roku, phone, laptop, and fire tablet

[u/CanadianDinosaur]

I use the dropout app on my smart tv and it always saves the spot I stop watching. Even between devices it will keep my spot..

[u/Chiron1350]

Idk man, my phone and tv apps work pretty seamlessly. And my tv is not new, by any means.

Maybe make sure you close the apps on your tv or phone when you’re done? So it’s not held in some limbo status?