I have a private channel (in use with testers) that I just changed the name by adding “Test”, as I need to use the name for the Public channel. Previous answers in the forum said Roku support had to change the name, but now the interface allows it, although I still get this error:
“Roku requires that names for channels within the Channel Store are unique. The name you have selected for your channel is not available. Please select a different name.”
Do I just need to wait awhile until the Private name is free (10-15 minutes?) or is this a direct intervention from a Roku tech issue still?
To my knowledge, one has always been able to change the channel name - so that part is not new.
I thought the check is real-time, so there shouldn’t be a delay. Can you clearly describe your situation, i am not sure i get it? E.g.
(1) had pvt channel named A
(2) renamed A to “A test” - that worked
(3) trying to create public channel “A” fails now, showing such-and-such error
What answers in the forum say that “Roku support had to change the name”?
The #1-3 steps you outlined are the issue, exactly - step #3 fails with:
“Roku requires that names for channels within the Channel Store are unique. The name you have selected for your channel is not available. Please select a different name”
I thought RokuJoel was referring there to swapping two names A ↔ B.
I have always ass-umed that one can do it manually through “temp variable”, i.e. rename A → C, B → A, C → B
But maybe not. Looking forward to hear what says Roku* …
I remember some similar problems. Try renaming the private channel to something that doesn’t have your desired name in it at all. If you can’t get it to stick make the changes and upload a pkg for that channel ( it can be the current one)
“pcnweb” wrote:
OK, this still doesn’t work today - where do I need to contact to get an actual Roku employee to fix this?
In theory, developer at roku.com
“pcnweb” wrote:
Email sent, but I’m rapidly losing faith in Roku as a viable platform with these kind of simplistic issues.
Well, for some reason RokuCo still sees themselves as a boutique, as a niche platform - seems they are okay if things in the dev.portal are broken, because a human can fix it up for you behind the scenes - instead of having the self-service kiosk working.
It is well-known the Co’s webbers are danger to the society - specifically over the last 2 years, when they re-invented and re-implemented something that did not need fixing. The October update demonstrated again that a 0 (zero) QA is being done for the web. I take solace in the thought that the “web team” is something completely different from the “core team”
“pcnweb” wrote:
DAY 3: No reply in this forum, the LinkedIn Dev group, the developer email, or Dev Twitter - is Roku a dead development platform?
No, it’s just that dev.support are very good at hiding. You should be emailing them daily - by my estimate 90% of emails remain unanswered.
I see you are tenacious, that’s good - you’ll make it through. Who’s still around, let’s see… try PM RokuTomC here?
DAY 6 UPDATE: No response from any channel, now including PMs to Roku employees here on the forum, can someone explain what has gone catastrophically wrong at Roku in terms of support? I’m inundated on a daily basis by their Marketing team to take their Platform/How We Doing? survey, which I assume will just be thrown in the trash since they don’t care how they are doing.
One can only change the public facing name - via the various localized name fields, use English for English speaking localization. The name you created the channel under will still be there. The only way as I understand it to change the name on all sides (both what the public sees and what you see) is to delete the channel and recreate it. The name you create it with is a unique field in our database.
For technical issues, best bet for support is an email to developer@roku.com
Thanks to someone from Roku finally replying. I had to inform test users, then delete the private channel, then the name became available as you explained. Notes:
It should never take this long to get an answer to a non-complicated question.
The channel name should not be used as a unique name on Roku’s side. Any combination of the entered name + hash of the user account info (email, username, etc) should be used instead. As it is now, anyone could squat on any unused name by making a private channel.
I would hazard a guess that many first time users would name their private channel the name they intend to use for the public channel - a big warning on the creation screen might be in order. And probably a more precise message on the public creation screen, ie: “Your public channel name is already in use by your private channel - delete the private channel to continue.”
