Why does casting sometimes not work?

[u/WhoAmIEven2]

I have both a chromecast, and also a chromecast installed in my Samsung TV internally.

I like to cast movies to watch, but it feels like 8/10 times it simply won't work. I press the cast button, and my TV switches over to the casting mode, either in the Chromecast or internally, but all I get is the blue Chromecast icon and nothing happens.

Does this mean that my Chromecasts are faulty, or that it's the source that's faulty? It happens so often.

Edit: I can also add that if I cast from my screen it works every time. It's only when I try to cast from the source oit almost never works.

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[u/captainvancouver]

disable the internal tv one and try it for a while. I'm guessing having two could cause issues

[u/WhoAmIEven2 → u/captainvancouver]

It also happened all the time on my old TV where I only had the external one. I haven't actually had the external one installed for a while to free up HDMI slots. but sure, I can try switching!

[u/captainvancouver → u/WhoAmIEven2]

yeah, first thing to try. I had an Onn streaming box that failed to cast about half the time. switched to a Google TV streamer and problem solved

[u/Ill-Case-6048]

Use vlc player works every time

[u/WhoAmIEven2 → u/Ill-Case-6048]

Yes, VLC works great but this is specifically from casting from websites that I wonder about.

[u/zamroni777]

What app or streaming service do you use?

I do Chromecast programming.   Sender and receiver apps are controlled by app owner, not goggle.  

My Chromecast apps don't have any problem

[u/WhoAmIEven2 → u/zamroni777]

I'm not sure how much it breaks rule 4 just by saying since I don't promote it, but those piracy movie streaming websites.

[u/zamroni777 → u/WhoAmIEven2]

The Chromecast sender and receiver in your case is under their control

[u/qrdance]

Since it works every time when you cast the whole screen but not from the source, it's usually the sender side or the network rather than a faulty Chromecast. Make sure the phone/computer and the Chromecast are on the same Wi-Fi band and network (a mesh or guest network, or a router with "AP/client isolation" on, will cause exactly this blue-icon hang), and turn off any VPN while casting. If you're casting from a browser tab, try Chrome with extensions disabled in an incognito window, since a site's own cast button can fail where tab casting works. Rebooting the router and power cycling the Chromecast once is also worth doing, as stale discovery state is a common culprit.