Google Play Services 11.9.75 fixes Chromecast, Nexus Player bugs

Google has recently come under fire for the buggy, or at the very least annoying, behavior of its new hardware. But who would have expected it would also botch it's already existing, even old, devices as well. That's what owners of Google Cast-enabled devices and the almost ancient Nexus Player discovered at the start of the new year, when they suddenly found themselves unable to use said devices properly. Fortunately, the fix is now out after Google has seemingly fast-tracked its own beta testing process to address these issues.

The Chromecast, and some Cast-enabled devices, were the first to exhibit unruly behavior. Owners of such devices started experiencing dropped Wi-Fi connections across different routers and brands. The working theory is that an update somewhere caused Cast devices to send out massive amounts of data packets that it would normally send in small, timed bursts to discover other nearby Cast devices. These bursts cause routers to temporarily shutdown from the overload.

That same theme of discovering nearby devices carries over to the Nexus Player. This time, though, it affected the Nexus Player remote more than the media player itself. After a few minutes, the remote would apparently go to sleep, which not only breaks the connection with the Nexus Player, it also makes it difficult to pair up with again. A Google engineer attributes it to device scanning being turned on for the Nexus Player accidentally.

The good news? The fix is finally here, and in surprising speed even. Google Play Services version 11.9.75 follows on the heels of an 11.9.74 beta pushed barely two weeks ago. Google usually takes its time to let these betas stew and get tested but, given the urgency of the bug fixes it brings, it's a good thing it pushed it sooner rather than later. Hopefully that rush won't cause newer and worse bugs to pop up.