Nvidia added a buggy Android 11 update to its Shield TV lineup

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

When Nvidia announced the rollout of the Shield Experience 9.0 (Android 11) update for its Android TV devices, we were impressed by the simple fact that it would include Shield TV models dating back to 2015 — but the buzz was short-lived as many owners are reporting major bugs on even the latest models.

As 9to5Google reports, people that ran the update on their Shield TVs lost access to their Plex media servers — a popular use case for the devices thanks to their powerful processor and a USB port that supports storage devices.

Nvidia is taking action on the matter: it posted a support page explaining how to give apps (like Plex) permission to use storage devices in Android 11, and at least one Reddit user wrote that it fixed their Plex server. The company also opened a support forum to collect bug reports on its Android 11 products directly from users and developed a list of about 27 known and reported bugs.

Another popular use case for the Shield TV is running Kodi for live TV and other media — but there are reports it also shows performance issues, stuttering, and outputting blank screens. Even popular streaming apps like YouTube and Hulu have exhibited everything from delayed loading to blank screens, according to posts on the Shield subreddit.

Nvidia’s HotFix program is available for testing bug fixes as they come out, but bear in mind that these are untested releases that break some DRM-d services like Disney Plus and don’t include an option to roll back.