Youtube Restricted Mode Issues on Roku

So, between having a tween in the house, and our own preference to avoid salacious or overly profane content on the internets, we like to keep what content we consume fairly open with one another.

We also rather dislike excessive and intrusive advertising while we are online.  As such, all of our laptops have the uBlock Origin extension installed nearly by default.  Also, I cannot recommend the Shut Up extension enough.  It makes Youtube bearable.

Recently we have noticed that while watching Youtube videos on our two Roku televisions, many educational videos have suddenly been coming up as "unable to view in Restricted Mode - switch to a G Suite account" or some such drivel.  At first we blew it off, but lately it has seemed as though almost half the videos we have tried to watch have been flagged this way, and it's been very annoying.

Yes, I have gone into my account and ensured that "Restricted Mode" was off.

Yes, I have uninstalled and reinstalled the application on the Roku.

Finally this morning I believe I have cracked the issue.  It wasn't with the Roku at all.

One quick and easy way to protect your family internet use is to switch from your ISP's default DNS to something like OpenDNS - something I have done for years to "good" effect.  Questionable content is always a matter of a combination of personal taste and playing whack-a-mole.  OpenDNS does a great job of it, and it was my go-to and will likely remain so.

But, in an effort to reduce online advertising - I recently switched from OpenDNS to AdGuardFamilyProtectionDNS.  I'm also all about streamlining, so instead of doing this on each of our laptops, I always just make these changes at the router level, and the laptops just have DHCP set to automatic (with occasional IP reservations again at the router level).

Well, on a lark today, I switched back from AdGuard to OpenDNSFamilyShield and immediately, the videos resumed playing as we expected!  Awesome!

So that's about it - if you're getting this restricted mode issue on your Roku devices, it's likely because you have some sort of DNS blocking issue at the router level (Roku devices seem to be unable to set their own IP and DNS addresses - at least I could find no evidence that it is possible).  You'll have to log in to your router and switch up the DNS settings from there.

I'd recommend Google's DNS if you want things wide open.  8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4.
I'd strongly recommend OpenDNSFamilyShield if you want to block loads of crap, but still have a seamlessly functioning internet for adults.  208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123.

Cheers!