How to diagnose? Bought 4 rokus, and none work with Epson projector and Onkyo receiver

[arachnyd]

My receiver is the Onkyo TX-SR3.3 5.1
My projector is an Epson PowerLite 1261W
My Rokus have been a Roku Express, Roku Streaming Stick, Roku XD and Roku XS (plus a sony smart tv box that didn't work)

What steps should I take to diagnose the issue?

First I thought I had bad Rokus, so I replaced them- one after another. I spent some time on the ROKU forums to no avail. Each was used from another place in the house until the last one. I finally bought a new ROKU and it seriously worked for like a month (we only use the projector once or twice a month), and then it stopped working.

I thought it was the onkyo after I gave up on the Rokus, because it often wouldn't "see" the roku's signal unless I left the roku on a while. I always thought that was odd, so I bought an HDMI splitter to send a signal to the receiver for audio and a video signal to the projector.

However, the projector also doesn't "see" the signal from the roku with the splitter bypassing the onkyo, therefore It stays on the screensaver. In fact I bought a new HDMI switch with built in PIP, and it will show one of the other HDMI inputs and rarely shows the roku (but occaisonally will show like half the roku logo).

Anyone know what is going on here? The most obvious problem seems to be the roku, but I've literally used 4 of them over the last year- no exaggeration! The first one I bought was actually a sony smart tv system, so I just thought that was bad. Then I switched to two Rokus (an XS and XD) before getting a roku stick and then a Roku Express. One of the older rokus DOES work on the projector in VGA, but VGA quality is awful. The HD Tuner works fine watching TV, the BluRay player works fine watching bluray, and the Nintendo plays fine.

I'm willing to buy a new Roku, a new Projector, a new Receiver, or anything else, but I'm running out of ideas since I keep bypassing them.

 

[americanaudiophile]

I would connect the Roku to a TV and set the output to 1280 x 720. That's as close as you can get to the WXGA native resolution of the projector.
Then try connecting a Roku directly to the projector with HDMI. Use a Roku that that has it's own power supply rather than a the stick which might be powered by the projector. If it works then try it though the receiver. Turn off any video processing and upscaling the receiver might have.

 

[arachnyd]

I would connect the Roku to a TV and set the output to 1280 x 720. That's as close as you can get to the WXGA native resolution of the projector.
Then try connecting a Roku directly to the projector with HDMI. Use a Roku that that has it's own power supply rather than a the stick which might be powered by the projector. If it works then try it though the receiver. Turn off any video processing and upscaling the receiver might have.

I didn't have the option to set the output to 1280 x 720, but setting it to 720p fixed it. I had no idea that something such as this would have an impact. Thanks so much!