Almost every single "Roku remote won't pair" solution I've found, including yours, assumes that your setup once worked, but somehow lost it's way. In that case, you do have some workarounds, albeit imperfect, to get to your favorite binge party. Roku Mobile App, etc. But almost all of every solution's list of 'try this' tactics are rendered useless if the remotes failed to pair right out of the box. In that case, since the stick/box has not yet been set up, you're hosed unless one of the 'reset everything and try again', change batteries, change TVs, suggestions work. I've spent the last three hours trying to get two shiny, brand new, Roku 4K sticks (rss4k) to work. Tried every troubleshooting tip I could find, including yours. Spent a useless hour on chat doing stupid human tricks with Roku tech support who couldn't even find my order from last week, even though I was looking at it in another tab, yada, yada. These are brand new, sealed box, direct from Roku 4K sticks. They both exhibit the same (mis)behavior. And no amount of cajoling, factory resets, new batteries, different TVs, praying to the gods of streaming, yada, yada, will make them pair.
Does this sound like your experience? I know while trying to find a solution myself, there seems to be quite a few of us. If this applies to you, I have a possible solution for you that I have not yet seen described.
I'm guessing most suffering through this, like me, were upgrading from a previous stick. Either Amazon Fire TV (like me) or a prior version Roku (also like me, we have both). In my situation, the cabling for the TV presents a challenge to add or remove connections. You know. It's fished through the wall to conceal it on its way from the entertainment center cabinet with the A/V components to the wall-mounted TV. Or something similar. All tidy. And the ports to connect the stick to power are the same micro USB between all these devices, including the new one. So I'm venturing that a fair number of people, like me, decided to re-use the existing micro USB power coming from the power adapter brick (aka tombstone). Because it's the same, right? Ummm. No. I had barely glanced at the USB power cable shipped with the new stick. Didn't plan to use it. And, at a glance, looked no different that any number of other longer brick-to-device cables.
After pulling my hair out for a few hours, I decided to start over and follow the install instructions step-by-step, word-by-word. It was here that the problem was solved. A closer look at the new 'power cord' revealed that it actually included a skinny little component in the middle. So skinny that I had overlooked it and dismissed it as YAC (Yet Another Cable). Further investigation revealed that the component located midstream of the power cable was actually the stick's WiFi Receiver !!!!!!!!! Holy crap. So, if you got one of these and it won't pair, check that first.
Interestingly none of the crowdsourced help and support resources had this critical information. The Roku help chat agent never asked anything about the power cable. I have to believe this is happening frequently. So, hopefully your internet search for a solution has landed you here and provides that 'Aha' moment. Cheers.
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