Roku last month dropped Charter’s Spectrum TV app from its Channel Store when it could not reach a new carriage agreement with the cable TV operator. The app, which is still available on Apple TV and other devices, allows Charter’s Spectrum subscribers to watch live TV and On Demand programming without a cable set-top.

Both companies have maintained the app should still be available for Roku owners who downloaded it prior to the Channel Store exit. However, scores of Spectrum customers say their apps have disappeared from their menus although they have done nothing to trigger their removal.

The Roku/Spectrum customers have posted their stories on social media sites, the readers forum here at TV Answer Man, and in several e-mails sent to this reporter.

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@Ask_Spectrum @Roku  could you kindly put you pettiness to wayside and return the app. It has disappeared from all my menus and is making it impossible for me to watch tv on the last football Sunday of the regular season… thank you from a customer of both your services,” @CJStallman said on Twitter yesterday.

@Ask_Spectrum  Our Roku apps stopped working late last night except for one Roku. The apps are still installed and the Roku account has been active for many years. According to the release on your website, they should still continue to function,” added
@eiddor.

“We had Spectrum app on our Roku, took our Roku with us while on vacation, our Spectrum app on roku kept saying connect to internet to get full access. We signed out and tried to sign back in. Said Spectrum app no longer available. We DID NOT uninstall app and we are current Spectrum customers!” ‘Teresa Williams’ said in a message posted last night at the TV Answer Man forum.

Both Roku and Spectrum have said that if you delete the app, you will not be able to replace it.  (The companies say they are trying to negotiate a new deal.) However, the large number of people who say their apps have disappeared even though they didn’t delete them makes some Roku customers suspicious.

“Since Roku was stating that existing users would still be able to use the channel, that would explain why they were removed anyway,” wrote ‘atc98092 on the Roku community forum for Spectrum. “Someone made a mistake about removing existing installations. It was likely human error, and it would be nice if Roku would admit it.”

A Charter Spectrum spokesperson has told the TV Answer Man that the company is not aware of apps being randomly removed by Roku. The streaming device has not commented on the user allegations, but it has referred complaining customers to Charter.

We recommend you contact Spectrum directly for more information and better insight about their channel on Roku,” Roku’s Twitter customer service team said over the weekend.

Spectrum’s Twitter customer service reiterated that a previously downloaded app should still work without issues.

“Our apologies that our app is not currently available on the Roku…At this time existing Spectrum TV App users will continue to have access on their Roku devices,” @AskSpectrum, the cable op’s Twitter customer service team, told one subscriber yesterday.

Some Spectrum customers say their apps are in their menus, but they can no longer log in.

“I’ve been having difficulty signing in to the spectrum app on Roku. It’s not taking my credentials. It used to work, now it doesn’t,” wrote @mrron9.

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— Phillip Swann