Chromecast debug- can cast but cannot inspect

Question

I have a gen3 chromecast device (whitelisted) and have had no issues inspecting traffic using chrome://inspect in the past. Now all of a sudden I just cannot seem to debug the CC device.

When I “chrome://inspect” I can see the device (not by its name that I have setup. It just says Chromecast) but when I start playing I don’t see the inspect option to start inspecting

I have tried the following:

1. Updated chrome
2. Re-booted the CC device
3. Re-booted wifi router
4. Tried it on a different TV

Also when I try to adb connect it throws an error saying that the device rejected connection. What does this mean and how do I resolve this?

Answer 1

I was having the same issue, there are a few things you need to make sure are set up correctly.

For the Chromecast:

1. Make sure the Chromecast is registered to your account on https://cast.google.com/publish/#/overview
2. Double-check the serial as it can mix O and 0, 1 and l, etc.
3. (Not sure if 100% it's necessary) Enabled "send statistics to Google" in the settings.
4. Once the device is "Ready For Testing" reboot it.

For the app:

1. The app must be registered to the same account as the device.
2. If you don't have an app (e.g. just want to test casting from your website), you need to create one. You can make it a "Styled Media Receiver" so you don't need to host JS anywhere. It's basically the same as the default receiver.
3. Make sure your app is published. Once it is, reboot the Chromecast.
4. The app must already be running before you can inspect it.

To make sure the issue is not coming from your website, you can use https://casttool.appspot.com/cactool/ (replace the appID with yours).

Start casting, then head to chrome://inspect/#devices and the "inspect" button should hopefully be there.