On a technical note - oddities of Google Chromecast

I don't know how many people use these, as I only use one because my (now getting old) Samsung TV's operating system would not allow the app for one of the newer streaming services to be added, but I use a Google Chromecast dongle plugged into the TV.

So now I have the choice to watch Youtube either on the old app already on the Samsung (which works fine), or to watch it using the version of the app that came loaded already on the Chromecast.   I usually use the Chromecast version, as the Chromecast provides quick access to Netflix as well.

Within Youtube, I have two accounts - but I mainly use one. 

For some reason, on the weekend, videos watched through the usual account started playing in really low quality.   It was obvious, and I knew something was wrong.   

I initially suspected a very low internet speed, as on one recent check, it had been abnormally slow.   But the speed wasn't too bad (by Australia's low standards), so I checked for fault within the TV, and spent much time checking settings, rebooting it, etc.  Then I tried rebooting the Chromecast, checking its settings, and considered re-setting the app.   

I then realised that videos watched via the Samsung Youtube app (using the same account as on the Chromecast) worked fine.  And then I discovered that videos on my second Youtube account on the Chromecast app were normal resolution too.   Why would that be?   It was making little sense.

I finally discovered that within the main account, on the Chromecast Youtube app, if I went to the information screen for an individual video, I could check resolution, and found it was set as 720p.

Changing the resolution on just one video (from the access to settings within the video info screen) to 1080p changed it for all videos on the main Youtube account.

This is pretty odd - I have no idea how the resolution setting from that part of the app would have got changed to 720p - I never have normal cause to be looking at Youtube settings at all.

 And why such a settings change, if it arose spontaneously within the app, would affect only one account, and not the secondary account, I have no idea.

This may be a boring post, but it just serves as an example of weird things that can happen with Google apps, and take a long time to resolve.   (I Googled the issue asking in many different ways, but it was such an odd problem to explain to get useful suggestions.)