TVOS 18.4 apparently broke channel surfing. In Settings/Playback/Remote Control Channel surfing is set to On, but channel surfing simply does the same thing as swiping up/down in both the grid guide and when watching a program.
I deleted and reinstalled the app, and now the Channel Surfing option is Off and grayed out.
Anyone else experiencing this? The topic seems to be grayed out on my iPad.
yes, its broken.
Thanks for your reply. Glad to know it’s not just me!
What broke? What are the steps to reproduce?
When it is enabled as I describe in the original post, clicking the top or bottom of the Apple Remote click pad should take you to the next/previous channel while watching a particular channel, or page up/down in the guide. That is what it used to do.
Instead it does what swiping does - it brings up the quick guide or the buffer.
Jon did reply to my support request email:
“We have received your report and we'll be looking into it soon.”
Okay thanks, it wasn't clear this was with the new remote.
It’s with both the latest Siri Remote (USB-C) and latest AppleTV 4K and the Siri Remote that came before it (lightning) and the Apple TV 4K that came before.
In other words, the latest 2 Apple TV 4K’s and their Siri Remotes.
I’m experiencing this issue as well. tvOS 18.4 update definitely broke channel surfing.
Yep...Siri Remote / ATV 4K.... Can confirm with tvOS 18.4, the Siri Remote buttons (Click up/down) now behave the same as swipe up/swipe down, which kills Channel Surfing Up/Down. Glad I popped in here to check/confirm it wasn't just me... 
Also, it seems similar w/Siri Remote Click Left/Right....my skip ahead/back function no longer works either. For me, that is more annoying than the Channel Surfing not working...
The new Apple TV update has the ability to learn guide and channel up and down buttons from rf remotes.
I programmed my Tivo remote and it works except for channel down which for some reason does not want to learn that button. So far I can channel up !
update: I got the channel down button to finally work, my tivo batteries were weak.
I dont even use the ATV remote, I like the Tivo remote way better and now I have more of its buttons working! Before I was using the up and down buttons to channel surf.
Yep no longer working for me either
This has been resolved in the latest TestFlight beta:
hopefully whatever you did does not break my tivo learned remote settings in the ATV with channels, would be good to know before you release it on the apple store
That’s what the beta is for.