I've noticed that for awhile now (maybe since I updated to Android 12 on my Zenfone 8?), I almost always have to restart my phone before I can successfully screen mirror to my Chromecast. Normal app-driven Chromecasting works fine.
Every Saturday for the last few months, we've been watching a TV show that runs inside of an app that doesn't support Chromecasting, so we mirror the screen instead. Every time I go to do this, the connection starts on my phone but just hangs, and nothing happens on the TV. Next, I restart my phone, and suddenly it works. But then after 10 seconds the image freezes on the TV and the connection fails. Finally, after I disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast a third time (no phone restart required this time), everything works. This scenario has played out for me probably 8-12 times now.
The TV show is actually split into two parts and I usually stop the screen mirroring to Chromecast and start it again after an hour. This works fine, no freezes and no restarts required. So it seems that the "must restart phone to Chromecast" condition happens after awhile... Not sure what triggers it.
Has anyone else experienced something similar?