Does an Amazon Firestick have a shelf-life? We have two, one for each of our TVs. The one in the dining room we’ve had for about 5 years, and for the past week every time I try to watch anything on it, I get a message on the TV saying “Slow internet connection. Your device’s available internet bandwidth is low. The video might pause while buffering. etc, etc”. There is no problem with our internet speed, and if I access, say, Netflix or BBC iPlayer via our Virgin Media account, the programmes that wouldn’t play on the firestick, play perfectly well.
Anyhoo, I just tried the firestick from the living room, a newer one only a few months old, and it works fine in the dining room. So now I know it’s the firestick causing the problems, and not the TV or Virgin box. It has new batteries, so I’m puzzled. All I can think is that it’s developed a fault over the years. Anyone else experienced this?
Have had the occasional but rare problem you describe. I reboot it and set the thing up from scratch (ie remove the Wi-Fi connection and reload it) which seems to do the trick for a while.
No, but all these streaming devices will in time become cluttered. With a PC we regularly remove all unwanted files, update footprints etc and cookies and then defrag. Your firestick has prolly become too cluttered and needs cleaning up. How to Clean Up a Firestick or Android TV - Web Safety Tips
Was this resolved, I had similar issues , so I moved the router and used the dongle which was supplied with the stick, seems to have cured my issues for now at least, this was from a couple of months ago if not longer ago.
We have had such problems as well and, for some reason, it almost always happens when viewing ITV Hub.
I have tried clearing the cache (on the Fire Stick) but the problem will usually come back later.
One other thing which I have discovered is that, as we have the main router and an extender (each in a different room adjacent to the telly and Fire Stick), if things are playing up I go into settings and change from whichever source the Fire Stick is using (router or extender) to the other one. This suggests to me that the problem is down to the signal.
I have tried with and without the ‘dongle’ supplied with the Fire Stick, but that makes no difference at all. After all, the thing is only a few inches long. Perhaps its intention is to extend whatever antenna may be in the Fire Stick a few inches out from behind the TV.
I suppose another option would be to bring the extender into the same room as the Fire Stick, perhaps plugging it in a socket right next to the TV.
Thanks JBR - I don’t even know what an ‘extender’ is, haha! I’m pretty sure we don’t have one, just the router, which is in the same room as the fire stick I’m having trouble with.
Finally got round to sorting it out! And all it needed was a reboot - I don’t know why I couldn’t have thought of that myself, doh . And, when I was at my daughter’s earlier it turned out she was having trouble with her fire stick, and had been for ages. Not the same problems I had, but just sluggish and kept on slipping back to previous pages; wouldn’t actually start playing anything when she did manage to select what she wanted. So I rebooted hers and now it’s all working fine again!
So thanks everyone for your help, we really appreciate it!
I seem to remember that we have done that as well, some time ago.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly how I did it, other than searching through the settings on the screen. I may also have looked it up on Google, which can be very helpful for that sort of thing.
. And, when I was at my daughter’s earlier it turned out she was having trouble with her fire stick, and had been for ages. Not the same problems I had, but just sluggish and kept on slipping back to previous pages; wouldn’t actually start playing anything when she did manage to select what she wanted. So I rebooted hers and now it’s all working fine again!