There is nothing more annoying than sitting down to watch your favorite movie and then for it to fail to get through the opening credits because of buffering. However, this does not need to bring your plans of kick backing and relaxing to a halt, as there are things that you can do in order to fix the problem and commence with your movie watching.
What Are Common Causes of Firestick Buffering?
Believe it or not, the causes of firestick buffering can be different. If we highlight them all, this article would never end. Because of that, we will highlight only the most common ones.
Before everything, a slow internet connection is usually the reason why something like that happens. Despite that, it may happen that you running out of RAM memory. People usually do not pay attention to apps and programs that are running in the background. In most cases, all those apps are unnecessary to us. Because of that, we recommend you turn them off. Despite that, running low on storage can also be a problem for many FirStick users. At first glance, 8 GB of space may seem enough. However, the Operating System is using a big part of that. Fortunately, all these issues are solvable, and we will highlight the most effective ones.
Check Your Internet Connection
The first thing that you should always do when this happens is to check to see whether or not the Internet connection in your house / office / hotel etc. has not dropped out. If you are watching content at a rate of 1080p then you will need a minimum connection speed of 10 Mbps and for those streaming 4K content, then you will need at least 20 Mbps.
If it is not directly a drop in the Internet connection, you should then check if any other devices that are connected to the same Internet connection are not also streaming or downloading large amounts of data, as this can impact your Firestick and cause it to buffer.
If connected via Wi-Fi, interference in the form of large distances from the router, thick walls, and even signals from other devices can negatively impact the connection to your Firestick. It is also worth noting that some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can and do actively throttle video streams in order to reduce your bandwidth consumption.
An Overheating Firestick
If it is not your Internet connection that is the problem, then there could be the possibility that your Fire TV Stick that can be found here has become too hot. This happens when the Firestick is connected to the charger and continuously stream content even when the television is switched off. The problem becomes worse when indoor temperatures are that much higher during the summertime.
Being too hot has a direct impact on glitches and buffering. In the instance(s) where the Firestick does get too hot, then you should unplug it from the television set and give it some time to cool down.
Check For Software Updates
In some instances, buffering can be the result of a bug in the operating system on the Firestick. By updating the software and ensuring that it always remains up to date is a great way of not only fixing the immediate problem but also ensuring that it does not happen again in the future also. The process of doing this is a quick and straight forward one.
First of all, go to the ‘My Fire TV’ option, then navigate to the ‘About’ section, and then select ‘Check for Updates’. This will display information as to the version name of the latest operating software and when it was released. From this, you will be able to determine if your Firestick needs updating or not.
Background Processes Should Be Turned Off
As we previously said, many people forget about the apps that are running in the background. Because of that, it may happen that you will have to deal with firestick buffering. Turn off those apps and ensure the comfort you are looking for (of course, if that is the cause).
Doing that is not difficult at all. The users should primarily go to Settings and then click on Applications. After you do that, the next step is to click on Manage Installed Applications. Here you will see all the apps that are running in the background. Select those that you do not use actively. There are two options of you can do that. The first one is to force stop, but you can also uninstall the app completely.
App Caches and Data Are Unnecessary As Well
There is one thing that all Firestick users should know. Whichever app that you have, it has its own temporary and permanent storage. It often happens that some programs store too much data. As we said, the space on the Firestick is limited. Because of that, it is essential that you clean app caches and data. That is also another reason why buffering of Firestick happens more often than we would want.
The process is quite similar to the previous one. You primarily need to go to Settings and find Applications. After you do that, go to the Manage installed applications. You will manage to find all the necessary information about the apps that you have. That means you will find out how much data each app stores. Additionally, you will also see how large the cache is. Use the “Clear Data” and “Clear Cache” options for the apps that are taking too much memory.
Video Quality Does Not Have to Be High
Every person can set up the quality of the videos they are watching manually. When the quality of the video is high, it requires more system resources for playbacks and streaming. Because of that, you can try to lower video quality. For instance, if you are watching videos at 4K resolution, you can lower it to 720p. In that way, the Firestick will stop buffering.
These are just some of the methods that you can use in order to fix buffering issues on a Firestick. For more ways of fixing the problem read this article here.
