Is your Netflix, Youtube, or Plex pausing by itself?

Channels Fire TV
#1

This is simply a PSA, for those who haven't figured this out.... For the longest time, I unfairly bashed Amazon Fire TV products. I cannot believe that every device I have would have these quirks where Netflix, Youtube and Plex would pause intermittently. I would have to restart the fire tv device in order for it to operate correctly. Eventually it would happen again. We recently purchased a new TV for our son, a Hisense Fire TV. Surely, a brandnew tv would not have these quirks... amazingly, it did. A lightbulb finally went off in my head. What is the common denominator in all my devices? The Channels DVR app!!!!! I now realize after I watch my Channels DVR app, that if I want to watch Netflix, Youtube or Plex next, that I have I have to clear cache and force stop on Channels DVR. It doesn't mean you're going to have issues if you don't do this, but if you do have issues... then this is exactly what you need to do. In the past, I would always clear cache and force stop on the app that was having issues, and it never worked. I had to restart. I never suspected the app I just closed, Channels DVR, was the culprit. At least knowing this now, I don't have to restart the fire tv anymore.

Have I been under a rock? Does the Channels community know about this issue?

#5

Are you usually watching recordings or live TV in the channels app?

#6

I currently use Amazon Fire TV 4K Max (2nd gen) devices for multiple hours every day. I use the Channels app, Netflix, Amazon Prime, PBS and Pandora. Both locally to my Channels DVR server and remotely via Tailscale -- and I have no such issues. No clearing of cache, no force closing the apps and no need for reboots.

I'm glad you found something that works for you to solve your issues, however there's probably another factor involved somewhere. I've used the CDVR app with various generations of Fire Sticks for years, and I don't ever recall seeing anything like you describe.

#7

I do not see this problem at all. But I do occasionally (maybe once a month) need to restart my Fire TV Max when the audio and video becomes out of sync. Haven't determined what causes this problem.

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#8

You may be low on free space. Try uninstalling any unused apps. If that does not help, then try a periodic restart to clear the temp folder. Try once a month or once a week if necessary.

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#9

They're all running Fire OS.

#10

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ YEP

best move I ever made was throwing my 4 amazon ad delivery sticks in the trash 2 years ago.

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#11

Recently convinced a friend to switch from Firestick to Onn Streaming box (w/ Projectivy launcher).
A much better viewing experience than Firestick's ad cluttered interface.

2 Likes
#12

I own, and use, multiple Apple TV 4K boxes. I also have multiple Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max's, and even a Chromecast 4K with Google TV.

They're all good -- none are perfect. The price difference isn't huge, but adds up when buying multiple units over time.

We all have slightly different things we're looking for, combined with our specific usage scenarios.

#13

To paraphrase George Orwell in "Animal Farm":
All streaming devices are equal but some are more equal than the others.

#14

Never seen this happen and all I own are FireTV devices ...

#15

I'm mainly watching my virtual channels. Thats a great question, maybe thats correlated. I am convinced its my channels app thats causing this issue. Since the solution is to force stop it. Netflix plays fine again after you do that. Youtube, Plex, etc.

Others are chiming in that they do not have this issue, but perhaps its becasue I soley use it for virtual channels. Maybe the virtual channels is the main common denominator. I am not low on Fire TV space either. I download the usual suspects and that is it. I always have about 2 to 3gb left from 8gb devices.

#16

That's not it. I have plenty of space. Im starting to suspect virtual channels.

#17

I really wish you guys could give it a rest about solving every FireTV problem by replacing it with AppleTV. I don't rundown AppleTV just because you can't connect multiple Apple remotes to one device. Besides I can press one button on my Pro Remote and it brings up all my Apps on one screen, not one advertisement in sight. I can live with that.

2 Likes
#18

Yup.
Hey, my prescription sunglasses work for me, but maybe not for you.

#19

Not every problem, but ones that relate to overall memory management, cache and app storage are 100% relevant in that context.

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#20

Yep...I relegated mine to an hdmi tuner input for a reason

#21

One thing in common for all of these streaming devices is the manufacturers always skimp on ram. To me, this is most of the problem.

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#22

And the developers don't take this into account. And/or the OS does not properly page out inactive applications. The latter seems to be the case for this Fire TV issue as closing channels clears the issue. I bet closing a different app(s) would provide a similar satisfying result.

#23

Apple TV only has 4gigs of ram and it doesn’t produce the amount of headaches that is constantly discussed here with other devices. It’s not the ram, it’s shitty OS that prioritizes ads and data mining.

Now, it’s possible that this place can’t code or port to Android as well as iOS or Apple TV, but I’m not sure if that’s the case, it could be. And who knows how shitty those low end cpus affect things :person_shrugging:

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