I'm running all Fire TV clients. My two Fire TV 4k sticks all fire up pretty quick. I see the "Preparing your tv..." screen for 10-15 seconds. My kitchen TV's 'normal' Fire TV stick takes a lot longer to get past the "Preparing your tv..." screen. I mean a lot longer. I'm timing about 60-90 seconds. Can someone tell me what is actually happening on that screen and what I might do to speed things up? The app is very responsive after this initial delay but waiting for it to load is a grind.
It's scanning the local network looking for a DVR server instance to broadcast its presence. It could be that your DVR server is sleeping or slow to respond. If you manually enter the IP address of your server, it ought to remember that, and bypass the scan upon startup.
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Try the beta APK and see if it is any faster. It should be significantly better.
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@racameron That did not work. I entered it on the settings page though it already knew the ip from the autodiscovery. I force stopped and restarted and it still took the same amount of time
@tmm1 I'd love to but this is an older fire tv. See my other thread where I asked if the APK could be downloaded from outside of the app and side loaded manually as upgrade to beta does not work on my version of fire os
Ah. The older devices have even slower CPUs and run ancient unoptimized FireOS versions. Personally I would toss that in the e-waste and buy something better. Anyway..
The beta version number is available on https://channels-dvr.s3.amazonaws.com/apk-beta/latest.json
The latest apk is available at https://channels-dvr.s3.amazonaws.com/apk-beta/channels-dvr-208032024.apk
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+1 throw it out and just get a 4K fire stick. One simple way to get immediate perf improvements.
@tmm @maddox The beta made no difference in regards to quicker connection. So this is doing nothing but trying to find the server? Would be nice to be able to set a config to my static IP always on Linux server running Channels DVR in Docker.
Agreed that the stick is older, but performance on playback is acceptable once the app is loaded. I have three of these older sticks and really not looking to spend $100 to replace them all just to get the app to load faster. I guess I'll have to see how much patience I really have.
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Submit diagnostics after loading the beta, via the Settings tab of the app.
There is a lot going on during boot and I can only guess without looking at the actual logs.
@tmm1 thanks for offering to look at this. Just submitted log type 'Other'. Let me know if I should have picked something else.
Ugh FireOS 5 doesn't include timestamps in logging so I can't see how long each step took.
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Yeah. I did read that Fire TV Stick 2nd Gen would be getting an update to current but that does not seem to have happened for me. I THINK this is a second gen but I can't tell for sure.
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I had an older non-4K Fire Stick and I wound up replacing it for the simple matter that it did not have a power button on the remote. I got sick of having to fumble around for the TV remote just to turn on the TV. That alone made the upgrade worth it.
I've got a couple of those on the kids' tvs, but the one in the kitchen has power and volume. I'm not sure what version it is but it is certainly not a speed demon compared to the 4k sticks. I just hate spending extra money on upgrading something that's barely two years old.
I've tried upgrading twice using this method and while the app does load, it will not open. I click the icon and it presents a black screen for a second and then back to the home screen. Is this no longer an option for my current FireOS?
Which FireOS version ?
FireOS 5.2.8.4
Why not try the $20 ONN streamer box at Walmart? I have been thinking about getting one myself but I have so many I really don't need another one.
Thanks for the tip, but I already have this and it works and has worked for a while now. Why replace it?
If that is the latest release supported on your device, that is likely the reason. That is old and I believe no longer supported; you will probably need to upgrade your device. (What is the version of the Channels app? Is it up-to-date (4.0.1)?)