Buffering, freezing, and channels that will not open

Find out what it is first

One channel, everything else fine — that stream is down at the provider's end. Nothing on your side will fix it. Try it again later.

Everything buffers — your connection, or the provider is overloaded. Test the connection on the same device with something else; if that also struggles, it is the connection.

Fine on the phone, bad on the TV — the TV's network, or the box. Read on.

The connection

• Wi-Fi on a stick is the usual culprit. Sticks have small aerials and sit behind a television, which is one of the worst places in a house for a radio signal. An Ethernet adapter fixes more buffering than any setting in any app.
• 5 GHz is faster and shorter-ranged than 2.4 GHz. If the router is far away, 2.4 GHz can be the steadier choice.
• Test at the device, not at the router. A speed test on a phone standing next to the stick tells you what the stick actually gets.
• A single HD stream wants a steady 10 Mbps or so. More for 4K, and "steady" matters more than the peak number.

The device

• Close other apps. Sticks have very little memory and a browser left open in the background genuinely does cause stuttering.
• Restart it — pull the power for ten seconds rather than using the menu. Weeks of uptime on a small box show up exactly like this.
• Try Channel list only instead of Preview and guide: the preview player is extra work for a slow box.

In the player

• Aspect fixes a stretched or cropped picture — Fit, Stretch or Zoom.
• Quality, where the stream offers more than one, is worth dropping on a weak connection. A steady lower quality beats a stuttering higher one.
• No sound — check Audio for a second track. Some streams carry two and start on the wrong one.
• Sound out of step with the picture usually clears if you leave the channel and come back; when it does not, it is in the stream itself.

What will not help

Reinstalling the app, clearing its data, or buying a longer subscription. None of them touch the stream or the connection, and clearing the data costs you your playlists.