Amazon’s collection of Firestick/Fire TV devices is one of the most popular streaming options out there, most especially for those who subscribe to paid streaming services like Hulum Netflix, and Amazon Prime. This nifty streaming device is capable of doing so much more than just play movies though—you can listen to music with it as well as stream video games.
It’s simple, straightforward, and makes watching movies and shows at home incredibly easy. That being said, no device is perfect, even if it’s as good as Amazon’s products. It’s normal for these streaming gadgets to lose internet connection once in a while. However, we completely understand how frustrating it can be when you just want to relax and watch a movie after a tiring day, only to be met with connection errors. On the bright side, there are a few simple troubleshooting steps you can do to fix the issue.
Possible Reasons Why Your Firestick Isn’t Connecting to the Wifi
Before diving into these troubleshooting steps, we recommend that you understand the possible reasons why you’re experiencing this internet connection issue in the first place. Hopefully, you’ll be able to avoid the issue altogether going forward.
Interference
Interference is a fairly common cause internet connection problems. This is caused by devices within your household that have the same frequency as your Wifi network, which can cause your Firestick to have trouble connecting to the Wifi. A few examples of such devices include microwaves, cordless phones, and other similar gadgets in your home.
Firestick Issues
Sometimes, you may be having internet connectivity issues because there’s a problem within your Firestick itself. This can usually be remedied by resetting your Firestick device—unless the device’s hardware is failing.
Signal Strength
The issue could be caused by something as simple as signal strength. If your streaming device is just too far away from your Wifi router, then it will undoubtedly have a hard time connecting to the internet. If there are too many obstructions separating the two, this can also cause the same problem.
Router Problems
Every now and then, it’s common for your router to encounter a couple of issues out of nowhere. Fortunately, these issues will usually disappear on their own once you reboot your router.
Troubleshooting Steps You Could Do
Now that you have a better idea about what could be causing your internet connection issues, it’s time for you to try and fix resolve them. Here are a couple of troubleshooting steps you could do if your Firestick refuses to connect to the internet.
Restart Your Firestick
One thing you can try to do is restart your Firestick. There’s a quick and easy way for you to do this. Get your Firestick remote, and then press and hold these two buttons at the same time: the Play/Pause button and Select button.
Keep holding those two buttons until you see the prompt on your Firestick screen saying that the device is powering off. As soon as you see this, you can go ahead and release the buttons.
Once your Firestick finishes rebooting, you should be able to connect to the Wifi with no problem.
Perform a Factory Reset
If the above steps didn’t work, you can then try performing a factory reset on your Firestick. Note that these steps will completely erase all the data on your device, completely cleaning it out and making it feel like a brand-new gadget. It may seem like a hassle to set things up again the way you like it and re-download all your apps, but this step works most of the time.
Take your device’s remote and this time, press and hold the back button and the right side navigation. Keep pressing these two buttons for at least 10 seconds.
A prompt will appear asking for confirmation that you want to reset to factory defaults. You can either click OK to manually start the process, or wait for the countdown timer to finish.
As mentioned, your Firestick will feel good as new after a factory reset. You should have no problem connecting to the Wifi after this.
Restart Your Router
If none of the above-mentioned steps worked, the problem might be within your router itself. In this case, try restarting your router and hopefully, doing so will allow your Firestick to connect successfully.
Head over to where your Wifi router is situated and then unplug the power cord, which is usually located at the back of the device.
Wait for at least 20-30 seconds.
Then, go ahead and plug the power cord back into the router.
Leave your router alone for at least 2 minutes while it recalibrates.
Go ahead and try reconnecting your Amazon Firestick to the internet. You can also try moving your router and streaming device much closer to each other in order to avoid any interference or signal obstruction.
Conclusion
It’s definitely frustrating when your Firestick refuses to connect to the network when all you want to do is watch movies. The next time this happens to you, refer to these troubleshooting steps so you can fix the issue yourself without having to ask help from a technician. If none of them work, though, you may have to reach out to Amazon’s Device Support team for further assistance.
