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Difficulty getting off the starting line

Billy-Boy

Billy-Boy

Newbie
TK Supporter
Hey guys, not that I need to tell you but newbie here :)

Trying to convince the misses to switch to IPTV for the couple things she watches so we can finally ditch cable. So I dug out one of our old fire sticks, threw stb on it and got it going with a free trial, that came from a seemingly long timer here.

The problem is, we turned it on tonight to watch I'm a celeb live, over 20 minutes it froze twice, voices got out of sync for a while and right at the end the quality dipped to potato levels.

I threw on a random sports channel for about 10 minutes, it froze once.

Now obviously I can and will email my supplier to see whats up, but because i've essentially got such a small window of opportunity to test and troubleshoot I don't know how to go about it. If I can get everything working "ok" on the stick I will ultimately replace it with a proper hardwired box but for now, I have no idea if its me, my equipment or the supplier I'm trying. I don't want to miss out on what could be a long relationship with someone if I'm playing with half a deck here, but I can't just keep asking for more and more trials while I troubleshoot either.

Hope that makes sense and someone can give me some tips please?
 
Turn off shields/nanny settings on your router
Use ethernet, no matter how good your WiFi is ethernet will always be better
24hrs isn't long enough for a trial of a service. Use the 24hrs to see if you like the layout and has most of your needs and is fine for the most part then take out q one month sub. If its poor find another
Try to build a good reputation and help others out.
Contribute to the forum and generally be nice and "better wuality" sellers may reach out when requesting in the thread
We have all started off as newbies at one point, just keep reading as much info as possible and try to learn as much as you can, there is lots of threads on here to broaden your knowledge.
 
Billbrown1982 said:
Hey guys, not that I need to tell you but newbie here :)

Trying to convince the misses to switch to IPTV for the couple things she watches so we can finally ditch cable. So I dug out one of our old fire sticks, threw stb on it and got it going with a free trial, that came from a seemingly long timer here.

The problem is, we turned it on tonight to watch I'm a celeb live, over 20 minutes it froze twice, voices got out of sync for a while and right at the end the quality dipped to potato levels.

I threw on a random sports channel for about 10 minutes, it froze once.

Now obviously I can and will email my supplier to see whats up, but because i've essentially got such a small window of opportunity to test and troubleshoot I don't know how to go about it. If I can get everything working "ok" on the stick I will ultimately replace it with a proper hardwired box but for now, I have no idea if its me, my equipment or the supplier I'm trying. I don't want to miss out on what could be a long relationship with someone if I'm playing with half a deck here, but I can't just keep asking for more and more trials while I troubleshoot either.

Hope that makes sense and someone can give me some tips please?
Click to expand...
What model is the stick if its a really old one that could well be the issue. As suggest turn off any router safe settings.
 
moshibeth said:
What model is the stick if its a really old one that could well be the issue. As suggest turn off any router safe settings.
Click to expand...
It's a fire stick lite, so I believe they came out in 2020? I've got a few others dotted around that I can try but once again, it comes down to time. Plus of course this particular free trial is based on the address of the fire stick lite so that's another hurdle. Sure there are enough trials out there for me to probably work all this out but like I said earlier I don't want to put this guy on the not interested list, if its not their fault.

I know its different, but I run plex off the fire stick with no issues at all so I feel like it shouldn't be a hardware issue at that end at least right? That logic is sound?

I'll double check router safe settings but I'm 99% sure they should already all be off.
 
Billbrown1982 said:
It's a fire stick lite, so I believe they came out in 2020? I've got a few others dotted around that I can try but once again, it comes down to time. Plus of course this particular free trial is based on the address of the fire stick lite so that's another hurdle. Sure there are enough trials out there for me to probably work all this out but like I said earlier I don't want to put this guy on the not interested list, if its not their fault.

I know its different, but I run plex off the fire stick with no issues at all so I feel like it shouldn't be a hardware issue at that end at least right? That logic is sound?

I'll double check router safe settings but I'm 99% sure they should already all be off.
Click to expand...
Plex content and iptv vod content is sitting there all year long waiting for someone to access it.
It's not live tv like football or 'apparently I'm a celebrity even though no one has heard of me'
Ditch the FS lite and try a newer firestick, don't imagine that you owe anything to the provider, if you want to take half a dozen tests with him before you decide then that's what you do, if he refuses to give more than one or two tests then go with someone else.
Don't request a new provider every few days, this will look very bad for you. You should have enough offers in your inbox that you can try a few tests on different devices over a week or two.
Take one month.
See how it goes before paying for longer subs
 
Just buy a one month subscription from someone who's been here a long time and use that time to take their advice on how to tweak your setup, consider upgrading device etc. There aren't many people selling crap iptv, if there were they wouldn't have many customers.
 
Have you done your weekly maintenance?
I can send you a pic of how to if you are stuck,
Also if it was mainly today then a lot of server's went down for a period of time like VOD not working then live TV back and forth but you will probably be fine tomorrow if that was the case,
Also in your stick itself settings go to My fire TV and click then click on the tab, ABOUT then you will see if there is an update waiting for you to install on the stick plus you could also expand the memory with an OTG cable and micro SD up to around 128 GB but no more,
Hope it helps 🤞
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

@pabloescaban yeah I think my comparison to Plex was more just streaming video content. Locally right now sure but this stick normally comes away on holiday with us so I can still watch stuff off my home server and its never let me down, which is why I thought it would be have. P.S don't even get me started on "i'm a celeb" - that is 100% a wife thing, I can't stand it.

@pupuqiop well I went with a 5 year person, mainly because they gave me the best write up that seemed to make sense so not ready to count them out just yet.

As for weekly maintenance @jk1111 I literally set the stick up last night, so not yet. :LOL:


After musing it over tonight i've done the only sensible thing. Spent a fortune on a nvidia shield. :fearscream:(Always wanted one anyway tbf) - so that will arrive later today and I'll try on that instead. Wish I had come to this realisation a week ago for black friday but there you go. At least it eliminates one of the likely culprits :tearsofjoy: I'm determined to make this work so I can stop giving my hard earned money away for her to watch utter garbage all day anyway.
 
Billbrown1982 said:
Thanks for the advice guys.

@pabloescaban yeah I think my comparison to Plex was more just streaming video content. Locally right now sure but this stick normally comes away on holiday with us so I can still watch stuff off my home server and its never let me down, which is why I thought it would be have. P.S don't even get me started on "i'm a celeb" - that is 100% a wife thing, I can't stand it.

@pupuqiop well I went with a 5 year person, mainly because they gave me the best write up that seemed to make sense so not ready to count them out just yet.

As for weekly maintenance @jk1111 I literally set the stick up last night, so not yet. :LOL:


After musing it over tonight i've done the only sensible thing. Spent a fortune on a nvidia shield. :fearscream:(Always wanted one anyway tbf) - so that will arrive later today and I'll try on that instead. Wish I had come to this realisation a week ago for black friday but there you go. At least it eliminates one of the likely culprits :tearsofjoy: I'm determined to make this work so I can stop giving my hard earned money away for her to watch utter garbage all day anyway.
Click to expand...
Yes but you did say it was an old one and not used for ages so just thought maybe full of catch possibly but there you go mate 😜 you shouldn't have any trouble really when fully updated as loads of people don't think to check for the updates,
I have a sub which is running great on a first edition stick that i use to take away when i go which some think wouldn't work,
All the best to you 🤜🤛
 
Doesn’t the sub have multiple options for the most popular channels ? I don’t watch crap like I’m a Celeb so not sure if it’s bbc or itv but either should have at least 3 streams to choose from ? . The shield hard wired will tell you if the issue is the sub.we don’t have sky , we don’t even have the rooftop Ariel connected anymore. The wife doesn’t use my iptv , she watches all her live stuff on apps on a shield , iplayer etc.
 
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@soltia Not that I noticed, it seemed like there was the channel itself and then the +1 variant. Perhaps I was missing something. Still early days. Once I get my shield setup i'll have to have another attempt.

@userlee5267 350mb fibre currently so that shouldn't be the issue. Will be upgrading to 1gig shortly, course the firestick only runs over wifi anyway where as I can hardwire the shield. What do you define as "glitching a little" ? I had about freezes over 45 minutes which seems extreme. I don't even mind a glitch as much if its self recovering, but each time it happened I had to switch channels back and forth and she wouldn't stand for that I'm sure.

@bazcfc1 yes hardwire will be the end result. I've been using wifi because I can segregate the device on a guest network for testing and keep it away from my main network. I'm a little wary, especially if asked to download a custom app, to give it full reign over the network and I've not quite decided how I will segregate a hardwired device yet.
 
The firetv lite should be fine for IPTV, I think it's a lower version of the 4k stick but better than the standard stick. Hardwired is best but firesticks are designed to be used on WiFi primarily,so should be fine as long as you have a decent signal where the stick is.

350mb is plenty fast enough for IPTV, thats 5 times faster than mine. Make sure your nanny settings are turned off on your router/isp, and you've done basics like like reboot your devices and turn your router off for 5 mins. Throttling by your isp could be a reason. I would get a few trials and see if you get the same issues with other suppliers.

All IPTV glitches every now and then, but it shouldn't be every 5 mins.

Enjoy your shield, top device!

Hope that helps.
 
It took me ages to get the wife over to iptv as our main source of TV, fortunately this happened 4 months ago.

The worst part now is we're still in contract with sly.
 
there are also a lot better apps out there than stbemu assuming that what you meant by using stb.

most providers have their own apps, ask your provider (y)
 
@mrafc it did - cheers! Got the shield all setup and will be trialing it over the weekend.

@browney funny enough this all came about because our contract was up with Virgin in november, I ordered BT in september and they have done such a dog awful job of actually getting me connected and running that I am still paying double the out of contract costs to virgin. So the sooner I can tell them all to do one, the better. Well except the internet of course...unfortunately.

@lamblamb yeah the provider suggested stbemu just for the ease of getting it going I guess. I have put Trivmate on the shield now though and will be using that over the weekend.
 
FireSticks get slow quite quickly from my experience. - within a year or so.

Also, I would definitely recommend TiviMate if you're trying to persuade someone to cut ties with cable. It's the most visually pleasing and similar to official cable TV like Sky. Best UI, easy to navigate and doesn't look like a 'dodgy' app, like some providers provide.
 
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