Firestick woes

[olive]

I am getting to the point where I cannot see the wood for the trees.

Our firestick developed connection error on uk tv apps and a strange green inverted man logo top left. Very few google searches for the green man. Cleared cache and data. No change. Installed a virus checker and it suggested our Dubious sky glass app was possibly dodgy.

So bought another firestick lite and set it up . No change.

Factory reset and a set of new IDs ( yes I know took hours) and ……….same problem. Now think Samsung TV is infected with a virus. Pretty disheartening. New firestick worked fine for a few hours albeit really slowly on Nord Vpn but go to Smart DNS and nothing just the connection error and the green android top left.

About all that is left is to contact Amazon support who are hardly likely to understand the Smart dns element ( perhaps).

Is there a virus checker for TVs? Anyone got any suggestions for a way forward please? As you can imagine I am pretty disconsolate.

[El Cid]

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to ... %20malware.

This might help. You could buy an Apple TV. I doubt you will have a problem with that.

Sid

[casita-bonita]

Amazon support may at leadt be able to tell if the firestick could display a green man under any curcumstances. At least you can then eliminate stick issues. Have to say mine has been rock solid. Although the same problem on a second new firestick pretty much precludes that. I also have 'SkyGlass' app on mine.

[olive]

An update.

Seems to be so much going on but I have done some things. Firstly, thanks Cid for the tv virus link. Very easy to follow and I am pleased to say no virus present on tv or isolated. Interestingly the tv was set to autoscan , perhaps factory setting.

The good news is I have an old 2 nd gen Apple tv. Fired it up and spent ages trying to change the apple id associated with a deleted email address ( a gift that years on keeps on giving!) before deciding that another time I will factory reset.

At some juncture, I will persevere with the firesticks including accessing amazon help. We find the fire stick very useful when we go away for continuity of viewing by applying the VPN. ( even though it slows the internet down)

Am I right in presuming smart dns cannot be applied to an Apple tv for such travel arrangements?

[El Cid]

It is very easy to set the DNS settings in the ATV. I have just resurrected an old Firestick and it was more complicated to set up. The latest version of Apple TvOS allows you to run VPN apps which are now available from various VPN vendors. Personally I would never use a VPN over a DNS solution. Like all Apple products, the only downside is the price!

Sid

[firsttango]

Sid, did you get your ATV from Apple Spain, if so what apps does it come with preloaded and is it straightforward to get the U.K tv apps?

[El Cid]

I actually got the last one from Amazon, but if you buy it from Apple you get 3months of Apple TV+ thrown in. Assuming you have an Apple ID with the Apple UK Appstore you can download all the UK apps with no problems. If you have good WiFi order the cheaper one without an Ethernet socket. If you have an iPhone you can make Facetime calls using the TV screen and the HD cameras on the phone.

Sid

[olive]

I am still struggling and am having difficulty seeing the wood for the trees bearing in mind everything worked fine on the first firestick only afew weeks ago when I think I have a strange virus ( connection error and the little green android symbol - which gets very scant mention on google searches)

A quick recap when trying to connect to uk tv apps works but predictably lots of unnaceptable buffering with vpn) without it and using smartdns:

Original firestick . Connection error and green android .

New firestick conne tion error

Old apple tv 2nd gen. Software updated but on older devices you cannot instal apps so have to set up anotherapple device to stream to the apple tv. I have failed to beable to do that. Cannot see the device.

Samsung tv. Tried installing apps on tv and get same connection errors

I keep going back to something wrong at Smart dns stage. Check that and we are all ticks suggesting it is working correctly.

Using where is my ip, it shows Madrid, which is the first choice in S dns. Would that becorrect?
What do others get?

Much as I like Apple products, I am loathe to buy yet another unit. I suspect my focus needs to be on the newerfirestick. Any help appreciated.

[casita-bonita]

Are you using smartdnsproxy? Occasionally mine stops working for iplayer etc even though i have all greens. Try reactivating the address from your console. I have a fixed ip address but recently seem to have to reactivate to get things working again.

Never seen green man though.

[El Cid]

I use 54.93.173.153 and 47.77.61.165 which are Germany and France. Never had a problem with those.

Sid

[olive]

Well I have made miniscule progress.

Factory resettting a firestick several times is a pain. First the good news. Using Nord Vpn , with its chronic speed reduction, we can now watch various tv apps albeit with SD or worse picture quality.

Our internet comes via satellite into a Hughes 200 router and it is very easy to change dns. However it doesnt work. I am guessing it still auto allocates a Spanish ip somehow. Off that we have a TPlink router a la Gerry on an ethernet cable. The router is directly behind the tv and gives us about 70 meg .

This afternoon, I changed the dns of the firestick to Smart settings but still no luck. I am guessing that the ip gateway or router settings are wrong somehow. The bit where you put in xxxxxxx.70 maybe. Using a laptop logged onto the wifi of the tplink router the 192.168 xxxxxxx settings are fairly easy to see. Could it be I need to be using the Satellite internet router settings the other end of the ethernet cable on the firestick.?

All a bit disheartening but not in the grand scheme of things. We used to watch using a vpn and the bottom line is we can’t get smart dns to work!