I’ve been having issues with horrible recording quality using TiviMate and various FireTV devices. I purchased a 4K Max (with 16GB memory) and it arrived yesterday. The wireless performance is great on this device.
Anyway, I still had recording quality issues. I checked the thruput using Analiti while Surfshark VPN was active and I only had 14Mbps download thruput. I went into the Firestick’s network section and turned the wireless network off and then back on. Then I enabled Surfshark VPN and redid the Analiti thruput test which yielded 97Mbs download thruput.
So, my question is…How can I setup a recurring action to turn off and then turn back on the wireless network? My backup plan is to to use a Alexa enable power outlet that will turn the power off then back on with an Alexa schedule.
I do, but short of finding a way to run a script I don’t know of any way to automate the procedure. But I’m not inderstanding the issue. Are you saying that if you don’t clear your WiFi state before starting to stream then you get poor speeds? That makes no sense. The WiFi connects from your device to your Modem and speed between the two is only dependent upon such things as obsticles, or radio wave interference, or say a microwave in short various things that interfere or block your signal from the modem to your device. From what I read your problem seems to stem from your VPN SS. I use Proton VPN and I pay for 150Mbps down and always get between 150 and 165. So if simply restarting your VPN and clearing it’s connection state resolves your degrading WiFi speed, then simply do what I did, and have your Firestick connected to a surge protected power bar and shut the power down every night, then in the morning or whenever you want to, flick the switch on the power bar, wait for a minute or two then start your stick. Fresh start. I also have my VPN set to start when my device starts, a setting within the VPN configuration settings. I never did see the need to run a Fire device 24/7. I only ever had power to it when I was using it. Realistically you could do the same thing with your modem/router and restart it every morning with a fresh state and new IP address, but that does take a little time longer than just restarting a stick.
I used to have to reboot my modem every so often due to low Mbps. Att modem router. Since they gave me a new one haven’t had that issue. Who is ur internet provider?
I’m actually diving deeper into my issue(s). I’m performing several tests and analyzing the data.
I’m supposed to be able to download 300Mbps from my internet provider (Xfinity). Tomorrow I am replacing my current cable modem (Surfboard SB6131 Docsis 3.0) with a new Arris Surfboard S33 Docsis 3.1. This doesn’t directly impact my current problems, but it should give me better download performance.
It looks like I may have been inadvertently hopping onto my 2.4Mhz network vs the 5Mhz network. I’m changing my SSIDs tomorrow to ensure I consistently get on the correct frequency.
Even on the 5Mhz network, I can get subpar performance. I don’t think its an issue with the wireless network per se, because I have similar performance results if I use a physical RJ45 port. That is what is leading me to a potential issue between the wireless router and the cable modem or the traffic on the Xfinity network. I’ll be doing more tests tomorrow to get more data. I wonder if there is any freeware that allows me to stress test the thruput between two nodes on an internal network? I’m going to look into that. That will certainly help eliminate the wireless network as a bottleneck.
My wireless mesh network restarts itself at 3am every day, so I’m good with that. I may also automatically reboot the cable modem nightly as well.
If I can figure it out, I’ll post my eventual solution and the causes of the issues.
Big question though. Does anyone have issues with TiviMate recording? Specifically, it will freeze the video but replay the last 10 seconds or so of audio before continuing with video and audio in sync. That is what my issue really is. My interpretation is a network performance issue.
I am wondering if we are asking to much from the Fire TV’s hardware?
To test this, can you record something without vpn?
Another issue could be the vpn not using the best connection - there is a video by Troy where he sets the vpn to use a certain connection because the vpn doesn’t always use the best connection by default
It has zero impact and in fact has speed up tech that optimizes your connection. Doesn’t matter what country server I connect to. I live in Canada. There are a few insiders here who use it and can verify my statement.
And I’m fortunate enough to have no issues with TiViMate recording on the Shield Pro, and even some who had the dreaded no System Picker have had that resolved with the latest updates a couple of weeks back.
I’m going to look into Proton VPN and see what performance impact it has on my environment.
I’ve been thinking for a while about the Nvidia Shield Pro (P2897). It came out in 2019 though and could use an update. But, its currently the gold standard. If all else fails, I’ll try that.
Not to sound like a broken record, the real issue seems to be with finding a noteworthy IPTV streaming app that doesn’t have issues recording like I’m experiencing with TiviMate.
Proton has a free tier but its servers are always full of traffic. The paid version opens up a lot more servers and plenty of room to be more reliable and congestion free. As Miki says and very hard to believe but TRUE as ive ran many test and often(not always) find my connection faster than without a vpn …yep. @tman Tivimate recording must be un-interupted to make a good recording. Ive seen the recording just stop on a bad connection and not even try.
There is another IPTV app that a lot recommend as being very reliable for recording. Sparkle I believe. Research it and see if it will work for you. I never recorded with any of my 4K Max sticks although I did have added storage and could certainly have done so. I’m not a recording type of user. I have attached both a Sandisk USB drive and a Samsung EVO SSD to my Shield Pro in order to test out formatting and recording to the removeable storage just to learn and to help others. Took a while to figure it all out but can now set up recording, start recording and set reoccurring recordings without any problems. I do know Troy is going to do a Vid, this week I believe, to help users increase Internal storage on their devices to record to. This will hopefully fix the problems many are having with permissions for recording to removeable storage. Keep your fingers crossed.
Surfshark vs Proton VPN performance (for me - VPN POP location: Miami, FL). I did each test twice so that is why there are two numbers per entry.
Performance Test
No VPN
SurfShark VPN
Proton VPN
Cable modem to Mesh wifi to FireStick 4K Max (using Analiti)
153 Mbps 127 Mbps
95 Mbps 100 Mbps
62 Mbps 75 Mbps
Cable modem to Mesh wifi to FireStick 4K Max (using the FireStick Network speed test)
85 Mbps 72 Mbps
69 Mbps 82 Mbps
66 Mbps 77 Mbps
What’s really missing here is a test thru RealDebrid. But, I’m not sure how to measure that performance. Anyway, SurfShark is about the same or a little faster than Proton. Plus SS costs less so I will continue using that vs Proton. Every user’s thruput performance experience will be different. By the way, I purchased both products and did not use their free service which I believe has less thruput performance.
Strange results as im sure they vary with location. I have both Proton and Surfshark and recently had mulvad. In all my usage proton and mulvad out performed Surfshark but with that said surfshark (for me) performs well and I use it to stream daily without issue. Recently I have had issues with my network but was isp (xfinity) issues.
I agree very odd results indeed. I did note that there doesn’t seem to be any reference to protocols. Proton has outperformed every VPN I’ve ever had on identical protocols and server locations, as well as server loads as close as possible. Now if these comparisons are made on SS paid vs Proton Free then those figures may be more easily understandable as Proton free servers are frequently running around %85 loads. The following is my lowest speed on a 150Mbps down rated line. 6 previous tests were 160+. Server load 35%. Location Montreal Canada. Wireguard protocol.
There are definitely lots of settings (both manual and automatic) that can impact performance results. Maybe get a clinic in place with a document to go through them!
Okay, this is going to sound like BS but it won’t cost anything to try it, I had a few issues with my Firestick where the WiFi would slow but my phone and other Device were working perfectly. I have no idea if this will fix your issues.
I would restart the Firestick and that would fix it but that’s a major pain in the … well you know.
So one day I was browsing through the utilities category in the App store and stumbled on a little app called “WiFi & Internet Fix for Fire TV and Tablets”.
(Search, app store, all categories, utilities)
It runs a scan, claims issues were found, fix now, claims it refreshing connections and when finished, you can hit the back button to exit.
Install it and try it, takes a minute to run, looks like some kind of scam to be honest but I’ll be d@mned if it didn’t work, never had to reboot for that problem again. I never tried to automate it to run first or anything like that but it’s a lot better than a reboot.
I use Onn boxes now and only use Firestick for my Recast recordings but try this, I hope it a good alternative.
Hi Tim. Thanks for the tip. I downloaded it and ran it. The funny thing is it doesn’t give any information on what it did. It sure does sound like a scam. but, i will find out tomorrow when my scheduled records take place.
Tim, this tool really rocks! Thanks again for the recommendation.
It dramatically increased the bandwidth performance big time! Even with VPN (SurfShark). Hopefully it is not an anomaly, but I ran analiti before and after and it works! I’ll keep doing that over the new few days to see if it is consistent.
I’ll post in a few days if it fixes my TiviMate recording issues with repeating/skipping.
…yep. 
