Fire stick becoming increasing difficult. Are there any streaming devices that aren't for a 4K or smart TV?

Hi, I really did search and go through categories and could not find an answer to this.
I’ve been using regular fire sticks as long as I’ve had my TV, 12 years. I live on a low fixed income and can’t afford a new TV, but my fire sticks have been freezing and crashing a lot, or just booting me out of even my Amazon apps. I noticed others have had these same difficulties. All the articles I’ve read on troypoint insider seem to be geared towards 4K streaming devices, and I don’t have a 4K TV; just a regular flat screen with USB and HDMI ports.

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Please review this for all firestick issues and guides, if the following hasn’t worked feel free to ask.

This should resolve most to all issues.

There is answers and posts on this issue.

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I use and program 4k max all the time. As long as you have settings for video set to automatic, it will only play what your TV can handle. I never watch 4K. Mostly 1080 and 720p. That’s on an older TV as well. About all you need is an HDMI port, but even then there are vid adapters to go from micro USB to about any port for vid input on your tv. You simply don’t need 4K. So you can go into settings and choose 1080 and voila your 4k won’t show and conent in 4k won’t be displayed or play.

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How old are the Firesticks that you are using?

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That sounds incredibly helpful, but I bought a fire stick 4K and it wouldn’t work on my TV. When I contacted technical support, I was told that the 4k stick only worked with 4k TVs.

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Whoever told you that should be fired lol.

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Thank you for responding. My fire TV sticks are 3rd gen.

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Not so. you only need an HDMI port. The firestick can have the display set to what ever you want in the video settings.

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I’ve already been reading all those. I’ve been resetting to factory default about every 4 months. It’s a pain though because I have to reload all the apps. I was wondering, could my fire stick be freezing/crashing because of my USB flash drive? I followed your how to when adding it, even buying the flash drive and cord you recommend, but I’ve noticed that if I try to watch my apps on that it’s almost impossible to open them and, when I do, it takes a long time to navigate through the menus or get a video to play. How I usually counter that is by moving to internal storage and moving back to external when I’m done with that app. Also I keep the apps that I most frequently watch on internal storage. However, even if I’m not using an app on my flash drive I’m finding my fire stick is freezing/crashing more and more often. I also clean the cache and force stop apps I’m not using and on apps that I don’t have to save the data, like freevee, I delete the data. I unplug the stick for 5-10 minutes, and have updated my fire stick every time and still I’m having this problem. And not just with one fire stick, every sale I buy new fire sticks, because for some reason after they start crashing more and more often nothing I do, like now, works.

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Are they 3rd gen “sticks” or “pendants”? Either way, you shouldn’t be having any issues. The 3rd gen Fire TV 4k (pendant), Firestick 4k (stick), and 3rd gen Firestick (1080p) are roughly equivalent, performance wise and shouldn’t be giving you any issues. They all work just fine with older TVs (as long as you have an HDMI port).

They’re 3rd gen sticks 1080. But every time one gets about 6 months or more old all of the ones I’ve bought have behaved this way. Honestly my very first fire stick back in 2014 worked for years with no issues. I ended up giving it to a neighbor who still uses it.

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Firesticks, well sticks in general, arent built to last. They want you to buy a new one every 6 months, that is why there is no cooling or anything with them. Many will argue theirs lasted a while more than that, and maybe they will, but I believe they get built with the hope that it will be a consumable part and a new sale a couple times a year.

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You shouldn’t be having this issue with the latest 3rd gen sticks. Not sure what the deal is. How much storage do you have left?

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I agree @sktn77a , thanks for getting the thread back on track from my little rant about hot sticks lol. But yea, honestly if you are maintaining them well, force stop/uninstall unused apps, etc, you have a better chance of keeping them working for longer. 2014 Firestick, that is amazing.

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I retired all of my first gen firesticks a couple of years ago, they were as slow as molases. I came across one last month, tucked away, and tried a fresh factory reset and amazon apps only - totally unusable!

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My 4k max is fast approaching 2 yrs and still purrs like a kitten. Not one hiccup or factory reset. I keep essential apps like TiViMate, Stremio, ProtonVPN, Background apps and processes list, Downloader, Fast Task Killer, Malwarebytes and the VPNPrivacyDot on my 4k Max and all other apps on a 16GB SanDisk 3.0. This leaves about 3Gbs free for the stick to run live tv with little to no issues. So before a long watching session, I use the background apps and processes list and Fast Task Killer, to ensure my Max has as much free RAM as posslible to run smoothly.

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3.2 external and 2.9 internal

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I don’t have the 4k. Honestly I tried it with my TV and it didn’t work and Amazon technical support told me that unless I had a 4k TV the 4k stick wouldn’t work. I do use task killer app though, along with defsquid and surfshark vpn.

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You were told wrong.

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As I told you I program 4k max sticks for a side hustle. Anyone telling you it only works on 4k tv’s is a liar, or hasn’t a clue what they’re talking about. I do. I mentioned how in my post. Don’t think you read it. You came here for help but don’t seem to want it. Instead listening to someone who obviously doesn’t know.
Even though this Fire TV Stick does 4K, you will only get the highest resolution available on your TV.
Here is one way.
Settings>Display>Video Resolution. From 720p at 50 Hz to Auto. The auto will use the optimal resolution for your TV.

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