**NVIDIA Shield Pro Constantly Buffering and Freezing – Need Help**

Streaming Devices / Hardware
1

I’m having a very frustrating issue with my NVIDIA Shield Pro and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing.

The Shield has started buffering and then freezing, and it’s happening across multiple apps and multiple playlists. I’ve been having to reboot the Shield several times a day just to get things working again.

What’s strange is that sometimes even after rebooting, it will continue to buffer and freeze and won’t play any playlist at all. Other times, a reboot seems to temporarily fix the problem.

Since this is happening with multiple apps and multiple playlists, I’m wondering if the problem could be with the Shield itself rather than any particular app or service.

Has anyone experienced this with an NVIDIA Shield Pro? If so, did you find a fix?

I’d appreciate any suggestions on things to check, such as:

● Shield settings

● Network settings

● Storage

● Overheating

● Recent Shield updates

● Cache or system issues

● Anything else that might cause repeated buffering and freezing

Thanks in advance. I’d really appreciate any advice from anyone who has dealt with this issue.

2

Ethernet or Wifi? Heating can be an issue on an older device, you can tell by touch. Try a fan and see if it helps if it seems heating might be the issue. However most likely is a storage/cache issue. Clear all cache, reboot.

3

Wi-Fi . I constantly clear the cache I’ll look into the overheating but I’ve had this same device for 2 to 3 years or more. This is a recent problem thank you for your thoughts.

4

TXRon is correct. I had the same problem and posted about it a couple of years back. I had to open up the box and blow out the dust. It was matted on the board and chips like a rug. Not an exceptionally easy process but doable. Very small screws and I think Nvidia has a tutorial on the process. So I disconnected everything, bought a little blower for doing circuit boards and it has little brushes and attachments to focus the airflow. Got it from Amazon. Was about $25 Canadian. Fixed it right up. I had a square of white cloth to lay it on and a little container to put the screws in so I wouldn’t lose them or accidentally blow them away. It was like a brand new 2019 Shield pro after I did that and put it back together. I will see if I can find the instructions. Here is a good thread.

Lots of you tube vids.

5

After you dig into what Ron and Miki said above, get utility apps such as TDUK app killer, TDUK cache cleaner, SD Maid, etc etc etc and use them daily. It might help to get these and load after a factory reset as well. Just a thought…keeps my Shields running great.

6

You’ve got the right laundry list of bullet points to check for troubleshooting your stability issues.

Ruling out thermal issues is as simple as opening up the chassis and verifying if the cooling fan is operational and intact (no broken blower wheel fins or bearing noise that could indicate bearing wear and subsequently resulting in lower rpm on the fan cooler). If active cooling is fine, and none of the passive cooling (heat sinks) have become dislodged, the give it a good cleaning to get all the dust and crusty stuff out and reassemble.

I blow out the dust and dirt out of my Shield every year or so. Like @Miki said, the disassembly and reassembly isn’t that hard as long as you have prepared the right environment to perform this so that you don’t lose parts. Dissipate body static before you start digging around.

If thermal thresholds aren’t the issue, you should make sure you’re not close to capacity in your internal storage. Just like the OS on a desktop, if your hdd is near capacity, the OS doesn’t have room to breathe as it needs space to put temporary files and typical OS bloat. I keep my storage under 70%.

Most of the Shield OS software updates have been stable. There was one a 3-4 updates back that broke the Bluetooth to some capacity but got fixed. I wouldn’t think it’s update related.

Too many apps going in and out eventually causes residual bloat that the android OS inevitably starts to slow and over longer periods of time, can slow to a crawl and apps get laggy, even shortly after a device reboot. The solution of this is a factory reset and reinstall relevant apps from scratch. Daunting, yes…but a necessary evil with many computer like devices that rely on an open OS environment.

I used to do a factory reset ever 2 years or whenever I felt OS bloat affected performance enough to bite the bullet earlier

Hardware issues can never be ruled out, such as a compromised memory module (ram dimms go bad over time, partially and entirely) or the onboard flash memory (eMMC flash memory) used for storage can get corrupted (file or directory structure can break) over time. These flash modules (like sd cards) have a finite number of write cycles and over years of use, these memory modules can wear out when the write thresholds are close.

The shield is built well with quality components. It’s generally durable. Don’t give up - just troubleshoot one area at a time and retest. My bet is that if it’s not a heat issue, a factory reset and fresh app install will fix things up nicely.

:call_me_hand:

7

since its wifi, make sure nothing “new” might be interfering with the signal. If possible hard wire it to rule out wifi congestion.

8

The use of wireless wifi as opposed to ethernet also consumes more CPU resources during packet encryption/decrypt, and the wifi module when in use, contributes more to internal heat inside the chassis.

9

I always used an ethernet cable for my 2019 Shield Pro. The router is on the left corner of my 65" Samsung and the Shield sat on the right corner. Close enough to not be an issue.

10

Can you temporarily use an ethernet cable in your setup (moving the Shield and TV close to the router, if necessary) to eliminate WiFi as the issue?

11

Yes, I can if I move it to a different room where the router is I have a TV in there can see if it works in there with that. I’ve never had Wi-Fi problems since I’ve got a TP Link Deco mesh Wi-Fi 7 system.

12

I still support (if you believe you’re comfortable performing it) opening up the chassis and giving the internals a good cleaning and function testing the cooling fan first. Even if it ends up not being the root issue, it wouldn’t be a wasted effort by any stretch.

13

Absolutely agree and don’t forget you can go into the Shield Pro settings and there are 3 fan speed settings if I remember correctly.

14

Apart from what TXRon and Miki have said, since the shield only has 16gbs of internal memory, check your device and see how much free space you have left. If it is very small, you may need to get rid of some apps, particularly those you don’t use or need. Lack of memory can cause freeze ups.

15

@sim_bill is absolutely right but don’t forget it’s a breeze on the Shield Pro to add a single SSD and dual partition it for both internal and external storage. I had a small Samsung Evo attached via a USB case and partitioned it 70/30 with 70% for recording and 30% for apps. Don’t forget though that apps will still need to place data on the Shield for proper functioning although just a small bit compared to the full size of the app and apps Like Kodi with CPU intensive operations should still be placed on the Shields internal storage. There should still be a bunch of threads that you can get answers on. Just use the site search.

16

I was having similar issues, after the usual rebooting, I used compressed gas to blow out my shield, I also moved over most of my apps to a micro sd card freeing up about 7 GB of space on my internal storage. It’s been running fine ever since. Good luck.

17

Thanks I’ve been there and changed settings prior to the post.

19

Couple of other things to check here.

Be sure to have a wifi speed app on the Sheild. When it buffers, check the speed.

Now, if connected to wifi, use 5ghz.

Now, log into your router and see which channel the Sheild is connecting to. If the channel is below 160 Manually change the channel between 160 and 165.

Solved my issue…

20

Channel depends on how many others are on it as well as stability and interference. I use 136 where I am.

version 3.3.1

com.vrem.wifianalyzer

I also turned the 2.4 GHz off and just used the 5 GHz .

21

Same issue on both Ethernet and Gigbit WiFi. There is no fix that I can find. It will work fine for a few days and then the lags return. Only thing I haven’t tried is a factory reset but I don’t want to reinstall all of my Kodi addons. That is too much of a pain.