Turning off Featured Content autoplay on your Fire TV Stick can stop endless buffering and sluggish loading screens, while also boosting speed and conserving data. The preview clips that play on the home screen begin loading before you press play, competing for bandwidth with your stream and leaving the device feeling slow.
How to disable autoplay
Press Home on your Fire TV remote, go to Settings, then Preferences, and open Featured Content. Toggle Allow Video Autoplay to off, and repeat for Allow Audio Autoplay. Once you return to the home screen, scrolling should be noticeably quicker, with content loading more swiftly and without frustrating lag.
Extra steps if it still feels slow
If the device remains sluggish, try a soft reboot by pressing Select and Play/Pause at the same time, or disconnect the stick for 10 seconds before reconnecting. It is also worth updating the software via Settings and checking for available updates.
Where possible, position the stick within view of the router rather than tucking it behind the television if the signal is poor. For TVs far from the WiFi router, a cheap HDMI extender can bring the stick to the front of the screen, improving line of sight. Devices such as baby monitors and cordless bases can interfere with the airwaves, so try to relocate these if possible.
