Fire TV Stick lag is frustrating. You're trying to load a show, and the home screen stutters, menus load slowly, and content takes forever to buffer. Before you blame your internet connection or assume your Fire TV Stick is too old, there's a setting worth checking.
Featured Content autoplay runs preview videos on your home screen as you browse. These snippets start loading automatically before you've even selected anything, competing for bandwidth with whatever you're actually trying to watch. This background activity slows down the entire device, causing the sluggish performance most people attribute to poor internet or aging hardware.
Turning off this setting takes less than a minute and noticeably improves Fire TV Stick responsiveness. Here's how to disable it.
1. Navigate to settings
Press the Home button on your Fire TV remote, then scroll to Settings on the main menu. Select Settings to open the full settings menu.
2. Access Featured Content preferences
In Settings, scroll down and select Preferences. Within Preferences, find and open Featured Content. This is where autoplay controls are located.
3. Disable video and audio autoplay
Toggle Allow Video Autoplay to Off. Then toggle Allow Audio Autoplay to Off as well. Both settings need to be disabled to completely stop background previews from loading.
Once both are off, back out to your home screen. Navigation should feel noticeably snappier, and content should load faster without the lag caused by competing autoplay videos.
If you still experience sluggishness after disabling autoplay, try a soft reboot by holding the Select and Play/Pause buttons simultaneously on your remote until the Fire TV Stick restarts.
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