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IPTV keeps buffering: how to fix it

By Mi TV Latino Team · Updated on

Does the picture freeze, cut out, or show the spinning wheel? In the vast majority of cases it is not the service: it is the connection between your router and your device, or a player setting. This guide goes in order, from what takes two minutes to what needs a calmer look. Work through it in sequence and do not skip steps — the first ones solve most cases.

First: does everything fail, or just one channel?

This is the first question we ask in support, because it splits the problem in two:

  • One channel fails and the rest are fine. It is not your setup or your connection: it is that channel. Try another in the same group and tell us which one fails so we can look at it.
  • Everything fails, or nearly everything. Then it is your connection or the app, and the rest of this guide is for you.

1. Restart the router (two minutes, and it works more often than you would think)

Unplug the router, wait thirty seconds and plug it back in. This is not superstition: home routers accumulate sessions and choke, especially the ones the ISP supplies. Wait for the lights to settle and try again.

While you are at it, restart the device you watch on too.

2. Check which WiFi you are on

This is the number one cause, by a wide margin. Your router broadcasts on two bands:

  • 2.4 GHz: reaches further and gets through walls better, but it is slow and crowded with your neighbours routers.
  • 5 GHz: much faster and cleaner, but it loses strength with distance and walls.

For television you want 5 GHz whenever the device is a reasonable distance from the router. If your network shows as two separate names, connect to the 5 GHz one. If it shows as a single name, the router picks for you and does not always pick well.

3. Use a network cable if you can

If the device has an ethernet port or takes a USB-to-ethernet adapter, a cable fixes the problem at the root and for good. It is the biggest improvement available and usually costs less than one month of service.

This matters most for: Smart TVs, Android TV Boxes and Fire Sticks (with an adapter). It is the first thing we recommend when the TV is far from the router.

4. See who else is using the internet

A video call, a console downloading a game or someone else watching in 4K will eat your bandwidth. Try watching with the rest of the house paused: if it suddenly runs perfectly, you have found your problem, and the fix is more internet or fewer things at once.

For reference: around 10 Mbps is fine for HD without stutter; about 25 Mbps for 4K. Per screen.

5. Adjust the player

Two settings change a lot:

  • Hardware decoding (HW decoder). Turn it on. It moves the video work onto the device chip instead of the CPU, and on modest devices it is the difference between stutter and smooth playback.
  • Buffer size. Raise it one notch. Channels take slightly longer to start, but they stop pausing halfway.

If a whole group of channels will not start, also try changing the playback format in the app settings.

6. Clear the app cache

On Fire Stick and Android TV: Settings → Applications → Manage installed applications, open the player and press Clear cache. You lose neither your session nor your details. The programme guide cache grows over time and eventually gets in the way on low-memory devices.

7. Suspect the device, not the app

If you got this far and nothing changed, look at the hardware:

  • Is it getting hot? Cheap TV Boxes overheat shut inside a cabinet and start failing. Give them air.
  • How much memory does it have? With 1 GB of RAM, a loaded programme guide already pushes it to the limit.
  • How many apps are open in the background? Close them.

8. Test on another device

This is the decisive test and the one that tells us most: open your account on your phone using mobile data, not your home WiFi. If it looks perfect there, the problem is your home network, not the service or your account. If it also fails on mobile data, write to us — that one is ours to look at.

When to contact us

Write to us if: it fails on mobile data, the same channel always fails, or you tried everything above and nothing changed. Message us on WhatsApp telling us which channel, which device and whether you tested on mobile data. With those three facts we solve it far faster than with “it does not work”.

Where do you watch from? See which channels you get in Peru, in the United States or across Latin America. No account yet? See the plans.

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