Why Is My Fire TV Screen Green?
1. Loose Cable Connection
Fix 1 – Reconnect Cables Try checking on your cables. Different things can make them come loose, from an accident that tugs at your cables to a pet playing with them while you aren’t looking. You’ll want to look to make sure they’re connected both to your TV and to the power source properly. Even if everything looks good, it can’t hurt to make sure your connection is secure on both ends. Gently holding the cable near its connection point, push towards the connection point to ensure your cable is fully connected. You’ll want to do this with every cable at both connection points—the TV and the power source—to ensure everything is as it should be. If your problem was a loose cable, this will fix your screen error right away! Fix 2 – Use a Different HDMI Port Of course, HDMI connections can be finnicky sometimes. It might not always be a loose connection that is to blame. If ensuring there was nothing loose didn’t work, it doesn’t necessarily mean your problem isn’t related to your set-up. Most TVs come with more than one HDMI port. Try searching on your TV. Typically, they’ll be labeled (i.e. HDMI 1, HDMI 2). Assuming you have more than one port, try switching your connection from one port to the other. If this fixes your screen, it’s likely there’s some sort of problem with your HDMI port, whether it needs to be cleaned or the issue is structural. Compressed air is a great way to clean electronics, and it can easily be found at your local grocery store or in places that deal with electronics, such as Best Buy. If your HDMI port is dirty, blowing compressed air into the port should clear out any dust that could be blocking the connection and giving you your green screen. However, if compressed air doesn’t work, don’t try putting cleaners or foreign objects in your TV. At this point, it might be best to call in a professional, whether that means someone with experience working with TVs or your TV’s manufacturer. Fix 3 – Replace HDMI Cable Let’s say you’ve completed the two previous steps and determined that your issue is neither a loose connection nor related to a single HDMI port. At that point, the problem could be the cable itself, especially if there are any imperfections in a cable. Cables can last a long, long time, but this is typically only true if they’re taken care of. A cable that’s been bent at odd angles repeatedly, for example, may over time lose its connection. Phone chargers are the best example of this. The problem is so frequently seen that companies manufacture cord huggers that are designed to sit at the end of your phone charger and prevent it from bending in ways that’ll damage the connection. A cable with a torn sheath, revealing the wires within, could also be to blame for your screen error. Moreover, it is a hazard. If you have a cord with exposed wires, you should unplug it from your electronics immediately, taking care not to touch the exposed wires, and throw it away. The exposed wires could hurt you or catch something on fire.
2. There’s A Bug
Fix – Clear the Apps’ Cache Bugs in technology are a source of constant headaches, but luckily, the easiest ways to solve them are often largely the same across phones, TVs, computers, and more. Just like your internet browser may experience problems from a large cache building up over time, the same can be true of apps installed to your Fire TV. To clear the cache of whichever app is acting up on you, from your Fire’s home screen, navigate to Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications. Here, you’ll scroll to the app that’s giving you issues, then select the option Clear cache. If the bug was caused by a large cache, then you should find that the next time you open your app, everything is appearing just as it should! Fix 2 – Reinstall the App On the other hand, if clearing your app’s cache didn’t work, the next step is to uninstall and then reinstall the app that’s giving you issues. Don’t ask me what technological voodoo magic is at work that this can solve bugs: just trust that it does work. First, from your Fire’s home screen, you’ll navigate to Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications, just like you did to clear the app’s cache. Scroll until you find your problem app, then select Uninstall. This will remove the app from your device. You’re officially ready to reinstall the app. You probably know how to install an app already, but just to be safe, I’ll take you through the process. Feel fre to skip over this part if you have it from here. From your Fire’s home screen, you’ll locate and select the Find button. It should be on the same menu bar as your Settings button, only located near the far left. You’ll then press Search and use your remote to type in the name of the app you want to install. Once you see the name pop up, navigate down and select it. The app’s icon should appear on your screen. Select that, then click Download. Boom. You’ve got your app back on your Fire TV. Once the download finishes and you can open the app, do so to test if it’s working properly again. Fix 3 – Restart Fire Stick Let’s say the voodoo magic didn’t work and you’re still experiencing a green screen. That’s okay. The next step is to try restarting your Fire TV stick. There are a few ways you can do this. For the first option, you’ll open the home screen on your Fire TV stick, then navigate to Settings, located in the far right corner of your screen. Next, navigate to My Fire TV (which may be labeled Device or System if your Fire TV or TV stick is an older model). You’ll have to scroll almost to the bottom from here until you see Restart. You’ll be prompted to confirm your choice, then your Fire TV stick will restart itself. Wait for it to reboot and check to see if your problem’s vanished. You can also restart your Fire TV with your remote only. Locate your Select button and Play/Pause button. Press and hold both of these buttons at the same time. After about 5 seconds, your Fire TV will automatically restart itself, no extra confirmation needed. Finally, the method most people likely don’t use: you can always unplug your TV from the power source to restart your Fire TV. Without power, both your Fire TV and TV will shut down. Since restarting a device is powering it down, then powering it back up, this is a perfectly valid way to restart any device. You could even simply unplug your Fire TV stick from your TV if you wanted. However you choose to go about the above restart, wait 10-30 seconds before restoring power to your Fire TV to ensure a proper restart. Once you do that, you can open your Fire’s home screen and attempt to access your apps again. If you’re dealing with a bug, chances are that this will eliminate it. Fix 4 – Factory Reset Stick Some bugs are a little more stubborn than others, however. If a restart of your Fire stick doesn’t get rid of it, the next step to eliminate the problem is to perform a factory reset. This isn’t a desirable solution for most, as factory resets restore all settings on your device to how they were set up before you bought the device. This means any apps you downloaded would be uninstalled, every personalized setting would return to its default, and everything you’d logged into would log you out and forget your username and password. For this reason, I highly recommend writing down everything you’re afraid you might not remember before performing your factory reset.
- Once you’ve mentally steeled yourself for the inevitable, navigate to the Settings menu from your Fire’s home screen.
- You’ll then click on My Fire TV (or Device or System depending on the age of your Fire TV), and from there scroll all the way to the bottom.
- The last option should read Reset To Factory Defaults. Click it.
- You’ll be prompted by your Fire TV to confirm that you’re sure of your decision. Once you mentally feel that you’re certain, go ahead and confirm. Your Fire TV will take a bit of time to wipe away every trace of your presence from its system, then return you to the welcome screen where you can complete set-up and try to restore everything to the way it was before. On the bright side, no bug could possibly survive a factory reset.
3. Fire TV Stick Damaged
Fix – Replace Fire TV Stick Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do if your Fire stick is damaged. I’d love to give you tips on how to go about fixing various issues with your Fire stick, depending on what kind of damage you’re experiencing, but I just can’t.
4. Not Enough Storage
Fix – Make Storage Space You may be wondering what storage space has to do with your screen appearing green. The answer is that, unfortunately, having little to no storage space on your Fire TV can cause a variety of issues, from slow download times to the very problem you’re experiencing now. Your Fire TV comes with a decent amount of space so that you can download apps onto it, but it isn’t impossible to start running out of space, especially if you use your Fire TV for quite a bit. Thankfully, there are various ways to clear up some storage space. Just like a lengthy internet cache can cause issues on your computer, the same is true of apps on your Fire TV. One way to clear up some storage space is to clear your apps’ caches.
- From your Fire’s home screen, navigate to Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications. From this menu, you’ll be able to see how much storage space each app’s cache and data takes up (and clear either or both for each app).
- Of course, to clear the most space, you might consider uninstalling apps. Look through each one you have installed, and if there are any that you aren’t actively using or don’t think you’ll be going back to, go ahead and delete them. They’re only costing you precious space at that point.
- Using the same steps as above, you’ll want to clear both the app’s cache and data first, to ensure everything is deleted, then select Uninstall. Even getting rid of one app should clear up a decent amount of storage. Once you’ve solved your storage crisis, you should notice things working better on your Fire TV, such as download times being shorter, and hopefully, any other bugs you were experiencing (including the green screen) going away.
5. Fire TV Stick Firmware Out of Date
Fix – Update Firmware You may be wondering “How do I know if my Firmware is out of date?” If you’ve had your Fire TV stick for more than a month and never updated it, then I can almost guarantee your Firmware out of date. Don’t worry though. I’ll take you through how to check for sure.
- From your Fire’s home screen, you’ll navigate to Settings, located in the top right corner of your screen. This should pull up a menu.
- Scroll until you see My Fire TV (you might see Device or System with older models instead) and select it, then select About.
- If your Firmware is up-to-date, your screen will show a message saying Check For Updates. If your Firmware is out-of-date, you’ll instead see an Install Update option.
- To update your Fire TV, hit select on Install Update. Your TV should then give you a message letting you know that updates are being installed and warning you not to disconnect or turn off your device. Updates can take a while to install, 5-15 minutes being the average. Once your Fire TV is finished updating however, it should turn itself off and then reboot. If out-of-date firmware was the source of your troubles, you’ll no longer experience the green screen issue.
6. TV Screen Damaged
Fix – Get It Repaired If your green screen is persisting across the board, not just when you use apps in your Fire stick, then the problem is likely with the TV itself and not with your Fire TV stick if you’re using one. If you’re unsure if the problem is local to your Fire TV, try using your TV remote to select a different input (TV, a different HDMI port, etc). If the screen remains green, the problem is with your TV, not your Fire TV stick. One option is to have your screen repaired. Depending on the issue, this may cost more or less than a replacement television set. You can try calling around to local businesses that handle TV repairs and see if you can get a quote on how much the fix would cost. Depending on the price, this may be the road you want to go down.
7. Replace TV
Of course, if repairs are too costly, you might consider instead replacing your TV—especially if the current TV is old and you expect it to only continue to develop more issues. In that case, a new TV may just be the new thing for you. Whether you buy online or go looking for what you want in a store, you’re sure to find something that suits your tastes. As a bonus: this is a sure way of knowing your green screen problem will be fixed.
8. Contact TV Manufacturer
If the broken TV in question is under warranty or you believe the problem may be something that can be fixed without a professional’s help, rather than jumping the gun by rushing to have your TV repaired or replaced, you might consider contacting your TV’s manufacturer instead. In the case of a TV under warranty, they’ll be able to get you a new television set without any problems. And in the case of a broken screen, customer service may be able to take you through a variety of steps that could fix the problem, before ultimately suggesting you have the TV repaired or replaced by a professional of none of their tricks work. The benefit of this is that you’re dealing with the people who know this technology the best. Depending on brand and model, the issue could be any number of things, with any number of solutions, and those who handle these issues daily are best equipped to help you out.
