IPTV keeps buffering or freezing: how to fix it

Four tests that tell you where the problem is

Before changing anything, watch how it fails. Each pattern points somewhere different:

• One channel buffers and the rest are fine: that channel's source is struggling. It is on your provider's side and nothing at home will fix it.
• Everything buffers, but only in the evening or during a big match: the provider's servers or your internet company are saturated at peak time.
• Everything buffers at any hour, on this device only: look at the device and at how it is connected.
• Films buffer but live TV is fine, or the other way round: they come from different servers at your provider. Again, their side.

Your network: the usual suspect

An HD channel needs a steady 8 to 10 Mbps and a 4K one around 25. Steady is the word that matters: Wi-Fi that measures 100 Mbps and drops to 2 for a second every minute will buffer every minute. A speed test on your phone says little; what counts is what reaches the television.

• Use a network cable if the TV or box has a socket. It fixes more buffering than everything else in this guide put together.
• On Wi-Fi, use the 5 GHz band and keep the router in sight of the TV. Walls and a microwave oven are enough to break a stream.
• Pause the big downloads: a console updating a game in the next room will take the whole line.
• Restart the router if it has been on for months. It is a cliché because it works.

Your provider: overloaded, or out of connections

If it only fails at peak time, the provider's servers are full, and the only real fix is another server address from them, or another provider. Ask: many have a backup address.

The other provider-side cause is quieter. Every account allows a fixed number of connections at once, often just one. A second device left playing in another room, a recording in progress, or a multi-view with four channels each take one. Go over the limit and streams start to stall or get cut off.

In OndalyTV, Settings › Sources › Test connection shows how many connections your account allows and how many are in use right now, together with the expiry date. If it says 1 of 1 while nothing is playing, something else in the house is using your account.

Your internet company, and whether a VPN helps

Some internet companies slow down video streams at busy hours. The sign is a line that tests fast and streams badly, in the evening, from every provider you try. A VPN can get around that — and it can also make things worse, because it adds a detour of its own. Try it with the VPN's nearest server and judge by the result, not by the promise.

If a VPN makes no difference, throttling is not your problem, and the VPN is not the fix.

Your device

• Cheap and old TV sticks struggle with 4K and with high-bitrate channels. If the HD version of a channel plays cleanly and the 4K one stutters, the device is the limit.
• Restart it. TVs and sticks are rarely switched off, only put to sleep, and they slow down after weeks awake.
• Free up storage if it is nearly full, and close apps left running in the background.
• A picture that stutters while the sound carries on is decoding, not buffering: the device cannot keep up with that stream. Try a lower-quality version of the channel.

What OndalyTV does about it, and what no player can do

When a stream drops, OndalyTV reconnects by itself, twice, a few seconds apart, before showing an error, so a brief hiccup at the provider does not send you back to the channel list. The channel preview in the Live TV list uses a connection of its own; if your account allows only one, turn it off under Settings › Playback.

What no player can do is show video that has not arrived. If the four tests point at the provider or the line, a different app will buffer in exactly the same places.

• Settings › Sources › Test connection: connections allowed and in use, and when the account expires.
• Settings › Playback › Channel preview: off, to save a connection or on a slow device.
• Multi-view and recordings each use one connection per channel.