How to fix IPTV Buffering and freezing – Ultimate Guide

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Although Buffering means a variety of definitions in different types of technologies, here we describe it in the field of IPTV streaming. In general, it means that when you are watching a live stream, the picture sometimes stops and resumes. This issue is referred to as buffering. IPTV Buffering would speed up different tasks on your computer.

Buffering can prevent lag when you’re streaming video or prevent slow performance when you’re playing a graphics-intensive video game on your desktop computer. Buffering involves pre-loading data into a certain area of memory known as a “buffer,” so the data can be accessed more quickly on GPU or CPU.

While diagnosing the root cause of buffering is a daunting task, this paper explains the underlying factors that may be contributing to buffering and fixing it.

Causes of the IPTV Buffering

Internet Speed

Depending on the quality of the streaming, there is a minimum required speed that your Internet connection has to satisfy. Otherwise, it is highly probable to encounter poor quality and frequent interruptions.

Home Network

Wireless routers are often getting quickly overloaded when a number of devices are connected to them simultaneously. This will lessen the required bandwidth for streaming and cause interruptions. In this case, you need to have a router that can handle heavy traffic loads.

CPU Usage

One aspect that is often overlooked is the activity that happens on your Internet-connected device. Watching videos over the Internet uses computing resources. Therefore, if you have a lot of programs running in the background of your system, this could cause some issues with your video playing properly. If you are having problems playing videos, another good practice would be to close out any web pages and programs that you are not using.

Stream Provider Overloading

If the requests for streaming over the providers’ servers get higher than they can handle, it would delay the transfer of video to your device and finally lead the stream to get pause or buffer. In this case, nothing can be done by the users except to wait until the requests for providers’ content slow down.

How to prevent IPTV Buffering

The main underlying reasons for buffering can be categorized into 3 main sections: Internet speed, hardware processor, and the server through which the IPTV is streamed. The fluctuation of the Internet download speed will lead to buffering. Also, if your TV or media box is unable to handle the high-quality input streams (for example HD channels) this can cause buffering.

Finally, when the servers of the IPTV providers are being overloaded as a result of over-streaming by the users, this will cause buffering too.

Things to do when you are facing unusual IPTV Buffering and freezing

Any IPTV users can apply this technique to fix lag issues.

1. Restart the Wi-Fi

Sometimes the Wi-Fi sending too much data in and out and serving too many devices at once can cause the HD streams to lag for the TV. Restarting Wi-Fi helps the device refresh its settings and cool down.

2. Restart the TV/Firestick/Box

The set-top box whether it’s a Shield Pro or Firestick or any android or Mag device has background apps running and also has processing and depends on RAM. If it’s used for a long time or getting a load from background apps, can cause the CPU and GPU to overheat, resulting in the IPTV App performing slower. Restarting the device helps it clear the useless processes. You can also Close Background apps by other means.

3. Check the Internet Speed

You can test your Internet Speed with a few apps that are available on the Firestick App store and also the Play Store. If your speed is lower than 40MBps your IPTV can lag on HD channels.
The Most Popular Speed testing apps are:

Internet Speed Test App
Analytics
Fast.com (From any browser such as Firefox)

Uninstall or Close Background Apps
You might wanna check if your Firestick or the Set-Top-Box you are using if it’s running too many background apps that can consume larger Data from the Internet. These days no app is static and constantly sending and receiving data from the internet.

Most Popular Background Process Management app:

Background Apps & Process List

4. Use a Premium VPN

Using a VPN helps your Streaming Speed Stabilize and Enhance along with protecting your privacy. Most Internet Service Providers are with Cable and VOD services so they wouldn’t want their customers streaming from outside their network, yet they have fewer resources to fill the demand gap. So they throttle speed and it’s mostly done manually or with an algorithm that detects your usage. Using a Premium VPN, will mask your connection id and provide you the Freedom to browse and stream.

Most Popular and well-known VPN

ExpressVPN (Most Recommended)
Nord VPN
Surf Shark

Moreover, if you use VLC media players or a Smart TV app, you might look into the ways by which you can tweak your connection to reduce the amount of buffering.

If you are still having trouble watching videos, there are a few things that you can do to minimize the effect of stuttering.
With some video providers, you can start the video, pause it and wait.

This will allow the video to download a little way ahead of time so that you can let it catch up and watch it for a long uninterrupted period. Disabling IGMP Snooping will sometimes help reduce the buffering.

You can also reduce the quality of the video. This will decrease the bandwidth demand and increase the likelihood that the video will not stutter during playback.

Another optional approach would be downloading the entire video first before playing it. This may take longer, but it would likely ensure that you would be able to watch the entire video without interruption.