Wake It Up: Learn How To Stop FireStick From Going To Sleep

Imagine you are watching a suspense thriller, and just before the major reveal in a spine-tingling murder mystery, your FireStick goes off to sleep. Like, they are just about to reveal the murderer or taking a complete plot turn, but you are looking for ways to stop FireStick from sleeping instead.

Those who know me know how I never curl my toes to accept that murder mysteries make me scared of my own shadow. But last night, I finally decided to watch Spenser Confidential after getting too many recommendations, and just before the most bone-chilling moment, my FireStick went into sleep mode and closed all the apps.

The Amazon Fire Stick goes into sleep mode after a predetermined amount of time, causing all media streaming to halt. The feature essentially helps the users in conserving data and energy. However, for individuals like me who enjoy sleeping with the TV on or binge-watching their favorite films and television series, this function may be inconvenient.

While I was able to fix the issue in less than a few minutes, as a responsible techie, I would never want my readers to go through the ordeal. Hence I decided to write an article about how to stop FireStick from going to sleep.

What Is The Auto Sleep Feature?

An automatic sleep function causes a device with a  screen to dim or turn off its screen after a predetermined amount of inactivity. This issue is typically different from your Fire Stick restarting again and again, as with this feature turned on, your device enters sleep mode when it does not receive any simple commands, like volume up, play or pause for a long duration.

Basically, devices potentially auto sleep in two different ways. One is when all system commands shut down and go into hibernation as a result of auto-sleep. The majority of the programs operating on your device will also stop in this scenario, not simply the screen.

In the alternative form of auto sleep, just the exterior output features such as the screen and volume are turned off, while background processes like updates and downloads continue to function normally. 

When I refer to the Fire Stick, the latter is the type of sleep mode that the device runs into. But the trouble is that you can not just scroll through your device to toggle off the settings and will have to put a little more effort into the same.

How To Prevent FireStick From Going To Sleep?

The major reason you’re here right now is that you couldn’t locate any auto-sleep options on your fire Stick settings menu. This is due to the fact that all Fire TV devices, including the Amazon Fire Stick, and the Amazon Cube, do not have the option in the menu where you can set the device to not sleep.

However, you still may be able to adjust the auto sleep setting on your Fire Stick using one of two techniques given in this section of the article.

But before you use any of the techniques, it is a prerequisite for you to enable ADB Debugging and install ADB Link. ADB or Android Debug Bridge is a command-line tool that allows you to interact with a device.

Here are the steps for ADB debugging on your Fire Stick.

• Step 1: Use your Fire Stick remote to navigate to Fire TV settings.
• Step 2: Go to MY Fire TV
• Step 3: Select the Developer option and turn on both the given options, i.e., Apps From Unknown Sources and ADB Debugging.
• Step 4: When you connect Fire Stick using ADB for the first time, the Fire Stick displays a secure connection screen and requires you to check a box to indicate that it is OK to connect to your PC.
• Step 5: Tick on the box to remember the selection.
• Step 6: Access your Fire TV IP address by navigating to Settings > System > About > Network.

The next step is to download ADB Link on your desktop or laptop computer. To do so, click here and scroll down to get the download link for your Windows, Mac, or Linux device. Install the ADB link once you’ve downloaded it.

Once you’ve installed ADB Link on your system, follow these steps to have your adbLink software interact with your Fire Stick.

• Step 1: Launch the ADB Link on your computer.
• Step 2: Click on the New button.
• Step 3: Give your Fire TV Stick a name in the Description field.
• Step 4: In Address, enter the IP address of your Fire Stick that you noted earlier.
• Step 5: Select the Save option.
• Step 6: Connect by clicking the Connect button.

When you connect your computer with your Fire Stick, the IP address or name of your Fire Stick should appear in the Connected Devices box, and the text ‘IP connection’ should appear in the Connection Status field. Once done, you are good to follow the procedures to finally stop your Fire Stick from going to sleep.

How To Stop Fire Stick From Going To Sleep Via ADB Link Utility

This method to disable your Fire Stick from going to sleep is the easiest way you can achieve the same. Simply follow the steps given below to never have to worry about the sleep mode on your Fire Stick.

• Step 1: Once your ADB Link is connected to your Fire Stick, go to the top menu and select the Utility option.
• Step 2: Now click on Set timers. A window similar to the one shown below will now appear.
  
• Step 3: Simply pick Sleep Off and Screensaver Off to turn off the sleep mode. 
• Step 4: Click on the OK button

How To Stop Fire Stick From Going To Sleep via ADB Link Command Line Shell

This fix requires you to add some commands in the ADB Link shell to stop your Fire Stick from going off to sleep.

Here are the steps to do so.

• Step 1: After connecting your ADB Link to your Fire Stick, click on the ADB Shell button to launch a command line shell. This step will put you into the shell interface.
• Step 2: Now set the sleep timeout setting to 0, which means telling the Firestick to never sleep. Type the following command and press Enter to accomplish this.
  
  settings put secure sleep_timeout 0
  
• Step 3: To quit shell mode, type exit followed by the Enter key.

How To Stop Fire Stick From Going To Sleep via Third-Party App

This solution entails downloading and installing a third-party app on the Fire Stick device that disables the sleep timer. Since there are no good apps in the Amazon App Store for this, you’ll need to side-load one from the Google Play Store in APK format onto your Fire Stick. A few apps that I have heard positive about are Stay Alive and Screen Saver Blocker. 

• Step 1: Open the ADB Link on your PC.
• Step 2: Click the Install APK option.
• Step 3: Scroll and select the App APK file you downloaded earlier.
• Step 4: A popup will appear asking whether you are sure you want to install the APK; select Yes.

A small progress bar should appear in the bottom right corner of the screen to indicate that it is progress. When it’s finished, the third-party app will appear in the app section of your fire Stick home screen. To keep the screen alive, open the app and enable the option. 

Once done, your Amazon Fire Stick device should no longer go off to sleep.

FAQs

Q1. Why does my Fire Stick frequently restart while using NetFlix?

Answer – If you are having trouble using NetFlix on your Fire Stick, examine your Wi-Fi connection to see if it is functioning well. Clear the cache on your NetFlix app and restart the firestick to see if the issue has been resolved. 

Q2. If my Fire Stick goes to sleep, will my ongoing updates and downloads also pause?

Answer – When a Fire Stick goes to sleep, only the external output features, such as the screen and volume, are turned off, but background processes, such as updates and downloads, continue to function normally.

Conclusion

It’s inconvenient to constantly have your Fire Stick go to sleep and close your apps. Particularly when watching your favorite content. Though no feature in the Fire Stick menu allows you to configure the device to never sleep, you can do so by using ADB Link, following the methods in the post.

I hope this article has assisted you in keeping the Firestick from going into sleep mode on its own. If you have any other questions about your Fire Stick, please leave them in the comments section.