I was halfway through a meatloaf when my phone rang Tuesday night. It was my mom Joanne.
“Bill, the TV won’t TV.”
That’s a quote. That’s exactly what she said.
After 30+ years working in tech — a lot of it fixing TVs in homes across Portage County — I can tell you that “the TV won’t TV” actually covers about 90% of the streaming problems people call me about, and 90% of those have one of five fixes you can do yourself in under 10 minutes.
I’m Bill Davis, I run Bill’s Home Tech in Atwater, and this is the same five-step routine I walk every client through. By the time you get to step 5, your TV almost certainly works again. If it doesn’t, you call me — but most days, you won’t have to.
First: which “TV” are we talking about?
When folks say “the TV won’t TV,” they usually mean one of these:
- Smart TV — a TV that has streaming apps (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu) built in. The remote has app buttons.
- Roku — a small purple-ish box or stick plugged into the back of your TV. Roku-branded remote.
- Amazon Fire TV / Fire Stick — small black stick. Remote with a microphone button.
- Apple TV — small black puck. Sleek silver remote that’s about half the size of a candy bar.
- Cable box — old school. If you have Spectrum, AT&T, or DIRECTV, this is what you’ve got.
The first four are streaming devices. They use your home Wi-Fi to pull in shows. The cable box is a different animal and most of this guide doesn’t apply to it.
If you’re not sure which one you have, look at the back of the TV. Whatever’s plugged into it — that’s the one we’re working on.
The 5-step “TV won’t TV” routine
Do these in order. Stop at the step that fixes it.
Step 1: The remote needs new batteries (40% of the time)
Don’t roll your eyes. This is the answer almost half the time.
Open the back of the remote. Look at the batteries. If you can’t remember the last time you changed them — change them. AAs and AAAs are at every drugstore and grocery store in Portage County for less than $10.
While the back is open, wipe the inside of the battery compartment with a dry cloth. The little metal contacts get gunky over years and stop reading the battery properly. A 5-second wipe fixes it.
Step 2: Restart the TV (the right way)
Just turning the TV off with the remote doesn’t actually restart it. Modern TVs go into a sort of nap when you press off — they stay half-awake.
The fix:
- Press the power button on the remote to turn the TV off.
- Walk to the wall. Unplug the TV’s power cord from the wall outlet.
- Wait 30 seconds. Count it out — “one Mississippi, two Mississippi…” Don’t shortcut this part. The thirty seconds is when the TV’s memory clears.
- Plug the TV back in.
- Turn it on.
This alone fixes maybe 25% of streaming problems. It’s the equivalent of giving the TV a real night of sleep.
Step 3: Restart the streaming device (if you have one)
If you have a Roku, Fire Stick, or Apple TV — they need a restart too. Sometimes the TV is fine and the streaming device is the one that’s stuck.
Same routine: unplug it from the back of the TV (or its power outlet, depending on the model), wait 30 seconds, plug it back in. Wait 2 minutes for it to start back up.
You don’t have to use the menus to do this. Just unplug-and-plug works.
Step 4: Restart your Wi-Fi router
This is the step nobody wants to do, because it means walking to the basement or wherever your internet box lives. Do it anyway. It fixes another 20% of streaming problems.
- Find the router. It’s a flat box with antennas, or sometimes a little tower with green/blue lights. There may be two boxes — one is the “modem” (from the cable company) and one is the “router.” If there are two, unplug both.
- Pull the power cords out from the back.
- Wait at least 60 seconds. (Yes, longer than the TV. The router takes longer to fully power-down.)
- Plug the modem back in first. Wait two minutes for the lights to settle.
- Then plug the router back in. Wait another two minutes.
- Try the TV.
If it works now, you’ve done what your cable company would have charged you $99 to do. Make a note of how often you have to do this — if it’s more than once a month, your router is probably old. (See the Wi-Fi dead zones post for what to do about that.)
Step 5: Sign out of the app, sign back in
If the TV powers on, you can get to the menu, but a specific app — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon — keeps loading forever or showing an error code, this is usually the fix.
Inside the app:
- Look for Settings or Account (usually a gear icon).
- Find Sign Out.
- Sign out.
- Restart the app (close it completely, open it again).
- Sign back in. You’ll need the email and password for that streaming service. (And if you don’t know it — see the password manager post. I am not joking.)
This forces the app to fetch a fresh connection to the streaming service. Fixes a surprising number of “it just won’t load” complaints.
When none of the 5 steps work
If you’ve done all five steps and the TV still won’t stream — it’s one of these three:
- Your internet itself is out. Try Netflix on your phone, not on Wi-Fi (turn Wi-Fi off on the phone). If Netflix works on your phone’s cell signal but not on the TV, your home Wi-Fi is the problem. Call your internet provider.
- The streaming device is dead. Roku and Fire Stick units last about 4-6 years before they get too slow to use. If yours is older than that and nothing fixes it, replace it. New Roku Express or Fire Stick is about $30.
- The TV’s app is too out of date. Older smart TVs sometimes lose support for newer apps. The app keeps working until one day Netflix updates and the TV can’t run the new version. Solution: a $30 Roku stick brings any old TV back to life. Cheaper than a new TV.
Want me to come look at it?
If you’d rather not poke at the TV yourself, this is bread-and-butter for me. Flat $99, I come to your house, work through the same five steps and a few extras, and have your TV back to streaming in under an hour.
While I’m there I’ll usually catch a couple other things — your remote needs batteries, your router is from 2015 and dying, your Hulu account has been signed in on six devices because the grandkids logged in last Christmas. All part of the visit.
Call (330) 200-8042 or book at billshometech.com.
What I told my mom Tuesday night
When she called me — meatloaf still on my plate — here’s the conversation:
“Mom, walk to the TV. Pull the plug out of the wall.”
“Out of which wall?”
“The wall the TV is plugged into. Just one cord. The big square one.”
“Okay.”
“Now wait 30 seconds.”
[silence]
“Plug it back in.”
[TV chime in the background]
“Bill, you’re a wizard.”
I’m not a wizard. I’m just a guy who knows that TVs sometimes need to be turned all the way off. So do you, now.
Save this post. Tape the five steps to the back of the TV remote if it helps. The next time the “TV won’t TV,” you’ve got the routine. And the meatloaf I’m eating won’t get cold over you, either.