How To Reset Your Amazon FireStick Remote

The Amazon Fire Stick is a small device that can plug into a television's HDMI port, providing access to Wi-Fi-based streaming services and apps like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max, and many others. It's a handy way to modernize HDTVs that doesn't come loaded with smart TV features of its own, and the Fire TV software (which the Fire Stick is built upon) can even be found in plenty of modern 4K televisions such as the Toshiba M550KU 4K Smart TV or the aptly-named Amazon Fire TV. The latest model of the Fire Stick, the Fire Stick 4K Max, supports 4K-resolution content with HDR passthrough and built-in Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, which could make it more tenable for streaming 4K HDR content than generic smart TV features in certain TV models.

That is, until it stops working. The Amazon Fire Stick has one critical flaw that's hard to overlook, and it has to do with the remote. Reddit is full of threads created by disgruntled Fire Stick users who weren't able to make their remote work after varying periods of time with their devices, and it's evidently become so much of an issue that Amazon itself stepped in, offering its own set of guidelines for resetting Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick remotes. Each of these processes is pretty simple to follow, and if you find yourself among the ranks of unlucky Fire TV users attempting to surf the Amazon Fire TV menu without a working remote, you can try the following tips to reset your remote.

Amazon recommends placing your remote "within 10 feet of your Fire TV device," which allows the remote to sync to the base device. With that in mind, Amazon suggests the following instructions for resetting your first-generation Fire TV with Alexa Voice remote:

1. First, unplug your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick from its power source, and wait a full minute. If you own a smartwatch, this is a good moment to make use of its timer function, since you'll need to wait no less than 60 seconds before you can continue.

2. After the Fire TV is powered off for a solid minute, you'll want to hold both the Left button and Menu button (which looks like three little lines stacked on top of one another) for a full 12 seconds or longer.

3. Amazon recommends waiting a whole five seconds after you stop holding both buttons down, and then you'll need to remove the batteries from the remote. Slide off the back cover of the remote and take out the batteries.

4. At this point, you can plug your Fire TV or Fire Stick back into its respective power source, but you'll need to wait yet another 60 seconds before continuing. After the minute passes, you can slide your batteries back into the remote.

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5. Now, you can tap the Home button again to test out whether the Fire TV is properly synced to the remote.

The instructions for resetting your Fire Stick or Fire TV remote don't change too drastically between remote versions, but there is one key difference between the first-gen Fire TV with Alexa Voice remote and ones that come after it — notably, the specific combination of buttons you'll need to press in order to reset the remote during step two changes. Instead of just pressing the Left and Menu buttons, you'll also need to press the Back button as well.

The Back button is to the left of the Menu button, and it looks like an arrow pulling an illegal U-turn and swinging left. Just as you would with the first-gen remote in the previous section, you'll need to hold all three buttons for 12 seconds before continuing.

From there on out, you can follow the steps explained in the previous section of this guide.

For Fire TV Stick Basic Edition users, you'll need to follow these instructions:

1. Press and hold the Home button, which looks like a tiny house. While you hold the Home button down, you'll need to press the Menu button three times. Then you'll need to release the Home button.

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2. After the Home button is released, tap the Menu button no less than nine times. This may sound silly, but Amazon knows its products best.

3. Now, you'll need to slide the back off of your remote and take the batteries out.

4. From here, you'll need to unplug your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick from its power source and count down from 60, or just use your smartwatch timer as we referenced earlier.

5. Replace the batteries.

6. Plug your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick back into its respective power source.

7. The Fire TV or Stick should turn on automatically once it's plugged in, taking you to the Home screen. From here, hold down the Home button on your remote for 40 seconds.

8. The setup process should now do its thing, but it might take a minute to complete.

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