How to turn off automatic updating on your Amazon Fire Stick

The Amazon Fire TV Stick is a great way to get all the streaming content you want right on your TV. You can connect it to streaming services like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, as well as live TV and Amazon’s huge catalog of movies and TV shows.

However, like any modern device with Internet access, it will often require a wait time for an automatic update. Normally, it is not possible to disable this feature as there is no built-in option to do so in the settings menu. But there is a solution, although quite complex. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to explain how it’s done.

Step 1 – Enable Android Debugging Bridge

Android Debugging Bridge, or ADB, is a command-line level program that allows you to make developer-level changes to your Fire Stick’s operating system. You will need to enable it to make the necessary modifications to disable the automatic update feature on your Fire Stick.

Enable ADB on the new Fire Stick interface

First, you need to enable your Fire TV Stick to make connections to ADB through the settings menu. These are the steps you will need to follow:

1. Go to the Fire TV Stick home screen and select Settings.
2. Scroll right and select My fire television (could be Device either System on Fire Sticks running an older version of the interface).
3. Scroll down to Developer options and select ADB purge to turn it IN.

Step 2: Find the IP address of your Fire Stick

Next, you must determine the IP address assigned to your Fire TV Stick by your Wi-Fi network in order to connect it to your TV. This is how you do it:

1. As before, go to the Fire TV Stick home screen and select Settings.
2. Scroll right and select My fire television (could be Device either System on Fire Sticks running an older version of the interface).
3. Then select About.
4. Now, scroll down to Grid.
5. Your Fire Stick’s IP address will be displayed on the right of the screen. In most cases, this will be something like 192.168.1.XX (where XX is the number assigned to the Fire Stick). Take note of the entire string of numbers, as they will all be needed later.

Step 3 – Install ADB on your computer

The next step is to make sure you have Android DebugBridge installed on your computer if you don’t already have it. Below are the steps required to install it on Windows and Mac computers.

Install ADB on Windows

1. Open a web browser and download the ADB installer from this link: ADB Installer (Windows).
2. Open the installer once it has finished downloading.
3. The installer will ask you Do you want to install ADB and Fastboot? Guy “AND“, and hit Get into.
4. It will then ask you Install ADB on the entire system? Guy “AND“, and hit Get into.
5. Finally, it will ask you Do you want to install device drivers? Guy “north“, and press Enter.

Install ADB on Mac

1. Open your Mac web browser and download ADB from this link: ADB Installer (Mac)
2. Extract the installer zip file by double-clicking on it.
3. Once you have finished extracting, double-click the new unzipped folder.
4. Open the Terminal app by going to Applications > Utilities, or by pressing ⌘ + space and writing “Terminal” in Spotlight.
5. Drag the file titled ADB-Install-Mac.sh to the Terminal window.
6. Click in the Terminal window and press Enter. Enter your password if prompted.

Step 4 – Launch ADB on your computer

Now that you have installed ADB, you will need to start it. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Start menu, start typing “symbol of the system”In the search bar and click on Command Prompt. On Mac, open Terminal the same way you did before.
2. Write “adb removal server”(without the quotes) then press Get into.
3. Write “adb home server” then press Get into.
4. Write “adb connection [IP address]“(use the IP address for your Fire Stick that you found above and don’t include the square brackets) and then press Get into.

Step 5 – Disable Automatic Updates Using ADB

The final step is quite simple, now you have everything configured. You just need to run a specific command to tell the Fire Stick to stop updating automatically. Here’s what you should do:

1. With the Command Prompt window still open and connected to your device following the steps above, type “his“and hit Get into. This command will give you administrator level access to your Fire TV Stick.
2. For Fire TV Stick with OS3, type “adb shell pm disable com.amazon.dcp“and hit Get into. If your Fire TV has OS5 or higher, type “adb shell pm hide com.amazon.device.software.ota“and hit Get into. Try commands without typing”adb shell”Start at the beginning if you have problems.

If you ever want to re-enable automatic updating on your Fire TV Stick, you can perform a factory reset or follow this final stage again, replacing the word hide with show.

No more automatic updates

With this somewhat lengthy process, you can persuade your Fire TV Stick to no longer download and install updates automatically. If you have found a better or easier method to manage this, we would love to hear about it in the comments section below.