FireTV Box, white Amazon logo then blank screen

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mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
Hi,

I have an issue with a FireTV Box. We bought it pre-rooted at the beginning of the year but didn't get on with it all that well.
We have since factory reset it, which in turn got rid of Kodi & now the box just appears to be as if we purchased it directly from Amazon.

Just recently the box doesn't appear to boot up. When I apply power to it, it switches on, the TV briefly (for about 3 seconds) displays the white Amazon logo and then everything disappears. Just a blank screen.

The screen is still receiving a signal from the box as it doesn't enter sleep mode etc. The box also appears to have booted (not sure what into) but i can see it/ping it over the network.

I have tried a factory reset (at least i think i have - right button & back button for 10 seconds) but without visual confirmation on-screen its hard to tell. Not sure if this combination of button presses actually initiates a reset, or it simply brings up the factory reset dialogue box whereby I would need a screen to confirm that option. I have also tried the button combination to switch between screen resolutions - this did do something in that the TV detected the resolution change, but through each change there was still only a blank screen - when i say blank, i mean black. Nothing at all displayed.

It appears I can't do anything with it. I have tried plugging it in to different TV's around the house, and using different HDMI cables.

I have searched and read many posts, but I'm unable to find something/someone who's had the same issues as me.

Hope someone can help!

Thanks in advance.
 

sconnyuk

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2011
414
162
Sunderland
Hi,

I have an issue with a FireTV Box. We bought it pre-rooted at the beginning of the year but didn't get on with it all that well.
We have since factory reset it, which in turn got rid of Kodi & now the box just appears to be as if we purchased it directly from Amazon.
A
Just recently the box doesn't appear to boot up. When I apply power to it, it switches on, the TV briefly (for about 3 seconds) displays the white Amazon logo and then everything disappears. Just a blank screen.

The screen is still receiving a signal from the box as it doesn't enter sleep mode etc. The box also appears to have booted (not sure what into) but i can see it/ping it over the network.

I have tried a factory reset (at least i think i have - right button & back button for 10 seconds) but without visual confirmation on-screen its hard to tell. Not sure if this combination of button presses actually initiates a reset, or it simply brings up the factory reset dialogue box whereby I would need a screen to confirm that option. I have also tried the button combination to switch between screen resolutions - this did do something in that the TV detected the resolution change, but through each change there was still only a blank screen - when i say blank, i mean black. Nothing at all displayed.

It appears I can't do anything with it. I have tried plugging it in to different TV's around the house, and using different HDMI cables.

I have searched and read many posts, but I'm unable to find something/someone who's had the same issues as me.

Hope someone can help!

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried pressing up and rewind at the same time on the remote and holding it for 5 seconds?
Try that (Hold it for 8 seconds t9 make sure)
This will cycle through resolutions incase your on an unsupported resolution.
 

mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
Have you tried pressing up and rewind at the same time on the remote and holding it for 5 seconds?
Try that (Hold it for 8 seconds t9 make sure)
This will cycle through resolutions incase your on an unsupported resolution.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have tried that, I think i mentioned that in original post but probably didn't make myself clear. When i tried that, i could see the TV changing something on-screen (ie a message appeared telling me what the screen resolution was) but this message was generated by my TV, not the AFTV device. The screen remained blank the whole time. At no point did anything appear on the TV generated by the AFTV box.

I'm at a loss with this now.

To summarise:
Blank screen after white Amazon logo (I can see approx the first 3 seconds of boot process on-screen)
I can't factory reset as i cant see the option on the screen
I have tried plugging device into different TV's
Tried different HDMI cables
Tried button combination to change screen resolution
All TV's that i plug the AFTV box into first display the resolution of 1920*1080 60 for the first 3 seconds of boot, switches to 480 thereafter which is when screen goes blank
 

sconnyuk

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2011
414
162
Sunderland
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have tried that, I think i mentioned that in original post but probably didn't make myself clear. When i tried that, i could see the TV changing something on-screen (ie a message appeared telling me what the screen resolution was) but this message was generated by my TV, not the AFTV device. The screen remained blank the whole time. At no point did anything appear on the TV generated by the AFTV box.

I'm at a loss with this now.

To summarise:
Blank screen after white Amazon logo (I can see approx the first 3 seconds of boot process on-screen)
I can't factory reset as i cant see the option on the screen
I have tried plugging device into different TV's
Tried different HDMI cables
Tried button combination to change screen resolution
All TV's that i plug the AFTV box into first display the resolution of 1920*1080 60 for the first 3 seconds of boot, switches to 480 thereafter which is when screen goes blank

Is it fire tv 1 or 2?
 

mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
Honestly not sure, it's the one without an optical connection if that makes any difference.

Thanks
 

sconnyuk

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2011
414
162
Sunderland

mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
So it the fire tv 2 box.
Can you tell me what firmware version it was on before the trouble started?
If it is not on the very latest, you always have the option of using an A-A usb lead and recovering it, the guide is on here:

http://xdaforums.com/fire-tv/development/firetv-2-unbrick-image-t3313349

Hi,

Thanks for this, i'll have a read.
I have no idea what version of fw it was on, I really never messed with it other than the factory reset.
If there's any way i can find that out, i'll post it on here.

Thanks again
 

harlekinwashere

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2016
78
37
Write it off.

Its only so fun to support people that bought prefab boxes because they had the label "free stuff" on it, then don't know what they bought, or what firmware they were on.

Long story short - if you are on an older firmware - you might be able to recover, using the USB A to A (male to male) cable brick recovery method.
If you are on a newer firmware - this is not an option (didn't doublecheck it, but I'm quite sure).

Also - none of this may be possible, or fix your issue - depending on the cause of the issue. I had mine give out on the second day of using it - with the same error profile. I had a custom recovery on there by theat point - I could reflash the stock rom successfully - same error profile. Wiped TWRP and took the box back (of course I didn't pay shady thirdparties for the privilege of "free stuff").

Other people have reported, that taking the box off power for a view hours "magically cured" an issue like this in some cases - I'd be sceptical it does, but you can try it.

If the animated (colorful) Amazon boot logo doesnt show up, the OS isn't even booting - so something is messed up on the HW or the partition level, or on the file system level. Hard to diagnose, hard to fix remotely. The only way you "might" be able to "talk to the device" is the USB A to A (male to male) unbrick method - try that if you want to. You'll find the tutorial on XDA.
 

mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
Write it off.

Its only so fun to support people that bought prefab boxes because they had the label "free stuff" on it, then don't know what they bought, or what firmware they were on.

Long story short - if you are on an older firmware - you might be able to recover, using the USB A to A (male to male) cable brick recovery method.
If you are on a newer firmware - this is not an option (didn't doublecheck it, but I'm quite sure).

Also - none of this may be possible, or fix your issue - depending on the cause of the issue. I had mine give out on the second day of using it - with the same error profile. I had a custom recovery on there by theat point - I could reflash the stock rom successfully - same error profile. Wiped TWRP and took the box back (of course I didn't pay shady thirdparties for the privilege of "free stuff").

Other people have reported, that taking the box off power for a view hours "magically cured" an issue like this in some cases - I'd be sceptical it does, but you can try it.

If the animated (colorful) Amazon boot logo doesnt show up, the OS isn't even booting - so something is messed up on the HW or the partition level, or on the file system level. Hard to diagnose, hard to fix remotely. The only way you "might" be able to "talk to the device" is the USB A to A (male to male) unbrick method - try that if you want to. You'll find the tutorial on XDA.

Yep, understand all your points. This is merely a last-ditched attempt at some sort of success before it gets thrown out. I wouldn't have bought it in the first place - wife found it on a popular social networking site and had bought it before i had any input. Agreed about the 'shady' nature of the device - who knows what is on here. If i could completely wipe the device and make it so it was like we had bought it directly from Amazon, I would. If i wanted something similar, I would have built it on a raspberry pi probably, but more for fun and learning curve than anything else. That said, I do understand why people would want to root their own AFTV devices and play with them - they have more control this way, and I quite like the hardware.

You mention the colourful Amazon boot logo - this never appears. But... It must be booting into *something* as i can ping the device on my network. It's almost like it has fully booted and is ready for action, just that the 'graphics chip' or drivers die and it fails to display anything on the screen. Another reason I suspect it has successfully booted into *something* is because the button combinations work to scroll through the screen resolutions. Whether it needs to have booted fully to enable that feature, I don't know.

I'll have a go at the above guide when i'm home and see what happens - at this point there is absolutely nothing to lose - only time.
 

harlekinwashere

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2016
78
37
At least you are open about it and willing to learn. Have to give you props for that. :)

The issue with "give us money for free, casual" (last posting about this) is that you dont get support with it. Usually. ("I found it on facebook - it told me it would give me free for only 99.99...") So what happend to this community initially is that it got the "frenzy fun - bought for simple and free and it worked yesterday" crowd during the entire popularity peak of this device.

The Kodi community lost Android maintainers to the "i think we can make money here as well" pull and resulting internal conflict (and thats fair, but...), had to push through a public statement about its zero tolerance policy on piracy addon support, because they were swamped (30 postings a day - with people that never read anything but the tagline sold to them by shady thirdparties) with people looking up "Kodi" and then going on to solicit "help requests" from a dev community "facebook style ("my girlfriends old mother, ...")".

Reddit was full with bad advice, some of which was popularized by bloggers that saw it as a commercial opportunity (mostly talking about the youtuber scene, but not exclusively).

Kodi was removed from the Amazon Appstore on grounds of "public perception" (thanks "free and easy for a onetime payment of 99.99 crowd") alone - Amazon was allowed to start heavily overreaching and deciding what apps people would be allowed to use on the device (almost no one even had an issue with anything they did (ruined the basis of existence for the homebrew scene (if you are an app developer - how about you submit the app to our store?), by stripping out basics that we needed (which is why you probably won't be able to recover the device - even if it is recoverable ("is it running recent Amazon software"?)) - people just were afraid to loose free and as a result complacent to the actions that took place - people shushed you if you had nothing but cursewords for Amazon actively destroying the ecosystem - because as long as they left piracy working - "maybe it wasnt that bad") and what apps would have to be disabled (the ones that reduced their advertising effectiveness) - and the most popular people at that time were the bloggers that decided, that the crowd should enjoy "easy and free" (as in advertisment supported, as far as they were concerned), all the way until Amazon switched the rails and led them just as "easy and free" back into the subscription model again. Bloggers and all.

The subscription model needs channel exclusivity (or backroom deals) and heavy DRM safe guards, so If thats what people wanted all along, why did they cosy up with the hacking scene? (Which is strongly linked to consumer and device rights ideals, the open source ethos, ....) Those are two basically contrary vantage points.

You factory reset your Fire TV, right? It was easier that way - right? Using Plex - also, very easy. Its right there on the frontpage. Just sign into your account, pay the monthly fee...

So two lessons

- Never underestimate a crowd pulled by the sentiment of "free" to be able to ruin a community and leave only ashes.
- If they get pulled back into a subscription model again - let them. They want easy - they don't know how. They pay 10 USD a month and they get someone to talk to them for that, on the other end of a phone line.

But why should the hacking community ever provide product support essentially "for Amazon?" We arent responsible if a device becomes defect on its own. We arent the ones that told you to buy from a shady source that eliminated the warranty and "gesture of good will" exchange options. We are just the ones the "free and easy crowd" would never pay 50 bucks an hour (or more), because it probably would turn out to be more than they paid for the entire set up device (automated) in the fist place. The one that was supposed to give them free.

So this becomes a charity. (If people are in it to learn, it becomes a learning environment.. - but everyone just wanted easy - so...)

And what do you do with charities as a majority group? You try to exploit them. In some cases. Nature of the beast I guess.. ;)
 
Last edited:

mrmcmint

Member
Oct 2, 2016
6
0
At least you are open about it and willing to learn. Have to give you props for that. :)

The issue with "give us money for free, casual" (last posting about this) is that you dont get support with it. Usually. ("I found it on facebook - it told me it would give me free for only 99.99...") So what happend to this community initially is that it got the "frenzy fun - bought for simple and free and it worked yesterday" crowd during the entire popularity peak of this device.

The Kodi community lost Android maintainers to the "i think we can make money here as well" pull and resulting internal conflict (and thats fair, but...), had to push through a public statement about its zero tolerance policy on piracy addon support, because they were swamped (30 postings a day - with people that never read anything but the tagline sold to them by shady thirdparties) with people looking up "Kodi" and then going on to solicit "help requests" from a dev community "facebook style ("my girlfriends old mother, ...")".

Reddit was full with bad advice, some of which was popularized by bloggers that saw it as a commercial opportunity (mostly talking about the youtuber scene, but not exclusively).

Kodi was removed from the Amazon Appstore on grounds of "public perception" (thanks "free and easy for a onetime payment of 99.99 crowd") alone - Amazon was allowed to start heavily overreaching and deciding what apps people would be allowed to use on the device (almost no one even had an issue with anything they did (ruined the basis of existence for the homebrew scene (if you are an app developer - how about you submit the app to our store?), by stripping out basics that we needed (which is why you probably won't be able to recover the device - even if it is recoverable ("is it running recent Amazon software"?)) - people just were afraid to loose free and as a result complacent to the actions that took place - people shushed you if you had nothing but cursewords for Amazon actively destroying the ecosystem - because as long as they left piracy working - "maybe it wasnt that bad") and what apps would have to be disabled (the ones that reduced their advertising effectiveness) - and the most popular people at that time were the bloggers that decided, that the crowd should enjoy "easy and free" (as in advertisment supported, as far as they were concerned), all the way until Amazon switched the rails and led them just as "easy and free" back into the subscription model again. Bloggers and all.

The subscription model needs channel exclusivity (or backroom deals) and heavy DRM safe guards, so If thats what people wanted all along, why did they cosy up with the hacking scene? (Which is strongly linked to consumer and device rights ideals, the open source ethos, ....) Those are two basically contrary vantage points.

You factory reset your Fire TV, right? It was easier that way - right? Using Plex - also, very easy. Its right there on the frontpage. Just sign into your account, pay the monthly fee...

So two lessons

- Never underestimate a crowd pulled by the sentiment of "free" to be able to ruin a community and leave only ashes.
- If they get pulled back into a subscription model again - let them. They want easy - they don't know how. They pay 10 USD a month and they get someone to talk to them for that, on the other end of a phone line.

But why should the hacking community ever provide product support essentially "for Amazon?" We arent responsible if a device becomes defect on its own. We arent the ones that told you to buy from a shady source that eliminated the warranty and "gesture of good will" exchange options. We are just the ones the "free and easy crowd" would never pay 50 bucks an hour (or more), because it probably would turn out to be more than they paid for the entire set up device (automated) in the fist place. The one that was supposed to give them free.

So this becomes a charity. (If people are in it to learn, it becomes a learning environment.. - but everyone just wanted easy - so...)

And what do you do with charities as a majority group? You try to exploit them. In some cases. Nature of the beast I guess.. ;)

Oh i agree completely - i wouldn't have the time nor the inclination to support these DIY boxes, let alone support them remotely on a voluntary basis with someone who hasn't got a clue what they're doing at the other end. I fully appreciate that. For the record, there are no lessons learnt here for me (although for others that read this there might be) - I was already aware of this and have exactly the same opinion as you :) Like I said - I never would have bought it in the first place. I'm just grateful to anyone who takes the time to reply to me & others with similar issues.

I'm back home, i'll see if i can find the right cable, I know I have one somewhere from an old 2.5" HDD caddy I had lying around. If I can't bring this thing back to life & get rid of all the third party stuff, its heading for the bin. Next stop Amazon to buy a retail item with warranty & support.
 

frostyfrog

New member
May 23, 2017
1
0
Did you ever find a resolve for this? I have the same problem right now. It will work on my TV, but not through my projector (which it has now since day one 6 months ago).
 

Rana Prarhap

New member
Mar 1, 2013
1
0
Hyderabad
The Problem is with the TV

i think the problem is with the TV i have two TV's this happens on my Sony TV but works well on my Other TV
my sony TV already has some problem, some devices recognize the TV some don't.
 

pachaccoluv

New member
May 10, 2018
1
0
one amazon tv box fix

on my amazon tv box 3rd gen i think. my device would kinda start but then blank. i got my tv remote not fire tv remote. element tv remote i pressed menu then display and changed from user to dinamic and then movie and pc and then i was able to see my fire tv screen. problem is compatability with the tv i think.
 

pejot

New member
Jan 12, 2008
1
0
Check cable. In My case direct Connect to projector working but when conneced to 7m hdmi cable projector showing only logo Amazon then black screen.