Sling TV is making waves in the digital space recently. It’s a great live TV streaming TV service but it is not without hiccups and challenges. This is normal with anything digital and internet-oriented. Therefore, it’s possible you face the reality of your Sling TV not working; we have come to guide you.
If your Sling TV is not working, there are various things to check and do to resolve whatever issue it might have. We’ll go into the various possible problems that could be hindering your TV from working and provide detailed guides on how to go about them.
1. Check if Sling TV is generally down
Checking to see if the problem you are facing is general or particular is the first thing. The sling could be down in your region or generally and everywhere. To know if the sling is indeed down and not working generally, you can check out their twitter page and see what others are talking about. If there is an outage in the country or region, you will see other users reporting it on their various media pages.
2. Ensure Wi-Fi or internet connection is good
One thing to also check when Sling TV is not working is your internet connection. When on Wi-Fi, your streaming device might not get enough signal for it to work efficiently. Therefore, you should check your device for the connection strength.
For Roku devices;
- Go to Menu
- Then launch settings
- Then open Network Connection
- Check the streaming speed and make sure it is equal to or greater than 1.5Mbps
- If it is not, cross-check to make sure your bandwidth usage is put at Best Quality – No Limit
And ensure the internet is getting data. Meanwhile, on Roku Players, you might only need to refresh and reconnect the wi-fi connection once in a while as you use the service.
For Mobile or Tablets;
- On your device home screen
- Go to Settings
- Locate Wi-Fi
- Now Disconnect and then reconnect to your existing wi-fi connection to ensure you’re getting a fresh signal
In the case of not getting an internet connection to your streaming device, we advise you to check your router or device wi-fi setup as the issue might be from them.
On iOS though, you can check your streaming speed through this guide;
- Go to Sling Settings
- Then Connection
- And then check the “Show streaming and speed during video” box
- Also, look at the current bandwidth measurement. If the streaming speed is below 1.5Mbps, you probably have a problem with a wifi connection or it could be that your router speed is not fast enough.
3. Restart your Sling TV
Just like most technological inventions, restarting a troubled device has a greater chance of resolving its issue. Freezing and buffering problems are most probably prompted by Sling TV server problems or an issue with your wifi or internet connection. But in a situation where you have over 1.0Mbps streams, there is no problem with the Sling servers or your connection.
Meanwhile, occasional buffering or freezing might still happen but restarting your Sling TV is a good step to fixing temporary issues that could make Sling TV stop working.
- Go to your device home screen and scroll down to select Settings
- Under Settings, Proceed to select Applications
- Then Manage Installed Applications
- Now Select Sling TV in the options
- Fully close the application by pressing Force Stop
- Once fully closed, try relaunching the program again
4. Fix the issue with your Amazon Fire TV cache
On another hand, some streamers could be experiencing freezing problems on their Fire TV devices. To solve this;
- Go to Settings on your home screen
- Find and open Applications
- Proceed to click on Manage Applications to find Sling TV App
- After accessing it, select Clear cache and Clear data
This should solve the issue of your Sling TV not loading.
5. Fix ESPN issues causing Sling TV not to work
Typically, ESPN streams have been problematic. The experience on Sling TV is no different. Streams can sometimes become choppy or refuse to load at all. The problem could be a combination of ESPN and Sling complications of not providing adequate bandwidth needed to stream.
The situation happens to be worse on some game days when a large number of users are trying to log in at the same time to watch live games. For cases like this though, and to save you from missing that important game, we advise you use the Watch ESPN app on your streaming devices using your Sling account after authentication. This is because it appears that ESPN will provide higher bandwidth to their channel.
We trust the guides we have provided for you to solve the probable issues causing your Sling TV not to work. In case you are having issues performing the above-explained processes, do let us know in the comment section so we can actively communicate further with you.
Meanwhile, what has been your experience as a user? Kindly let us know in the comment section.