Top 4 Ways to Fix Fire TV Stick Not Installing Apps

The Amazon Fire TV Stick comes out-of-the-box with some apps preinstalled. However, a handful of third-party apps take the streaming stick’s functionality to a whole new level. Apps like YouTube and Netflix cater you with a library of thousands of videos while other apps simply let you connect devices to your TV via the Fire TV Stick wirelessly. But what happens when the Fire TV Stick won’t download an app? Check out four things to do if your Fire TV Stick is not installing apps.

Though there could be many reasons, we suspect that the problem arises due to network connectivity issues, insufficient storage space, or invalid payment and shipping details on your Amazon account. We share more details about the solutions in the section below. Check them out.

For this guide, I am assuming you are trying to install apps on Fire TV Stick from its app store and not sideloading them.

1. Check Network Status

The first thing you want to do whenever a Fire TV Stick is not installing an app is to check if your device is connected to the internet. Sometimes, your Fire TV Stick could be connected to your Wi-Fi router and still have no internet access. In addition to not being able to install new apps, if other previously-installed apps are also not opening despite being connected to Wi-Fi, then the issue is most likely network-related.

To confirm, though, you should check if your Fire TV Stick is having problems connecting to your Wi-Fi network.

Step 1: Go to the Fire TV Stick Settings menu and select Network.

Step 2: Navigate to the Wi-Fi network your Fire TV Stick is connected to. If there’s a ‘Connected with problems’ message at the bottom-right corner of the page, that means the Wi-Fi network has no internet access.

Step 3: To get more information about the issue with that particular network, tap the Play/Pause button on your Fire TV Stick remote to check the network status.

We have a detailed guide on fixing Fire TV Stick network-related issues; you should check it out. If everything is fine with your Wi-Fi network, but the Fire TV Stick is still not downloading apps, check other fixes below.

2. Restart Fire TV Stick

This is another basic solution to fix a Fire TV Stick that won’t download apps. Restart the Fire TV Stick either from the ‘My Fire TV’ menu or perform a hard reboot and try to re-download or reinstall the app(s).

Rebooting Fire TV Stick from Menu

Step 1: Navigate to the Fire TV Stick Settings menu and select ‘My Fire TV’ option.

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of the menu and select Restart.

Step 3: Select Restart to confirm the action. Your Fire TV Stick will turn off and immediately reboot on after some seconds.

Physical/Hard Reboot

This involves unplugging your Fire TV Stick’s adapter from the power sources and plugging in back in. Alternatively, you could unplug the Micro-USB cable from the Fire TV Stick dongle and plug it back in.

Using Remote

You can use the remote shortcut to quickly restart Fire TV Stick. For that, tap and hold the Select button (the big round button) and the Play/Pause button on your Fire TV Stick simultaneously for about 4-5 seconds until a ‘Your Amazon Fire TV is Powering Off’ message is displayed on your TV Screen.

The device should automatically restart after it shuts down. Afterward, try installing the app(s) on the Fire TV Stick and check if that works. If the installation process still doesn’t go through, proceed to the next step below.

3. Check Fire TV Stick Storage

By default, the Amazon Fire TV Stick comes with 8GB of storage built-in. Out of this 8GB, only about 5-6GB is available for app installation and other downloaded media files. Typically, whenever there’s about 500MB or less on your Fire TV Stick, you’ll get warning prompts to clear out some space. Should the device eventually run out of storage space, you won’t be able to install new apps. Follow the steps below to check how much space is left on your Fire TV Stick.

Step 1: Go to the Fire TV Stick Settings menu and select ‘My Fire TV’.

Step 2: Select About.

Step 3: Next, navigate to Storage and you should see how much of your Fire TV Stick’s storage is available.

If your Fire TV Stick Storage is full, you might have to remove some apps to create space for new apps.

That’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to free up storage spaces on your Fire TV Stick. Follow the steps below to uninstall apps on your Fire TV Stick.

Uninstalling App on Fire TV Stick

Step 1: Launch the Fire TV STick Settings menu and select Applications.

Step 2: Click on ‘Manage Installed Applications’ option.

Step 3: Now, tap on the application you want to uninstall from your Fire TV Stick. On my unit, I uninstalled AirScreen (a screen mirroring app), for example.

Step 4: Select Uninstall.

Step 5: Click Uninstall to confirm the action.

Uninstall as many apps that you barely use to free up enough storage space for the new app(s) you want to install. If the Fire TV Stick fails to install apps despite having enough storage space, proceed to the next troubleshooting fix.

4. Check Payment Method & Shipping Address

If you have an expired or invalid payment method and shipping address linked to your Amazon account, you won’t be able to install applications from the Fire TV Stick AppStore. If none of the above fixes work, check that your Amazon account is configured properly with correct payment methods and shipping address(es). Here’s how to check.

Step 1: Visit your Amazon account’s 1-Click Settings section on your phone or PC browser via the link below.

Visit Amazon 1-Click Settings Page

You will be prompted to sign in to your Amazon account.

Step 2: If you have no valid payment method or shipping address linked to your account, tap the ‘Add a purchase preference’ button, and follow the prompt to add new payment and shipping details.

Do this, restart your Fire TV Stick, and you should now be able to install apps without any issue.

Last Resort Trick: Reset Fire TV Stick

If none of these solutions mentioned above worked for you, then you should reset Fire TV Stick to factory settings. After that, unplug the Fire TV Stick from the TV or monitor for at least 30 seconds and reconnect it. That has often worked for many users.

If your Fire TV Stick still doesn’t install apps after reset, you should reach out to Amazon Customer Care and request a replacement.

Access More

With the solutions mentioned above, you should no longer have any issues installing applications on your Fire TV Stick. In the case where apps aren’t installing on the device due to insufficient storage space —and you don’t want to uninstall other apps to free space— you might have no other choice but to buy a new Fire TV Stick. And if none of these fixes work, you should contact Amazon Device Support as you might have a faulty Fire TV Stick.

Next up: Want to mirror content from your phone or PC to your Fire TV Stick but it refuses to work or constantly freezes during usage? Check out 6 ways to return the Fire TV Stick mirroring feature back to normal in the post linked below.