Frustrated with your Fire Stick going to sleep and closing your apps all the time? There’s a fix, and I’ll show you how to do it.
2020 Update: I made a video tutorial for this, so now you can watch the video while you read this tutorial post! Click on the video below and then keep scrolling.
The Problem with my Fire Stick Going to Sleep
If you use an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Cube, or anything with Amazon’s Fire TV OS, you may have noticed that there is no setting to disable the device from going to sleep after some time of inactivity.
If you use Kodi on the Fire TV device, then you have probably been frustrated by the fact that every time you wake the device, Kodi has been forcefully closed and it’s back on the Fire TV home screen.
Not only is that frustrating because you have to wait for Kodi to boot up each time, but it can wreak havoc on your Kodi add-ons since many add-ons lose all their settings if you don’t exit Kodi properly. The new Seren Kodi add-on suffers from this problem.
To solve this issue, you can:
- Use adbLink to change an invisible setting to disable the screen timeout, OR
- Install an app that will keep the screen alive to prevent the Fire Stick from sleeping.
I figured out #2 by myself, but later discovered #1 which is clearly the better choice because if your Fire Stick reboots, you don’t have to remember to launch the app again.
Either way, there are a couple things you’ll need to do first. You’ll need to enable ADB Debugging and install adbLink regardless of which method you choose.
Enable ADB Debugging on Your Fire TV Stick
Before you move on to one of the 2 methods below, you need to follow these steps first on your Fire Stick.
- On your Fire TV device, navigate to Settings > My Fire TV > Developer Options and turn ON both options (Apps from Unknown Sources and ADB Debugging).
- When connecting from ADB for the first time, the Fire TV Stick shows a secure connection screen and you have to check a box to confirm that it’s OK to connect to your PC. There’s also a box to remember this choice.
- Find and take note of your Fire Stick’s IP address by going to Settings > System > About > Network.
Download adbLink on Your Computer
Then, you will need to download adbLink to your computer before you move on to one of the 2 methods.
Using your desktop or laptop computer, go to this link, scroll down, and find the download link for your operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux). Download it and install it.
Then, follow this setup process to get your adbLink program communicating with your Fire TV Stick:
- Open adbLink on your computer.
- Click the New button
- In Description, give your Fire TV Stick a name.
- In Address, type the IP address of your Fire TV Stick that you took note of earlier.
- Click the Save button.
- Click the Connect button
- You should see your Fire TV Stick’s IP or name show in the Connected Devices box, and you should see the text “IP connection” in the Connection Status box.
- If so, you’re ready to go.
Note: If you’re having trouble connecting when you’ve done this before, try toggling ADB Debugging off and on again following the steps from the previous section.
Now, you’re ready to try one of the methods. Method #1 is better, so do that first. If you have any trouble with it, you could try method #2.
Method #1A – Change Sleep/Screensaver Settings via adbLink Utility
I just discovered new method that’s the easiest. It does exactly the same thing as the next method #1B, but instead of having to type in the commands in the ADB shell, you can simply use this utility in adbLink that takes care of commands for your.
Once you have your adbLink connected to your Fire Stick, select the “Utility” menu at the top and then click on “Set timers”
A new window will pop up that looks like this…
All you need to do is select “Sleep Off” and optionally “Screensaver off” and click the “OK” button.
Method #1B – Change Sleep/Screensaver Settings via adbLink Command Line Shell
If method #1A didn’t work or you just want to learn what’s happening behind the scenes, read on. This method has worked for thousands of people.
While the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick allow you to select from never, 5, 10, or 15 minutes for the screensaver timer, there is nowhere in the device’s settings to change the sleep timer. That’s set to 20 minutes regardless of how the screensaver is configured. Even though it’s not in the interface, it’s actually possible to set a custom sleep timer, a custom screensaver timer, or disable them altogether. This guide will show you how.
The numeric values you use in this guide are in milliseconds. If you select “never” from the Fire TV’s screensaver settings, the screensaver timer gets set to 2147460000, which is about 24 days. Setting a value of 0 does not disable the screensaver but it does seem to work to disable the sleep timer, however it may be better to just use a very large value like Amazon does to disable the screensaver.
The sleep timer starts counting immediately after the device goes idle, not from when the screensaver starts. So setting a 5 minute screensaver timer and a 10 minute sleep timer will result in the device going to sleep 5 minutes after the screensaver starts.
Once your adbLink is connected to your Fire TV Stick (from the previous section), then click the “ADB Shell” button to open a command line shell.
Tip: If you are using a Mac and happen to get the error that says “Error Creating Command File”, the solution is to close adbLink, move the program file to your desktop and open it there. Then, you should be able to open the ADB shell without the error.
How to Run ADB Shell Commands
Copy the commands below, and then simply right-click in the ADB Shell window to paste. Or, you can just type it in. Hit the enter key to run the command.
Get Current Screensaver and Sleep Timeout Settings
settings get system screen_off_timeout
- The default screensaver value is 300000, which is 5 minutes. My screensaver setting in FireOS settings was set to “Never”, so this setting value was set to 2147460000, which is about 24 days.
settings get secure sleep_timeout
- The default sleep value is 1200000, which is 20 minutes. This is the setting that you can’t change in FireOS settings. But, you can here! Read on…
Save New Settings for Screensaver and Sleep Timeout
settings put system screen_off_timeout 2147460000
- Running this command will disable your screensaver if it isn’t already. You could also do this in the FireOS settings, but this also gives you the ability to select an amount of time which is not available in the settings drop-down.
settings put secure sleep_timeout 0
- Running this command will stop your Fire TV Stick from going to sleep by itself. The value “0” here actually disables the sleep timeout feature.
When you’re done, you can run the “get” commands from above once again to make sure the setting took properly.
Method #2 – Disable Fire Stick Sleep Timeout Using a Side-loaded App
If you got method #1 working, you can stop here. This is only an alternative method in case you can’t get method #1 to work.
This method involves installing an app on the Fire TV device that will disable the sleep timer. Since there are not any good apps in the Amazon App Store to accomplish this, you’ll need to download one from the Google Play Store in APK format and side-load it onto your Fire Stick or other Fire OS device.
Download the Stay Alive App from APK Downloader
- Go to this link and click on the green button that says “Click here to download com.synetics.stay.alive”.
Side-load the Stay Alive App using adbLink on your Computer
- Open adbLink on your computer which you installed in one of the preparation steps earlier.
- Then click the Install APK button, navigate to the Stay Alive App APK file you downloaded earlier and select it.
- You will see a popup asking if you really want to install the APK. Click Yes.
- You should see a small progress bar in the bottom right corner of the screen letting you know it’s working. It could take a minute or two, so be patient.
- When it’s done, you’ll see a popup that says Installed.
- You should now see the Stay Live app in the Apps section of the Fire TV home screen.
- Open it and activate the feature to keep the screen alive. Your Fire TV device should no longer go to sleep.
Notes About the Stay Alive App
I’ve seen some weird things with this app, and I’ve heard others report the same things.
- The first time you select the app to open it, it appears as though nothing happens. I believe that first time is just a behind-the-scenes applying of the setting change. In order to open the interface of the app, select it a second time and it should come up.
- With this app running, you will see an occasional toast message at the bottom of the screen saying “Google Play not installed”. It’s a minor annoyance, but the app still seems to work fine.
Ahhh… Much Better!
Now, when you turn on your TV to watch something on your Fire Stick, it will be in the same place where it was when you last turned off your TV. That means if you had Kodi open before, it will stay open, and it will be right where you left it.
I hope this tutorial was helpful for you. I sure was glad when I figured this out. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
If you want to say thanks AND you’ve been thinking about getting a VPN, you can help me out by following this link to purchase a VPN from IPVanish. You’ll also get a great discount by following my link, so it’s a win-win!
Also, if you have any issues getting this to work, let me know in the comments. I love to help. Thanks!
I cannot navigate or select options in the Stay Alive app on my Fire TV Stick. The app does not respond to my remote at all. I also get a pop up stating that Google Play is not installed, which it isn’t since I’m using a Fire TV stick. Any suggestions?
I experienced the exact same issues you did, but the app still works. To get into the settings, you actually have to select the app twice. The first time, it doesn’t respond, the second time, it launches the settings. The “Google Play is not installed” is slightly annoying, but still worth it.
Thanks a lot for the sharing, it works perfectly and I can now use VLC on my fire tv without being interrupted.
It can be done with adb! Google keep firestick awake with adb
Awesome! Thanks for the tip. I just revamped this post to show the 2 different methods.
Do I hit disconnect when I’m done!
You can. I usually just close ADBLink. It’s fine either way.
Absolutely rocks. i was setting up for a digital sign and it worked like a charm. Thanks alot. now point the fire stick at my website and boom. No $40 a month per screen digital sign
Nice! Glad I could help!
Clever, how did you setup the digital sign?
Check this site out. mfa-display.now.sh. its free. You can make your own custom display, and even show your live Facebook and Instagram likes.
Thank you so much!
You’re welcome!
I loved your method. I would recommend 36,000,000 as the upper limit. This way if a button is hit by mistake, the Fire TV won’t be on for extended periods of time. 3 hours should be plenty for anyone. Thanks again for the tip.
You’re welcome and thanks for the tip!
Not if you have pets. I leave my TV on when I leave for them. I’m gone 3 hrs or more.
The timer values are in 1/1000 of a second units. The default 20 minute sleep is 20*60*1000 or 1,200,000 millisecond units. A three hour (What Gilligan thought his fishing tour would be.) timer value is 10,800,000 milliseconds. A 36,000,000 value is 10 hours.
Is there a comprehensive list out there of commands to adjust a lot more of the settings? Looking to automate much more than this part of it.
I doubt it. It would be impossible or unreadable to have a comprehensive list, but if you find one that compiles a bunch of helpful ones, let me know.
jocala site to d/l the apk app is broken/down.
so neither of these methods work
Looks like they lost their SSL certificate, or at least their https link is broken. I updated the link to use http.
I followed all the steps above; however after a few hours my screen goes into Standby Mode. We just have to hit a button and the tv goes back on but how can I get the tv to just stay on throughout the entire day.
The steps here should take care of it. Unless, the standby mode is from the TV instead of the Fire Stick. Check your TV to see if it has some standby or auto-off feature.
Any other suggestions? I am having the same problem. After about 4 hours, tv is not off but screen says Standby mode. Just have to hit button and goes back to where it was before.
Still hasn’t worked
Jimmy, there are plenty of people who are getting this to work successfully. Can you provide more details about where you’re running into an issue?
thanks for this
I followed the instructions but now it doesn’t show the screensaver just the home screen. It doesn’t fall asleep but i was hoping for the pretty screensaver to play all day. Help! How do I reverse what Ive done and how do I get the screensaver to stay up?
You should be able to just change your Screensaver timeout in the settings area. Or, you could run this to put it back to the default using adb…
settings put system screen_off_timeout 1200000
I did the abd method that’s how I got to where I am now. The fire stick settings don’t allow for extending the time before sleep.
Yes, it does. From the Fire Stick home screen, go to Settings > Display & Sound > Screensaver > Start Time.
Used the ADB method and it works perfectly. One question: after doing this successfully should the ADB developer options on the Fire TV be set back to OFF?
Yes
Every time I turn off/on my tv, my fire tv 4k stick does back to the home screen. If I dont turn my tv off/on it will stay on whatever screen I left it on.
Check your TV settings for a feature like CEC or HDMI power control and disable it.
thanks, that worked!
Awesome! Glad I could help!
Where do you see “get command” on the Adobe shell page to check if the change of commands worked?
You’re supposed to type in those commands into the ADB shell and then hit enter.
I’m using a Mac and I’m trying to deactivate my 4K from going to sleep. When I press the ADB Shell I get an error Error creating command file! I even tried Method 2 with no luck. Please help
Oh no. I don’t know why you would get that message. I tried searching that error message but didn’t find much.
What went wrong with method #2? Were you not able to install the app? Or did the app not work?
Method 2 seemed to install correctly, yet the screen goes black.
You have to open the app after you install it. If try opening it twice because sometimes the first time doesn’t open.
I’ve done that at a few different instances with no luck. I agree it doesn’t appear to do anything the first time. When I do open it from the Firestick I am not able to access any settings any time after the first. Nor can I from my computer.
Mark, what settings are you trying to access form your computer? Are you referring to method #1? With method #2, I just select that app with the remote twice until it opens and then I just go back home. I never mess with the settings. After opening the app, it then prevents the Fire Stick from going to sleep until the next reboot.
I’m not sure how to help since you appear to be running into issues I haven’t run into before. If you figure it out, please share here so others that might have this issue will know how to resolve it. Thanks!
Mark, someone else just solved this problem and shared the solution. It’s a permission issue (even if you’re admin), and it can be easily solved if you just move the program to your desktop and open it from there, as opposed to opening it from your downloads folder. Hope this helps!
Where do I go to to “get commands” to make sure that the method #1 worked? Is that on the tv settings or the Adobe shell, please?
Pat, I’m not sure I know how to answer that question because I’m not sure what you’re misunderstanding exactly. You can run the commands in the ADB shell. But to test if it worked, see if the app you were in is still in there when you turn on the TV after a long time of sitting idle.
I didn’t mean to set the screensaver to “Never” via the ABD command prompt, how do I set it back to the default (5 minutes)?
Just run the command again with the original value or just go into the settings interface using your remote and change it there.
Awesome It worked with first method! thanx alot.
You’re welcome!
Downloaded the ABD Shell on Windows 7 Pro PC and used your instructions to change timers to my FireTV 3Gen stick with success. However, found that one step needs to be added to your instructions by allowing a USB permission to be executed. Otherwise, the ABD Shell with not allow scripts to be entered into FireTV device. Thanks for the scripts!!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I didn’t see anything like that. I wonder if it’s just since you’re on Windows 7 Pro.
Hi, I followed the instructions and it worked well but the problem I have is I followed them to closely and disabled my screensaver. All I wanted to do was stop it going into sleep mode. So how can I remove the commands once I have added them?
Thanks
Just run the commands again with the time you want for the screen saver, or you can just go into the settings on the Fire Stick and turn the screen saver back on.
We listen to a lot of music through our fire stick 4K. We enjoy it when it goes into screensaver mode. How do I prevent the screensaver from turning off and going to a black screen after a few minutes? The music continues to play.
These instructions should solve your need, just skip the lines for the screen saver and only run the lines for the timeout.
I tried method 1, no issues until I get to the shell. I enter the 1st line hit enter and the default 300000 shows up on the next line. I can not enter the 2147460000. It executes the command as soon as I hit enter. I’m on a yoga w/ windows 10 and no mouse.
Method 2 got the app downloaded and like other. Go back into it repeatedly and I can not access any settings. Screensaver still comes on after 5 min. I want the TV to stay on all day to entertain my pups when I’m at work.
PLEASE HELP. I got over 3 hours invested in this and nothing working to show for it, grrrrrrr.
With method #1, I’m not understanding where it’s not working. You said it executes the command when you hit enter. That’s what should happen.
Method #1 worked perfectly for me with the two Firestick TV 4ks I bought this year during the Black Friday sales ($35 CDN each). Now I’m able use one of the Firesticks to replace an aging generic Chinese Android OTA box, and the other is going to travel with me so I will have Kodi everywhere I have a TV and WiFi. Thanks so much.
You’re welcome! I’m glad I could help.
Great tutorial, worked perfectly!
Just a couple of notes when running method 1 on the Fire TV Stick 4K:
1. Settings > System > Developer Options
is now
Settings > My Fire TV > Developer Options
2. When connecting from ADB for the first time, the Fire TV Stick 4K shows a secure connection screen and you have to check a box to confirm that it’s OK to connect to your PC. There’s also a box to remember this choice.
Thanks, Bill. I updated the post with that information.
I am using a MAC air, OS v. 10.13 and when I click on ADB Shell, I keep getting:
ERROR CREATING COMMAND FILE. A command line box will not open
Karen, you’re not the first Mac user that has run into this issue and mentioned it in the comments here. I haven’t been able to find anything else online about this error, but I did look at the code a bit and it looks like it has to do with permissions. Maybe you need to set the permissions for the folder where adbLink is installed to be writable.
I did find a solution online. Said to run the program from desktop instead of the folder it was in. I moved the program to my desktop, and it ran fine. It is a permissions issue, but my only user is an admin, so I couldn’t figure out where/if I could change permissions. Thanks for your reply
Cool, thanks for sharing that solution! I’ll share it with the others that had that issue.
#1 seems to have worked fine… Thanks!!
Off-Topic: Is there also a command to enable “HDMI output turning off when sleep mode kicks in on Firestick”… It’ll help lots of users save tons of electricity by letting their TVs turn off… It currently, instead of turning off HDMI output, just keeps sending a black screen during sleep mode preventing the TVs auto shut down from kicking in… Any help on this would be appreciated!!
I second this request! This is a major oversight on Amazon’s part which wastes electricity for everybody. It constantly keeps my entertainment center from going to sleep whenever we fall asleep while watching TV…which is more often than I’d like to admit. By keeping the HDMI port on, it keeps my TV on, which keeps my receiver on. Very annoying and wasteful.
Sorry, guys. I don’t know of a solution to that problem. I thought that the default behavior was that it turned off HDMI when it went to sleep. This post is about how to do the opposite of what you’re looking for… keep the device on all the time. I personally use a Logitech Harmony remote to control my TV, AV receiver, etc. so I wanted the Fire Stick to stay on all the time so it didn’t close my apps anymore. I hope you guys find the solution you’re looking for, if it’s even possible. If you find it, please let me know.
Nathan –
Thank you for this post! I was able to successfully get my first Fire Stick to work but I tried to replicate with another Fire Stick in my office and the adblink won’t connect to the second one – I can’t seem to figure out how to get adblink to connect? I added a new device, input the unique IP address but it won’t connect? I also uninstalled and reinstalled the adblink. Any suggestions?
Did you remember to enable ADB Debugging on the 2nd FireStick?
Worked perfectly the first time. Also note that I had connected the USB of the firestick to my laptop while the HDMI was connected to the TV and I did not have to use the IP address to connect with ADBlink. It was connected through the USB that also powered the Firestick,
Nice!
Would you happen to know of an ADB command to change the orientation from Landscape to Portrait permanently? I know the question is off topic however there are those like myself that have a requirement to be able to use the FireTV in Portrait rather than Landscape at all times. TIA if you can provide any light on the subject!
Sorry, I don’t know that one.
Neither of these methods are working. Method 1 says that it can’t connect to my IP address, and I can’t even download the app for method 2. I’m just trying to stop this thing from going to sleep while I’m watching Youtube. This literally started happening yesterday.
I’m sorry to hear you were having trouble. I hear from people all the time that say it worked perfectly, so it should work for you. Make sure you didn’t miss a step. Also, watch the video if you haven’t already.
You are a life saver. I would have gone crazy if my new TV kept shutting off after 5 minutes when I pause it to answer a work phone call or something. Just found out we’re probably working from home throughout the rest of 2020, which is why I splurged to get a new tv in the office when I’d rather be watching my OLED TV in the living room. Thank you so very much.
This worked amazingly! Thank you so much. I used my iMac so had to disable gateway and security settings in safe mode but after that it all worked perfectly! I wanted to be able to leave the screensaver going all day without the firestick going to sleep – and now it does just that.
One question though… is there a similar command for changing the length of time of each slide on the screensaver? I have it already set to ‘Slow’ in the settings but slow is still really fast!
Sorry, I can’t find any way to set the screensaver interval to some custom value.
Thanks very much for a wonderful tutorial. The text and the video helped me stop my firestick from going to sleep and allows me to see my photos on Amazon.
Thanks a ton. This is going to open up my recording possibilities. I recently got the stick along with a recorder. I can set a record date and time with the recorder. The recorder is going to record whatever is on the screen. Now I can be gone for any amount of time. I just have to be tuned to what I want to record. Not the most advanced setup but anything to help cut the cord. Thanks again.
I guess I should mention that when I said ” The recorder is going to record whatever is on the screen” in my previous post, well actually the TV does not have to be on. The recorder is going to record the information being sent to it. PS I have to defeat HDCP prior to the recorder.
This stopped working for me on my 4k Fire TV box.
darn i was about to try it, how annoying that they dont let you adjust the timouts, like what are they thinking, and why would they have them set so low, its ridiculous. I am seriously considering stopping using amazon devices which
I have 6 of them because of this one issue. like theyre going to lose a good customer because of this nonsense.
Hold on, guys. I haven’t heard anyone else saying that it stopped working. I’ve done it on a 2nd gen Fire Stick and a Fire Stick 4K and it works perfectly fine. I’m also getting lots of people thanking me for the tip because it works fine for them.
Leonard, what is not working for you? What did you try? What happened?
My adb link that I downloaded from your instructions does not have the utility folder up top, so I can’t perform the second part. How can I fix this?
Then follow method #1B
After you have set up everything in the utilities menu you and get a completion notification…
Can you close the adblink program on the computer?
If there is a power failure & the Modem/Router loose power too, do you have to set it back up again?
If you need to restart (not reset) the Fire Stick, will it hold the settings on this or any of the above questions?
Hi Nathan,
is it possible to rotate the screen of the fire tv with adblink to portraitmode?
Thank you!
Maya
Maybe, but I don’t know any of the other commands, and I haven’t been able to find them.
Doesnt work on Fire TV Cude Gen 2 (Fire OS 7.2.1).
Can’t connect with adblink.
You might have done something wrong, because I’ve heard from lots of people with the Fire TV Cube and it works fine for them.
Thank you so much for this! It was driving me mad. Both for losing where I was… but also the screen would be black and I wouldn’t realise my TV was on!
Fixed now thanks to the adblink route.
I have two Fire TV devices. Method #1 using adbLink worked on one of them but neither adbLink nor the Stay Alive method has worked on the other. When turning off the TV, I have noticed a split-second view as my streamed content switchs to the Amazon home screen menu before the screen goes blank. When I turn the TV back on, I am on the home screen menu. Additionally, after installing Stay Alive, I was unable to navigate or make any changes. I could only toggle up and down on the Stay Alive screen. Hopefully you have some more suggestions. Sincere thanks for your help.
Follow up regarding adbLink and Stay Alive not working on Amazon Fire TV Cube. Have now realized that both Fire TV Cube units are behaving the same. If the TV is turned off with an IR remote and not a voice command, when the TV is turned back on the streamed program will still be playing. If you verbally tell the Fire TV Cube to turn off the TV, when the TV is turned back on you will find yourself back at the home screen. Problem seems to be related to CEC signals from the Fire TV Cube.
Thanks for reaching out, Greg. You provided lots of useful information about the problem.
I think you hit the nail on the head in your follow-up comment. Basically, my tutorial just prevents a timeout sleep. But, if you tell the Fire TV device to go to sleep (whether by using voice commands or using the power button on your Fire TV remote), then it will go to sleep (regardless of any timeout).
I suppose I didn’t address this in my tutorial, but it is around the context of using a different remote to turn on my TV. I use a Logitech Harmony remote, so it just turns off my TV and AV receiver and leaves my Fire Stick on all the time. I hope this helps.
First of all, thank you! Clear, concise instructions which are easily followed. Method A worked for me, the only suggestion I would make that if the FireStick isn’t recognized and turning debugging on and off doesn’t work, restarting the FireStick worked for me.
Thank you!!
First off… Simply AWESOME my friend! What a time saver… Being able to watch the video and follow along with the instruction was a life saver for those of us over 65! NOW, if you could just crack the Fire TV RECAST so we could fix it rebooting issues THAT would be a feat… Thanks again…
I have a Fire TV Sound Bar. It is supposed to be the same as Fire TV stick in terms of OS and functionality. Just an added sound bar. Came across this similar issue once I enable blue tooth head phone. System just powers down after 20 minutes. I am guessing that since sound bar sees no activity, it enters sleep mode.
Solutions using method 1A and 1B make very good sense. However, I tried both and not able to fix this issue. I played around with various values (few minutes to 24 days) and still, the whole thing shuts down around 20 minutes.
Any advice? Not sure if fire TV sound bar has the same settings as fire TV stick. Is there an ADB command to list all variables? Perhaps there are two sleep timmers, one for fire TV, one for sound bar. Note that I also disable screen saver.
Unfortunately, I don’t know any command to see all the setting variables. I’m not sure why this wouldn’t work for you. You mentioned it happened once you enabled bluetooth headphones. Is it related to that? The whole OS goes to sleep right? Not just disconnecting bluetooth?
Yep, the whole thing shuts down, not just disconnect of blue tooth headphone. I reached out to Amazon and TLC Alto since they manufactured the sound bar. Amazon was supportive but does not know enough. TLC Alto was a pain to get through. After so many tries, TLC Alto called back and concluded that it could be a firmware issue. They were going to get back to me with a solution but I never heard back from them. They also suggested that I get a replacement to see if it has the same issue. I tried that also. Long story short, I gave up and returned the sound bar and purchased just the Fire TV stick. All work well now. Thanks Nathan for replying.
Fire TV stick works well. It turns my simple old TV to smart TV.
Worked like a charm. 75 yo dad was getting frustrated. One thing of note, I had to restart my Insignia Fire Tv in order for new Developer settings to allow connection
Thank you for this.. but for some reason on my firestick 2nd gen, I can only change the sleep timer… the screensaver timer does nothing.. I tried 3000(3 seconds).. 30000 for 30 seconds.. it does nothing…but if I do it on the sleep, it works great.
I would really like to adjust the screensaver though.. any suggestions?
I’ve tried to also manually typing in the commands and I even confirm it with the “get” command, but for some reason it won’t take.
Sorry for the late reply. Have you browsed the settings to make sure the screensaver feature is enabled at all? Once you enable it, then the setting will give you access to change the screensaver timeout to really high numbers, but if you actually want the screensaver to show, then just enable it in the settings instead of using ADB shell.
yes.. I made sure it was enabled to at least 5 minutes… but it still does not work.
Thanks,
This has worked so far. Trying to turn tv into photo wall using Amazon photos and Firestick screensaver. It looks really nice until the Firestick goes to sleep. Silly, but I guess developers didn’t think of this use of a screensaver. Maybe future iterations will have a sleep off function. Good easy video, good easy work around. I used the first method and after a few button mashing incidents to get it to connect it all works. Thanks again.
I had tried using another person’s instructions, that appeared to have worked. I say this, as I had to give the Fire TV permissions to interface with adlink. However, even though I had used the SHELL to turn of sleep timer and disable the screensaver…after about 5 minutes, the screen went black and music stopped. I have followed your instructions for the method 1a and 1b, just for good measure. I have opened Firefox on Fire TV and navigated to site and kicked off the music app. With fingers crossed, I am hopeful the screensaver has finally been put to sleep. If not! I will try your alternative Method 2. Thank you, so much for sharing.
You are a genius!.. I was so discouraged to find out that the TV I purchased for my office automatically shuts down after a certain time.. I found the Sleep Timer settings and there was no “off”.. only a max run setting for 240min. then is shuts down.. I hate this as i leave my tv on all day in my spa office. then I have to RE set the 240min every day because it resets when I turn the tv off for the day UGH!.. I called Best Buy and they had no idea what I was talking about and I can no longer return it because its been over 60+ days since I purchased it.. anyway your simple to follow instructions worked PERFECTLY!!.. now my tv stays on until I turn it off.. thankyou!.. You really saved the day!!..
i am very grateful
sincerely,
john
Sarasota FL
You’re welcome! Glad I could help!
All I want to do is for my TV to stop timing out and going to the guide page, it does it at different times. Why? and Why do you have to be a programmer to use a TV now days.
That was such a pain in the a** for years. Thank you Nathan, it works like a charm!
All the best,
Sebastian
Won’t connect to my firestick Red X says Can’t Connect to firestick! HELP!!
I can’t thank you enough for helping eliminate one of life’s admittedly little annoyances. Cheers!
Used option 1A and 1B, just to make sure, and it worked. Thanks very much.
I have two Fire TV Cubes that I used this procedure on to turn off the sleep timer. These instructions are very well written, easy to follow and complete. I used method 1 with no problems whatsoever encountered. Afterwards, I performed some testing on the presentation I was having a problem with going to sleep within 20 minutes of starting. The system did not go into sleep mode. Thank you so much for this writeup.
As of May 2021 the adb command change is no longer working. I have two test fire sticks, both with confirmable sleep-timer values of 0 and yet they still go to sleep after 20 min.
Thank you for this article.
So a note, when I do this on my 4K Cube, I kept getting unauthorized on the adbLink console.
I hit Refresh ADB on the adbLink console, same error.
I happened to go to my the tv the cube is on , and the tv/fire OS had a screen up asking permission for the IP/computer that was attempting to access it. Once I approved the access, did the Refresh ADB on the adbLink console, reconnected and it took the timer settings w/o an error.
Hello, thank you for putting this guide together.
I’ve followed all the steps as instructed and updated my Insignia Fire TV’s (model:NS-32DF310NA19) settings.
I verified this by using the ADB shell console and typing “settings get secure sleep_timeout” to ensure it is set to 0 as well as “settings get system screen_off_timeout” to ensure it is set to 2147460000 (~24 days). Both of these settings are set.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work as intended for me. When I play a series of videos on repeat for my medical spa, the screen still sleeps sometime between 20-30 minutes later.
Then I also installed the Stay Alive app, hoping it would solve the ongoing issue. When I open the stay alive app, it’s not possible to use the fire tv remote to actually select any of the settings. It’s basically just only possible to open the app and view the pre-set settings (which look like they should do the trick, since “stay on while charging or on battery” is selected).
Unfortunately, none of this seems to actually prevent the Insignia Fire TV from entering sleep mode. Any ideas on what may be going wrong? Or does this solution just not work anymore if the TV is updated to the latest version?
Thank you so much. This has been driving me crazy for years. Thanks for providing such well written instructions to take care of this! Now I can walk away from my TV for a few minutes and not have to key my way back to what I was watching. I used the Linux/Terminal method. Worked great!
I love you
Wow, this was so helpful! It worked like a charm. Thank you for taking the time to clearly explain the steps!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
Thank a lot mate….. i use FireStick 4K MAX like a great wall on my tv 55, usings my photos stored on Amazon Photos….. but all disappear when Firestick go in sleep mode.
So now i found thank to your work the solution…. i use solution 1 :-)
Thank and good day
Marco
Never saw this mentioned but how do you connect a Firestick(3rd Gen) to my Dell desktop tower computer running Windows 7 32 bit? All it has are USB ports and the Firestick is HDMI. Thanks for any help. I did download and install the adbLink successfully.
It connects over wifi
Thanks! Got it running! I was using Firestock Ethernet Adapter which was my problem.
BTW- that Stay Alive app never worked for me on my Firestick TV (3rd Gen)
I have a Fire Tv Cube 2020 running Kodi 19.3 Xenon going thru a 2020 Denon 4K receiver. When I turn off the TV using the Fire Remote which also turns off the Denon and turn it back on even if its only a few minutes being off the Fire TV Cube is back to the Home screen. I have to reload my KODI Everytime I turn off my TV. I’ve run the ADB link software and turned OFF the sleep mode to 0 second. Any suggestions how to set my system so i can just turn off the TV and come back with it running KODI…??
THANKS very much for all replies and suggestions.
Paul
Thank you – we were attempting to provide a simple “lobby view” monitor for our tennis courts – but the 20 minute sleep was killing this; now we can simply purchase a Fire-TV and aim the silk browser at the reservation status and it shows who has reserved what for the current day (next 4 hours ahead). Seem to work like a champ!
Hello!
I am having trouble connecting to my device after I enter the IP address. I get a message that says “Can’t connect.” There are no messages that pop up on my Fire TV either. Can you help?
I’ll be your first 2022 reply. I have the LiveNews Pro app installed on my Firestick and after 5 – 10 minutes it would go to a screensaver screen. Very annoying since I keep the news playing in the background while working and I’d have to stop and fiddle with it over and over again. The First Google result brought me here and 10 minutes later the issue was resolved. The timer settings under Utility made things a breeze. Thanks for sharing and indeed still a fix in Mach 2022!
Glad it worked well for you!
Since this is installed on my computer does that mean that my computer will always have to be on for it to keep my tv from going to “sleep” so to speak?
No, it is only used to change the setting remotely.
I just got the firetv stick 4k max. I went to My Fire TV and there are no Developer options. I only have About, Legal & Compliance, sleep, restart, and reset to factory. So what do you do if Developer Options aren’t an option?
Navigate to the About section in settings. Hit the button on the remote seven times on the first item to reveal the hidden Developer Options menu.
Thank you! Would never have found that by myself!
Thank you.
I just got an Omni FireTV and this sleep issue was driving me absolutely bonkers.
Pause “The Office” on the Peacock App to check on the kids, come back and the TV is off.
When I fire it back up (heh, see what I did there, fire….u know, as in fire tv, eh, ok never mind) i have to launch Peacock and find the correct season and episode and location in episode where I left off, why?
When the tv goes to sleep, it kicks you out of Peacock TV and the app doesn’t retain what season and episode u were watching.
The hack worked perfectly with the Amazon Fire TV. Don’t know if anyone else tried it with a tv as opposed to the cube or firestick so just wanted to say it works fine.
However, the option to use the pre-built “Set Timer” in ADB Link did not show up for me and I trued both versions the regular and the Kodi version, so I used the shell and manually adjusted the values.
Thanks again.
Cheers.
I used method #2 and so far it has worked fine. No time out in 50 mins and counting when my Roku Smart TVs used to time out about every 15 mins. I just downloaded Stay Alive and then side-loaded it to my firestick using the “Apps 2 Fire app”.
does anyone know if this works for Insignia FireTVs (not firetv stick) if so, what method would you recommend?
the link is not working for apk download
It still works for me. It goes to a page where you have to click the “Generate Download Link” button. After a little bit, a download button appears below it.
I did this and now when I pause it goes to black screen and it takes me to my home page when trying to play again. What is even worse is that if I try and play my movie where I left off it sends me to the end of the movie. How do I undo this and get it back to the normal messed up pause?!?!
When I download the adblink it doesn’t have the Set Timer option so that I can stop the firestick from going into sleep mode.
Maybe they removed that feature. You can still do it with the adb shell commands.