I just purchased an Amazon Firestick and I am having issues getting it to connect to the 5GHz band of my airport extreme. I keep getting a "WiFi Error" message on the TV set. I know my 5GHz band is working because I am using it as I type this. Is this because of an IP assignment issue? If I need to assign a permanent IP address to the Firestick, how can I find one?
MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), 13-inch, Mid 2009,2.26GHzIntelC2Duo
Make sure that......
The name of your WiFi network is short.....no more than 10-12 characters. Less is better
The name of your WiFi network has no special characters.....like an apostrophe, asterisk, parenthesis, etc
The name of your WiFi network has no blank spaces
For example, if your network has a name like NMBioguy's Apple WiFi Network (5 GHz) the Firestick will not connect.
Change that to something like NMBWiFi5GHz
Same guidelines for the WiFi password
Well, it turned out that the problem was.... with the Amazon Fire Stick itself. After contacting Amazon online (the chat function is painful but effective), they said it did not matter what the name of the router was, but they found it interesting that the Fire Stick kept re-booting (or needed to be re-booted). They replaced it and I installed it yesterday. No problems. Works like it was supposed to.
As a scientist myself, I like to remember Occam's Razor: Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.
Yes, when you change the wireless name.. SSID.. everything that is connected to the old name will fail and everything in the network will need to be reconnected.
Apple has decided to follow windows in using SMB networking.. so you need to use names and passwords that better conform to windows standard.
Thanks. We have 16 in the name with one space, so I'll shorten it. Will that affect all the other devices that use the network if I do? Will I have to log them all in again?
Will that affect all the other devices that use the network if I do?
Yes it will.
Will I have to log them all in again?
Yes you will.
It might be a good idea to first test to make sure the Firestick will be able to connect before you go to the trouble of changing all of your other WiFi devices.
If the Firestick still won't connect using the guidelines above, the next test would be to temporarily turn off the WiFi Security on the AirPort router and then check to see if the Firestick will connect that way.
If it will, then you have a WiFi security setting issue that will need more work. Try a lower security setting of WPA/WPA2 Personal on the AirPort router to see if the Firestick will connect to that level of security.
However, if the Firestick still won't connect when there is no WiFi security, then you may have a basic compatibility issue between the Firestick and Apple router.
Can Amazon Firestick connect using an Aiport extreme?
