If your wireless internet password contains a backslash, the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick will not be able to connect to your network. Redditor FDL1 stumbled across this odd bug when trying to setup their new Fire TV Stick. It’s uncertain if there are additional special characters that cause issues, but if you’re sure you’ve entered the correct wifi password yet your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick will not connect, try changing your password to one that only contains alphanumeric characters.
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I had a long, frustrating discussion with tech support about this…
The Fire TV wasn’t authenticating on my network. My password was 18 characters long and contained both a forward slash and backslash. Through the course of troubleshooting, I set up a guest network with the same settings as my main, but with a shorter alphanumeric only password.
So I contacted tech support to ask them which issue the Fire TV had a problem with, the password length, or were there special characters the Fire TV didn’t like.
After being put on hold, I was told by the tech that I needed to contact my ISP because they needed to whitelist the Fire TV. I tried to explain to him that my ISP has absolutely nothing to do with my network, so that definitely isn’t the case. My ISP has no idea what devices I have connected to my network, and since I can connect with the guest network I set up, that proves it’s not an ISP issue.
I was put on hold again, then was told by the tech that if I can connect with the guest network, the Fire TV is working, I just need to contact my ISP to fix the issue. After again stating that it is definitely not an ISP issue, he put me on hold again, then came back to say that the problem was with my router settings, and that I needed to contact my router’s manufacturer and have them help me change the settings to allow the Fire TV to connect.
No, it’s not the router settings. As I mentioned, it can connect to my guest network. (again, put on hold) Well, of course it can connect to the guest network. Anything can connect to the guest network, because that is what they’re for. I told him that no, that is not what guest networks are for. I can guarantee that the issue is not with my ISP, nor my router settings. He again stated that the Fire TV is operating correctly and I would need to contact my ISP or my router’s manufacturer to fix the problem.
This round and round point the finger at anyone but yourself went on for 20 minutes, and I finally hung up in frustration.
So, I ended up changing the password to my main network to an alphanumeric password, and surprise surprise, the Fire TV connected just fine. So I contacted tech support and told them that the Fire TV did not like the either the forward slash or back slash character. I didn’t know which one because at this point, I wasn’t interested in testing it, that was something I felt the development team should do. I’m just contacting you to make you aware of the issue, and that in the future if anyone calls with this problem, you can have them look at their password first instead of giving them the runaround. They told me thanks and that they’d forward the issue to the dev team.
I figured at this point the issue was done, but then I got an email from the person I told about the issue saying they’re glad they could help solve the problem. What??? You didn’t help me solve anything, all you did was deny that there was any issue and point the finger at something completely irrelevant to the issue.
Then I got an email saying: We’re sorry you’re having issues connecting your Fire TV to your wireless network. Here are some basic troubleshooting steps to take. If these don’t work, contact tech support with the answers to these questions. One of the questions was what my password length was, and whether or not there were any special characters in the password!
AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!
This was two software updates ago, so I’m surprised that the issue still exists.
It’s really frustrating dealing with dense headed customer service. Sorry you had to deal with that. Thanks for sharing your experience though.
I have had a long discussion with Tech Support about WIFI issues, as well, they told me they were going to contact the Dev Team, days later I got a stupid responce. According to the Dev Team the only channel that works with the Amazon Fire TV (Stick) is 161 on the 5Ghz frequency, in an 802.11N configuration.
It’s amazing how little they know about their own product. There was a point during the conversation where the tech was searching for answers and information in Google.
This does not seem like an Amzon product.
I wish we could get together, and request some openess from them.
I would wager a guess that you were in an area that was saturated by other wireless routers causing interference on the other channels, making channel X appear to be the only working frequency.
I was struggling with wifi configuration on my fire tv yesterday. I tried to log into a wifi, protected by a password containing many special characters. Fire Tv was not able to log into the network with wrong password error.
The password contained following special characters:
=$%&()!”
but no /
I had no time to figure out wich character caused the problem, but i think i might be ”
After changing the password login into wifi was no problem…
Greetings from germany
Sebastian
Keep having authentication issues with new fire stick. It worked great the first time I used it. Only numbers in my password! No special characters. No alpha. Help help
FYI-
This is STILL a problem a month+ later.
I only have an alpha numeric 8 Character password and I am having issues. Every time I look the screen looks different.
Same with me, but alphaumerical password is not accepted. Firetv only connects through mobile hotspot and not through wi-fi…What a failure on this devide!
I’m having the same problem I am using post office broadband an my firestick will not connect anyone have any tips for me please I don’t have special characters in my password I dnt understand it
I only have numbers for my wifi password it will not let me put them in. I have an older tv
It’s not just backslash. I have no backslash in my password but lots of other “special” characters and it doesn’t work.
If I use an alphanumeric password then it works (on any channel, not just 161 as mentioned above). Obviously there are other characters that it doesn’t like.
It would be simple for them to publish a list of usable characters. It’s definitely non-standard because other devices have no problem connecting with a password than contains all sorts of special characters.