Peacock TV updated their app last week and the new version is, unfortunately, causing issues on Amazon Fire TV and Firestick devices. Several users that sideloaded the app are reporting there are occasional audio issues, such as the audio cutting, specifically after ads stop playing. Another issue that seems common with this latest release is that ad breaks are starting too early and cutting off a bit of the content being watched.
Peacock TV isn’t officially supported on Fire TV devices yet, which is why you must sideload the Peackcock app. Normally, that means you’re on your own with issues, however, Peacock is actively telling their customers with Fire TVs to sideload the app, so there is a bit more expectation of support than usual. That said, there is little one can do to fix core issues with the app, such as these. I’d normally suggest rolling back to the older version of the Peacock TV app, which was released in February 2021, but Peacock deliberately blocks old versions of the app from accessing content, so you’re forced to use the new version.
The latest update to the Peacock TV app seems to have added support for surround sound to select devices, so that may be the root cause of these issues. If you’re having audio issues, one thing you could try is disabling surround sound decoding on your Fire TV. This is done by going to Settings > Display & Sound > Audio > Surround Sound and selecting the second option. The option label varies by Fire TV model and software version, but it should be labeled as “PCM” or “STEREO.” Making this change will, obviously, affect the audio across all of your Fire TV apps and I don’t know if it will help fix Peacock’s issues, but it’s worth a shot.
I’ll be keeping a close eye to see if a new version of the Peacock TV app is released. I don’t have high hopes on it happening soon, since the last update took 3 months to be released, but I’ll add the next version to my guide on updating the Peacock app as soon as a new version becomes available. In the meantime, feel free to chime in below in the comments if you figure out anything about this issue that might help others.
I haven’t noticed, but I upped my subscription a while ago to the commercial free version which I consider well worth it.
No Advertising, please
I have always had this issue with Peacock app sideloaded on FireTV cube since after the first app update last year.
After the first set of commercials finish, the audio drops every few seconds and I have to reboot the FireTV cube to get it to stop.
I’ve uninstalled and tried several of the older versions that were available and they all did this.
I know the icon doesn’t work on any of them, but anyone have a version that doesn’t have the really long loading time?
The Peacock screen seems to hang for about 30 seconds before the UI appears.
FYI. Similar load times (20 to 30 seconds) on the official Peacock app on Roku. I did notice when checking today that PROFILE support was added to the Peacock app on Roku. I used the Peacock app on FTV4K device last night and didn’t see PROFILE support, but checked it this morning and even on a sideloaded version of Peacock it is available on FTV4K. Looks like they added PROFILE support on most major platforms supported.
This is why all of my TV’s have Android TV baked in with a Fire TV (Cube) attached. Best of both worlds. I am have the same audio issue on my cubes but the app is fine on Android TV so I jump over to it until the situation is resolved. This setup has saved me a few times the last couple years.
I just moved to Apple TV. They have all the needed apps for me. I got tired of moving back and forth between streaming devices just to watch something.
I just sideloaded the 2118 update, on 2 TVs, and now I have CC on both, on Peacock. No apparent settings, or a way to change. No commercial problems however.
I saw this on one of my FTV4K devices, but not all of them. There is an option to turn CC OFF with the on-screen display. On the left lower part of the screen to the right of the ‘i’ icon is one that allows you to adjust SUBTITLES and AUDIO. There is an option for NONE for subtitles if it defaulted to ON for some reason.
Latest update (v1.5.14) seems to fix the commercial cutting off content issue.
David my fire tv is showing half screen commercials ——very annoying. What kind of update did you do to fix your problem? I don’t understand the vt 5.14
Elias,
It appears that they are tweaking the Peacock app on the server side. I noticed today that PROFILE support is now available. Used the app last night on FTV4K and that feature was not available. I now see PROFILE support on Fire TV, Roku, Android (Phone | Tablet) and Web Browser.
I have a FireTV Stick 4K running Fire OS 6.2.8.0 (updated May 28) & I can’t get any version of Peacock to work on my Fire Stick. I’ve tried installing every version of Peacock from 1.8.5 to 2.3.3, with updates, and it always ends the same way: “Sorry, Peacock is unavaiable on this device. Please see peacocktv.com for supported devices.”
I have the Peacock app sideloaded and updated this last time and noticed 3 issues:
1) As some people say, the hang time is much longer than before
2) I don’t have a Peacock logo on my home screen
3) the worst issue is the one related to commercials, they absolutely cut in on the actual content. When we watch The Office, the ads don’t go in the spots that commercials ran in when it was aired on NBC. It’s very frustrating. I hope this will somehow be fixed next time.
I have been experiencing the commercials cutting in to soon. We have missed valuable content on programming. I addressed this with peacock support and only received the “we do not support the app on firestick” I fear the long lead time in app updates may mean that I will have to cancel this subscription until it is resolved.
I have also been experiencing the commercials cutting too soon. I changed the audio as noted and this seems to have fixed it. Yay!!! Thank you!
Same here! I changed the audio settings and the commercials stopped cutting off the last 30 seconds of the segments. Thank you!
I too sideloaded Peacock. When the app opens it reads “Update required” then you get “this app is trying to open a link with an external market that is not available on this device. Would you like to open this link with the Amazon Appstore instead?” You get continue or cancel. Continue takes you to “The app you are looking for could not be found” In short the sideloading doesn’t seem to be the answer.
I just started using Peacock on my fire TV and it has a very annoying habit of getting stuck in an ad loop, pausing at 37 seconds and 4 seconds before running the ads again, over and over. Tried adjusting audio settings to no avail. Seems to happen on the movies 2nd set of commercials.
Thank you very much for the idea on changing the settings. It solved the most annoying issue of cutting out actual content for us. Still have other problems noted above on looping of commercials and hang times.
Was watching the last 10 minutes of the last episode of Dr. Death (which I purchased peacock just for this) and it cuts out at a very important part of dialogue. I spend 20 minutes trying to get it to play in full!
I had the same issue so just ran the missing portion on my phone’s peacock app. Great show!
For all who have sideloaded Peacock, it’s now available in the Fire TV appstore. Haven’t noticed the commercial cutoff issue, fingers crossed
I just started experiencing issues with this app on commercial and not going back to the show I was watching. Very frustrating. I have to soft reboot the fire stick 4k to get back in to the app then show. I’m sure the paid advertisers will not like it. Hopefully they will fix it and soon.