Fire TV series 4 seems to bricked as a result of FWG
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First, there is absolutely no way a network router "bricking" a device. It is not possible. If turning on emergency access mode doesn't work, I'd check DNS settings on your firewalla or WAN router. If the DNS is correct, the issue is likely your TV, you will need to contact the manufacture support.
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Yes I completely understand that FWG cannot brick a device. What I’m trying to convey is that the setup of the tv was seeming to work and then froze up and from watching the network traffic on the FWG it seems that the tv got stuck in the update process because it couldn’t connect to something. Once it was stuck there was no way for me to reset it or get it unstuck. It was stuck in a loop of trying to check for updates. I again tried to use emergency mode to ensure nothing was blocking the tv from any updates. It didn’t work and the device remained I a loop of telling me to unplug it and reconnect it to try again. the FWG seemed to think that the update domains were adware and was blocking that. This was a bit tedious to troubleshoot as I didn’t expect adblocking to prevent the software updates. Once adblocking was off the tv seemed to be fine but now it’s in an unrecoverable state. In no way am I trying to say that FWG actively did anything to brick the tv. It seems that the nuances of blocking capabilities might have incidentally created conditions where a critical update could not be completed. The lesson in this is to have a set process for adding new devices to my network that seems best to be putting the network in emergency mode and then setting up the device before exiting emergency mode. Naturally this isn’t a great way to handle things and I’d love any pro tips here. I could also probably put the quarantine devices in emergency mode before setup but I don’t love that option either. Thank you again. I love the FWG.
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I did and wasn’t able to find anything that looked concerning. I have a mesh network with eeros in bridge mode. Looking at the dns in there nothing is different than how it’s been for the last few years. I also had connected the tv using ethernet too and had the same issue so I don think the eeros are likely to be the culprit. In the FWG I don’t have any customized settings in the DNS capabilities. My settings there are default at present. Are there any recommended configs I should look into? From the WAN side I don’t have a modem or anything so it’s directly connected to the FWG with no appliance in between. Speed is over 1Gbps.
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The fire tv was ok out of the box as far as I can tell. It went thru the update process to update it but that is where I was having trouble with firewall functions like ad blocking preventing it from working. It went thru the update process and got stuck in a reboot process and is unrecoverable. I cannot get to any menus or anything. The tv just wants to connect to something and is throwing an exception saying it can’t and to restart the tv. I looked a lot for troubleshooting on this and found nothing. Maybe the tv has a problem, but it just doesn’t seem likely that it was defective out of the box.
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"having trouble with firewall functions like ad blocking preventing it from working", ad block go against how these platform make money, so it is highly possible certain apps will have the capability to do ad blocker-blocker, or refuse to work if there is an ad blocker. There is no good way around it, you should turn off ad blocker if your unit can't work.
But either way, have you tried to reset your fire tv? if that does not work, you will need to use the manufacturing warranty. (all hardware have defects ...)
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Thanks again for the follow up. The comment about bricking the tv I made initially was because the unit is bricked. There’s no way to reset it as it’s stuck in some sort of rebooting process. I returned it and got a new one thankfully. With the ad blocker off it seems to be working… so far. It’s had several updates to install and all seems to be going well. Thanks again!
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Just to be clear I never intended to convey that firewallas actively bricked my tv. My tv seemed to turn into a brick as a result of network connectivity being disrupted during updates and restarts. And the firewalla controls the network access so it seemed like some of the odd behavior of things with ad blocking on and the different endpoints the tv was trying to reach during updates that it got stuck and couldn’t finish updating. I was able to update the new tv successfully and it seems to be working fine now. I observed something interesting that may be helpful to others.
Eero has an option to make Amazon products easy to set up. When I got the new tv I never did anything to connect it to my network. It just turned on and was already connected. It updated the software three times and then got to the actual tv setup steps where I had to choose some options like linking streaming accounts and such. Again I never gave it access to my network. This was very surprising. With the tv that turned into a brick I had plugged it into my network via network cable. I’m wondering now if that had something to do with the weird behavior. Also, after I set up the replacement tv I went to hang it on the wall and I plugged it into my wired network because that was my plan - have direct hardline connection to my network. When I turned the tv on after doing this it started the setup process again where I acted like the the was new and needed to be configured. No software updates, just acted like it was the first time it was powered on. I said nope and turned off the tv and disconnected the LAN connection. When I turned the tv on again it went back to set up where it asked for some configuration selections. This was WEIRD. but now
The tv works and hasn’t shown signs of issues. Very interesting.
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