Okay, so I ran into this super annoying problem the other day. I sat down, all ready to binge-watch some “House of the Dragon” on HBO Max, and bam! The app wouldn’t load on my Firestick. Just a black screen, or sometimes that spinning circle of death. Super frustrating, right?
So, first thing I did, the classic “turn it off and on again.” I unplugged my Firestick from the power outlet, waited like 30 seconds (because apparently that’s the magic number), and plugged it back in.
No dice. Still nothing. HBO Max was just sitting there, mocking me.
Next Step, App Restart
Okay, time to get a little more technical. I figured maybe the HBO Max app itself was just being glitchy. So I went into the Firestick settings:
- I hit the Home button on the remote.
- Scrolled over to Settings (the little gear icon).
- Went down to Applications.
- Then I chose Manage Installed Applications.
- Found HBO Max in the list (it’s alphabetical, which is helpful).
- And finally, I selected Force Stop.
After forcing it to stop, I went back and tried to open HBO Max again. Still nothing! Starting to get a little ticked off at this point.
Clear Cache and Data
Someone, somewhere online, said clearing the cache and data might help. It’s like giving the app a fresh start, I guess. So, back to the same menu I was just in:
- Settings -> Applications -> Manage Installed Applications -> HBO Max
This time, I selected Clear Cache first. Waited a second. Then I went for the big one: Clear Data. Be warned, clearing data means you’ll have to log back into HBO Max, so make sure you remember your password!
Tried opening the app again…SUCCESS! It loaded! Finally, I could get back to my dragons and political intrigue.
Honestly, I am not sure which one of these things actually did the trick but I am glad that it’s working now.