Toshiba Fire TV Turns off by Itself: How to Fix [2023]

written by

Doug Stevenson

updated August 04, 2023

In the past few weeks, my Toshiba Fire TV was randomly turned off several times.

I ignored it at first, but then I got curious by the second and third time, and it wasn't restricted to just Netflix.

To figure out why this was happening to my Toshiba Fire TV, I went online and read through several support pages. I realized that this is a common issue faced by Toshiba Fire TV users.

As a result, I made this one-stop troubleshooting article on how your can fix your Toshiba Fire TV that turns off by itself.

If your Toshiba Fire TV is turning off by itself, make sure that the inactivity timer is turned off. Update the TV to the latest firmware patch and perform a proper power cycle. Finally, perform a factory reset and check if the issue persists. If the above steps fail, contact Toshiba or Amazon customer support.

Turn Off the Inactivity Timer Of the Toshiba Fire TV

The Toshiba Fire TV has a feature called an Inactivity timer or Sleep timer that turns off the TV after a preset time of inactivity has passed.

This is present across all Fire TV devices, so as to restrict the TV and media to keep running when there are no viewers watching the TV.

A lower preset time can cause the TV to simply revert to shutting down as it is more susceptible to detecting no activity.

This is especially prominent if you are using an external smart stick via HDMI to play content, as your Toshiba Fire TV doesn't consider that as an active input.

Fortunately, changing up the settings is as simple as tweaking a few settings from the Fire TV settings.

In order to toggle the inactivity or sleep timer off, follow the steps below:

Open the Settings option on your Toshiba Fire TV.
Navigate to the Preferences tab.
Tap on Clock.
Tap on Timer.
Toggle the inactivity timer off.

This safely turns off the inactivity timer.

Check For Updates on Toshiba Fire TV

Amazon, as a means of improving the user experience of its products and services, will try to gather feedback and make changes accordingly.

Fire TV, being a very popular product line up will usually tend to get a lot of user feedback and if a bug exists in the system the word usually spreads like wildfire.

Therefore, Amazon pushing out Over The Air (OTA) firmware updates for bug fixes is not uncommon, especially if the bug is widespread and hurts the user experience.

Therefore, updating your TV can help in solving a lot of issues that you would normally face due to a silly bug such as the Toshiba TV automatically turning off.

In order to update to the latest firmware available on your Toshiba Fire TV, follow the steps given below:

Open the Settings option on your Toshiba Fire TV.
Tap on My Fire TV.
Tap on About.
Select the Check for System Update option.

This will trigger your Toshiba Fire TV to check for updates and will automatically update to the latest firmware if available.

Power Cycle the Toshiba Fire TV

A power cycle can do wonders for your Toshiba Fire TV, in fact, it does the same to all electronic devices in general!

A power cycle, contrary to its rather intimidating name is simply terminology that is used synonymously with a hardware reboot.

It basically ensures that the hardware is ready to perform its intended tasks by making sure that the charges provided to the internals are well-balanced.

This is done by first depleting all the charges inside the internal components of your Toshiba Fire TV, including any misbehaving charge remnants.

This results in an even charge distribution when your Toshiba Fire TV is plugged in, leading to a seamless experience.

But before you start with the hardware reboot, it is always safe to first perform a traditional software reboot.

A software reboot can clean out any temporary bug that might have crept into the software from the million tasks your TV does on a regular basis.

In order to perform a proper software reboot on your Toshiba Fire TV, follow the steps given below:

Open the Settings option on your Toshiba Fire TV.
Click on Device & Software.
Navigate to and tap on Restart.

Alternatively, you can also soft reboot by using the Amazon Fire TV remote too:

Make sure the Fire TV remote is paired with your Toshiba Fire TV and is working properly.
Pointing at the TV, Press and hold the Select button and Play button for a few seconds till the TV starts rebooting.

Both methods work flawlessly in safely soft rebooting your Toshiba Fire TV.

Now that the software side of things is taken care of, now it is safe to continue performing a hardware reboot or power cycle.

In order to perform a proper hardware reboot or power cycle on your Toshiba Fire TV, follow the steps given below:

Unplug the Toshiba Fire TV from the wall plug.
Let the TV sit idly unplugged from power for a minute. Press and hold the buttons on the TV for a few seconds to deplete the charges inside the unit completely.
Plug the Toshiba Fire TV back to power.
Let the TV sit idle plugged into power for a minute.

This safe power cycles your Toshiba Fire TV.

Factory Reset the Toshiba Fire TV

If the above steps fail, then the only solution from the user end you can possibly do is to perform a proper factory reset on your Toshiba Fire TV.

A factory reset will wipe out all data from your Toshiba Fire TV, including user data, and format the internal storage, just like when it was freshly unboxed.

This is different from the temporary storage that is wiped out from a soft reboot and performs a much deeper clean, wiping out all potential bugs from the system.

This can also immensely help in fixing other common problems with your Toshiba Fire TV, such as green screen issues and sound problems.

That being said, do note that this might unlink your Toshiba Fire TV from all accounts linked with it, including your Amazon account.

There are two ways you can perform a factory reset on your Toshiba Fire TV: by using the FireOS UI on your TV or by using the Fire TV remote.

In order to perform a proper factory reset on your Toshiba Fire TV using FireOS, follow the steps given below:

Open the Settings option on your Toshiba Fire TV.
Click on Device & Software.
Navigate to and tap on Reset to factory defaults.
Confirm your selection on the resultant screen by tapping on Reset.

In order to perform a proper factory reset on your Toshiba Fire TV using the Fire TV remote, follow the steps given below:

Make sure the Fire TV remote is paired with your Toshiba Fire TV and is working properly.
Pointing at the TV, Press and hold the Back button and the right side of the navigation circle together for about 10 seconds.
From the menu that pops up on the TV, confirm your selection by pressing Reset.

This might take a few minutes to perform, but both methods should work flawlessly to properly factory reset your Toshiba Fire TV.

Final Thoughts

Fire TVs have been riddled with the bug of automatically turning off randomly for quite some time, and this has not been restricted to just Toshiba Fire TVs.

This, unfortunately, means that if your issue has gone unfixed even after following this guide, you might need to contact the technical support of Amazon or Toshiba.

If you find yourself in a situation where technical support can't fix your issue, then you can simply ask for a replacement unit if your TV is still under warranty.

I hope my article on how to fix your Toshiba Fire TV from automatically shutting down has been a great read and has aided you with the same.

Have a good day!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can Toshiba Fire TV run Android apps?

Fire TV OS is based on Android, so technically it can run supported Android apps if they are sideloaded onto the Toshiba Fire TV.

What is the latest firmware update for Toshiba Fire TV?

Toshiba 4K UHD Fire TVs are the latest updated Toshiba Fire TVs, sitting in the FireOS 7.2.6.7 firmware running Android 9.

Can the Toshiba Fire TV run Android TV?

Toshiba Fire TVs come with Amazon's proprietary Fire TV OS and cannot run Android TV OS natively.

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Doug Stevenson

Hey! I'm Doug, My passion for tech started by fixing phones and computers for my friends and family.

I started Blinqblinq to give reliable tech advice to anyone who needs it, for free! If you have questions on anything tech-related, feel free to contact me.

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