Have you been trying to watch an Amazon Prime Video and encountered the error “insufficient bandwidth on Amazon video?” The error is annoying and will cause you to be unable to stream videos.
The playback might start buffering or pausing unexpectedly, making the viewing experience so frustrating.
Several reasons can explain why this error occurs. First, your internet connection may be poor.
This might be due to a configuration of your broadband router, interference with your wireless connection, or a technical issue with your current home network.
What does insufficient bandwidth mean?
Bandwidth is a measure of the amount of data your internet connection can download or upload per second. It can either be in megabytes or kilobytes. If you are using a high-end connection, then you can download it at gigabytes.
To know what insufficient bandwidth means, helps to understand what the average bandwidth is first. The average download speed worldwide is 24 Mbps.
That means if you are downloading or streaming Amazon videos at a slower speed than this, then you have insufficient bandwidth.
What about the Amazon insufficient bandwidth error. How do you fix it? The following tips will help you to diagnose and fix the error.
How to fix Amazon video insufficient bandwidth error
- Clear the Amazon video cache
- Disconnect then reconnect your network
- Restart your router
- Restart your device
- Change the Amazon TV streaming quality
- Switch to different streaming devices
- Confirm if an Amazon server is down
- Disable your VPN
- Check with your ISP
Method #1: Clear the Amazon video cache
Clearing Amazon video cache memory helps you to speed up your device and potentially solve bandwidth issues. To do this, follow the steps below. If you are using Amazon Fire TV Stick:
- Go to Settings
- Click on Applications
- Select Managed Installed Applications
- Click on the applications you are using to clear the cache
- Click on clear cache
Clearing cache will help you to free some memory, improve performance, and potentially fix the insufficient bandwidth error.
Method #2: Disconnect then reconnect your network
Weak signal strength to your internet can cause insufficient bandwidth problems. To fix this issue, disconnect your Smart TV, desktop, or laptop from the network and reconnect again.
The procedure helps to reconfigure your IP address. It also ensures that your DNS gateway is available. This will help to load videos faster in case you have an Internet or network connection issue.
Method #3: Restart your router
Restarting your router is one of the easiest ways of fixing Amazon Prime bandwidth issues. When your router malfunctions, it fails to support internet traffic at full speed.
Moreover, your network equipment may have technical glitches that affect the performance of the router.
Although restarting your router may not increase your internet speed, it will improve it. The reboot will help to reconfigure and rearrange the router.
As a result, it will separate the slow internet performance from a particular component of the system.
Method #4: Restart your device
Restarting your device can help to increase internet speed and fix bandwidth issues. When using a Smart TV or computer to stream content, a memory leak can occur and cause a drop in internet speed.
Restating your device will help to clean up the memory leak and fix other issues.
Method #5: Change the Amazon TV streaming quality
If you are getting this error after buying a new TV, it is possible you are using a TV that requires higher bandwidth to stream Amazon videos.
First, how much bandwidth do you need for Amazon Prime? At the minimum, you need a speed of 3 Mbps to stream a standard-quality video.
If you are using a high-definition TV, you need a minimum speed of 5 Mbps. And if you have a 4K TV, you need a minimum speed of 15 Mbps to stream videos at that quality.
Since you cannot buy another TV just to stream a better quality video, you need to change your streaming quality. Amazon videos are available in various display resolutions.
These include Standard Definition, High Definition, Ultra High Definition, and High Dynamic Definition. That means you need to change the quality of your stream based on your maximum internet speed.
Method #6: Try out other apps or devices (to check if there is WIFI interference)
If your wireless network has a weak Wi-Fi signal, it is possible other devices could be causing interference. A home wireless network can only transmit its signals in a limited radio frequency range of about 2.4 GHz.
If other devices such as phones are using the same frequency, it will affect your wireless signal. You will also experience bandwidth problems as a result.
Try to disconnect other devices from your Wi-Fi network or try a different app or device to fix the bandwidth issue.
Method #7: Confirm if an Amazon server is down
The insufficient bandwidth issue can occur because Amazon’s servers are down. As such, contact them to confirm the same.
You can contact them through online chat, send them a message through social media channels, give them a call, or send them an email.
Method #8: Disable your VPN
When you use a VPN to connect to the internet and stream Amazon videos, you will notice a drop in internet speed or bandwidth. A VPN can slow internet speed because of several factors.
- Server location – The longer the geographical distance of the server from your streaming device, the likelier your VPN connection will be slower. Why? It will take longer for data packets to travel between the VPN server and your streaming device.
- Encryption type – In some cases, stronger encryption of a VPN protocol can potentially drop your Internet speed.
- Routing algorithms – How a VPN service provider routes a connection between several servers, and how they route your internet data can impact your bandwidth or VPN speed. The problem is common if you are using a free VPN because they have sub-par algorithms.
- Poor connection speed – if ISP connection speed is slow, it will also slow down the VPN speed.
- Firewall interference – Essentially, a firewall does not impact internet or VPN speed. But this can happen if you have configured it to interfere with CPU performance or VPN traffic.
So, if you are using a VPN and you are experiencing low bandwidth, the best fix is to disable it.
Method #9: Check with your ISP
Ultimately, bandwidth and internet speed depends on your service provider. The company may change its network configuration settings or suffer technical problems that accidentally cause the internet connection to slow down.
In other cases, your ISP can install controls or filters intentionally on the network to lower your performance. So if you have a bandwidth too low problem, contact your ISP for a quick fix.
Hopefully, this guide will help you solve the problem of how to fix insufficient bandwidth when watching Amazon videos. Some fixes are simple such as rebooting your device or restarting your router.
If these solutions do not fix the problem, contact your ISP for troubleshooting. Also, consider using a different device to determine whether you have a device issue or a bandwidth issue.
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