You should start by trying to localize the problem to either your TV or your router and then you can follow the appropriate troubleshooting steps for each, which are detailed below, and are appropriate for both Insignia Roku TVs and Insignia Fire TVs, plus regular models.
An important point to check is if other devices can connect to the Internet through your router, even if your TV cannot.
You can jump to the relevant steps in this guide, but I would recommend running through the steps in order to cover every base.
Is The Problem With Your TV or Router?
To help localize the problem to either your TV or your router, try setting up a hotspot on your phone and then connecting your TV to it.
Hotspots can be set up on iPhones from Personal Hotspot, and on Android from Settings -> Network and Internet -> Hotspot and Tethering.
- If your TV connects to your phone hotspot and can access the Internet through your phone, then you can assume that you have a problem with your router.
- If your TV will not connect to your hotspot, you have either a software issue with your TV or a hardware problem with the Wi-Fi card in your TV.
Depending on the results of the above test, you can then follow the router troubleshooting steps or TV troubleshooting steps as below. Check out the overview and then the detailed steps follow this.
Router Troubleshooting Steps Overview
Cause | Explanation |
---|---|
Incorrect Password | Double-check that the password for your router has been entered correctly on your TV and/or it hasn’t recently been changed by other members of your household. |
MAC Address Filtering | Every router can filter which devices are allowed to connect to the Internet through their MAC addresses. If you have MAC address filtering on, your TV will connect to your router but will not get an active Internet connection. |
Poor Signal | RF interference or too many devices on your WiFi network can prevent a solid connection. |
Router Software Glitch | Try soft resetting your router and if that doesn’t help, then hard reset it. |
TV Troubleshooting Steps Overview
Cause | Explanation |
---|---|
Software Glitch | If you have a newer model of TV, then WiFi connection problems can potentially be resolved by power cycling. |
IP/DNS Conflict | If your TV is set to pull a manual IP/DNS, it can fail to be assigned an IP depending if the address range is outside one that your router provides. In this case, your TV may or may not connect to your phone’s hotspot. |
Old Firmware | Constant disconnection problems might be resolved by updating firmware, if available. |
2.4GHz/5GHz Bandwidth Issues | Even relatively recent TVs (2018 models) might not be able to connect to 5GHz WiFi and/or the bandwidth you are broadcasting on might have high levels of interference. |
Incorrect Time/Date | IP addresses acquired by DHCP typically expire 24 hours – 1 week after assigning. If your TV’s date is outside this range, it can cause it to reject the IP address offered by your router/your router allow the connection. |
WiFi Module Failure | If you have ruled out all software issues and potential router problems, then you are left with a WiFi module failure. Open up your TV and checks its connections are firmly seated first, then replace if necessary. |
What To Do If Your Insignia TV Won’t Connect to WiFi
For a quick overview of the steps needed to fix your TV/router, you can take a look at my video below, with the full details for each step following this.
How to Fix Router WiFi Problems
1. Make Sure Your WiFi Password is Correct
If your WiFi will not connect at all on your TV, this could be a sign that the password you are entering is incorrect, or the WPS setup failed.
2. Check Your Router is Not Set for MAC Address Filtering
MAC address filtering allows you to specify which devices are allowed to connect to the Internet using their unique MAC addresses, which every Internet-capable device has.
So if you do have a connection to your router from your TV, but your TV has no Internet connection, then login to your router by typing the Admin IP address into your phone’s or computer’s browser. This is listed on a label on your router (usually 192.168.1.1 or similar), along with the admin login info.
Go to Advanced or Expert Settings and find MAC Filtering. Make sure this is turned off.
3. Change Router Authentication to WPA
If your Insignia TV is around ten years old, then it may not support the latest protection algorithms that your router uses to secure its WiFi connection.
Log in to your router through its admin page (on the label beneath your router, and usually something similar to 192.168.0.1), and go to General WiFi Settings or similar.
Look for the Protection Mode, which will most likely show WPA2. Change this to WPA or WPA + WPA2 and try to reconnect your TV to your WiFi.
4. Possible WiFi Interference / Too Many Devices
If your Insignia TV is not detecting your home WiFi signal at all, then you need to make sure that your router is switched on and working properly, and that there is no interference or blocking of the WiFi signal between your router and TV.
5. Insignia TV Not Picking Up 5GHz WiFi
Check the user manual for your specific TV to see which bandwidths it supports, but as an example, even some TVs from as late as 2018 only support 2.4GHz, meaning that if your router is only broadcasting a 5GHz signal, your TV cannot connect to it.
Login to your router’s landing page, usually found by typing 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.0 into a browser on your phone or computer (the exact IP will be on a label on your router).
Find the login info on your router’s label, and take a look at the overview page to see whether your TV is connecting on 2.4GHz or 5GHz.
If it is connecting on the 5GHz channel, try changing the settings in your TV’s Network Status page to connect only on 2.4GHz.
You can also update the channel frequencies in the router itself, usually found under Expert Settings or Advanced Settings, changing these values and retesting your TV’s Wi-Fi connection to see if they make any difference.
6. Reset Your Router
You can first try a soft reset of your router – unplugging it for 30 seconds – to see if that fixes your issue.
If not, try a hard reset of your router by pressing a paperclip or similar into the small reset hole usually found on the back of your router.
You will need to hold the paperclip on the reset button for at least ten seconds to be sure your router is fully reset.
How to Fix Insignia TV WiFi Problems
1. Power Cycle Your Insignia TV
Although this might seem a basic step, power cycling your TV is often the best way to fix your Insignia TV not connecting to the Internet.
To soft reset an Insignia TV:
- Unplug your Insignia TV and hold down the physical power button beneath the IR receiver on the TV for at least 15 seconds.
- Wait for at least 30 minutes for any residual power to drain.
- Plug your TV back in and try switching it on. You should see a red light if you have been successful.
- It’s a good idea to try this a couple more times if it doesn’t work at first, as this can sometimes take a few goes to kick in.
2. Clear the Fire TV Cache Partition
Fire TVs have a temporary cache of installation and other files that you can manually clear from the service menu.
You won’t lose any settings or personal data by clearing this cache, so it should be tried before a factory reset.
To clear the Insignia Fire TV cache:
- Unplug your TV.
- Hold the Power button and plug your TV back in.
- Keep holding the power button until the Fire TV logo comes up on the screen.
- Scroll to Wipe Cache Partition using any single button press to scroll.
- Long press any button to select Wipe Cache Partition.
- Confirm you want to do this on the menu.
- You’ll see Cache Wipe Complete at the bottom of the screen.
- Reboot your TV using the menu option.
You can see the full steps on how to clear your Fire TV’s cache in the video below.
3. Forget WiFi Network for Apps Not Connecting to the Internet
A glitch with Insignia Fire TVs can prevent apps from connecting the the Internet, even though your Fire TV shows that it is connected to Wifi.
To fix this, you need to forget your WiFi network and re-enter the password. Your Fire TV’s WiFi should then work normally.
To reset your Insignia Fire TV’s Wifi:
- Press the Home button on your remote.
- Scroll all the way to the right of your screen to the cog icon for settings.
- Press down on your remote, scroll to Network, and click the central button on your remote.
- Find your WiFi network and click the three bars button on your remote to forget it.
- Press the central button to re-enter your password and your Wifi should then successfully reconnect.
4. Run a Network Connection Test
You can check if the TV thinks your WiFi network is connected successfully or not, which will help you narrow down the cause of the problem, by running a Network Connection Test.
On the Insignia Roku TV, go to Settings on your TV, then Network, and scroll down to Check Connection.
On the Insignia Fire TV, you can run a connection test from Settings -> Network and click the Play/Pause button to get a popup detailing the problems with your connection.
5. Insignia Roku TV Not Connecting to WiFi Automatically
If your TV WiFi is not connecting automatically, and it is working on other devices, then go through the Roku Platform Secret Menu to enable network pings.
This can prevent your Insignia Roku TV from connecting with the Roku servers and this prevents your TV from making an Internet connection.
To access the Roku Platform Secret Menu:
- Open the Home screen.
- On your remote, press the button combination: Home x5; Rewind x 1; Play x 1: Fast Forward x1; Play x 1; Rewind x 1.
You will then see the Roku Platform Secret Menu screen. You want to select System Operations Menu.
And choose Network Menu.
You then want to scroll up to Disable Network Pings and click on it to change it to Enable Network Pings.
You can then back out of the menus and re-try your connection from the Network menu. You might want to try power cycling your TV if the WiFi connection doesn’t come on immediately.
6. Check DHCP Settings
In most cases, your TV should be set up to automatically select an IP address from your router, and usually also automatically pulls a DNS address, which is used to resolve IP addresses that your TV connects to, creating the URL that you see in the address bar.
But it’s possible that IP address lookup might have been set to Manual, and your DNS settings might be conflicting between your TV and WiFi router.
To fix this, go to Settings and the Network menu, and try toggling DHCP on and off.
7. Update Your TV’s Firmware
Insignia Fire and Roku TVs will automatically update firmware if connected to the Internet. If your WiFi has been broken for some time, then your Insignia TV may not have the latest firmware, which you will either have to install manually or by connecting an Ethernet cable to let your TV do it itself.
To update your old Insignia TV:
- Press Menu on your remote.
- Go to Help.
- Then Update Firmware.
- And follow the on-screen instructions.
To update your Insignia Roku TV you need to make sure it is connected to a network:
- On your remote, press the Cog icon for Settings.
- Then go to Network.
- And Network Configuration.
- Check if this says Network connected or similar.
If you want to be double-sure that your TV is up to date, you can update it manually via USB.
To install Roku TV updates manually:
- Go to the Roku update site on your computer, enter your TV model number or serial number, and click Next. Both numbers are found at Settings -> System -> About, with the mode number being four numbers followed by a letter and the serial number twelve numbers or letters.
- Choose Download Software from the prompt to get your new firmware.
- Put a USB flash drive into your computer and copy the software your downloaded onto it, making sure it doesn’t go into any directories on your flash drive.
- Eject the flash drive from your computer and put it into the USB port on your TV.
- Go to Settings -> System -> System Update -> I can’t connect on your TV’s menu.
- If you see the error, “Contents of the update file are invalid“, then you are running the most recent firmware on your TV, and you can move onto the next fix.
- If your firmware needs updating, you will get a 12-digit code on your TV.
- Enter this code into the Roku update website, and you will get a 6-digit code that you need to enter into your TV.
To update your Insignia Fire TV:
- Press the Cog on your remote for Settings.
- Then My Fire TV in the on-screen menu.
- And in the About menu, select Check for Updates.
8. Check Your TV’s Time and Date
IP addresses assigned automatically over DHCP have a lease expiration time attached, and this is the most common cause if your Insignia TV shows a “Not connected to Internet” error message.
This time is typically 24 hours – 1 week, and after this time is up, the router reclaims the IP address and either assigns a new one to your TV or re-leases the old one.
Go into the Settings for your TV and manually update the date and time to today if it is not already showing this.
9. Factory Reset Your Insignia TV
If you’re using a Roku TV, then before factory resetting, try resetting only the network settings and then try to reconnect to your WiFi.
To reset network settings on an Insignia Roku TV:
- Press Home on your remote.
- Go to System -> Advanced System Settings -> Network Connection Reset.
- Choose Reset Connection.
- Your TV will then restart.
You can then try to set up your WiFi network again from scratch in System -> Network -> Set up connection.
To factory reset an Insignia Roku TV:
- Press Home on your remote.
- Go to System -> Advanced System Settings -> Factory Reset.
- Choose Factory Reset Everything.
- Enter the code shown and click OK to reset your TV.
To factory reset an Insignia Fire TV:
- Press the Home button on your remote and go to Settings.
- Then Device & Software.
- And Reset to Factory Defaults.
If your TV remote isn’t working, then to reset an Insignia Fire TV:
- Unplug your TV.
- Hold down the TV’s Power Button, which will probably be underneath the screen.
- Plug your TV back in.
- Once it comes back on, let go of the Power Button.
- It will boot into the Android Recovery Menu.
- Scroll down to Wipe data/factory reset by clicking the Power Button.
- Then press and hold the Power Button until the line turns green.
- Let go of the Power Button, then select Yes to confirm a factory reset by clicking the Power Button to select it, then hold it down until the line turns green.
- You’ll see the recovery menu again, where you should select reboot system now by holding down the Power Button.
- To re-pair your remote, hold down the Home button on the remote for ten seconds once your TV has restarted.
You can also hard reset most Insignia TVs by putting a pen into the recessed Reset button, usually found on the side or back of the TV.
10. Use an Ethernet Cable
Finally, if you are still unable to get the WiFi working on your TV, you might have to resort to using an Ethernet cable.
11. Replace the WiFi Module
Take a look at the video below for a step-by-step guide to do this. You will need to open up your TV which will invalidate its warranty, so this is really only a solution for TVs that are over one year old.
Insignia TV Support and Warranty
Unfortunately, warranties typically only last a year unless you have already paid to extend it.
Although you are unlikely to see any problems on an Insignia Fire TV under one year old, this can happen. If so, return your TV under warranty and get it fixed.
You can also try to contact Insignia support directly to see if they can offer any help.
You can use the Insignia support site to help diagnose your problem, but if you are at this stage, then you are better off calling them directly at:
- 1-877-467-4289 (8 am – 9 am CT, 7 days a week)
You can also contact them at any time via email.
Even if Insignia won’t fix your TV, they might still offer you a discount on a future model if you pester them hard enough! Always worth a try!
Insignia WiFi Troubleshooting Quick Tips
- Use your phone’s hotspot to localize the WiFi connection problem to either your TV or router.
- If your Insignia TV won’t connect to WiFi, then check the DHCP IP address is set to obtain automatically and that your TV’s date and time are correct.
- If the problem is with your router, check MAC address filtering is off and that it is broadcasting an appropriate 2.4GHz/5GHz signal.
- The most common cause of WiFi connection problems on Insignia TVs are software-related, or failures of the WiFi module.
Hopefully, you’ve now got your TV’s WiFi back up and running. If not, leave me a comment and I’ll see what more I can do to help.
Read More:
Insignia Fire TV keeps restarting?
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