Streaming Troubleshooting Guide
If you’re having trouble accessing the live feed, either through YouTube, the Woodlands Virtual Venue, Facebook Live, or even Vimeo, some of the suggestions below might be helpful. Take a look!
The Golden Tech Rule:
When it comes to technology, there is often one quick fix: turn it off and turn it back on. This fixes way more issues than it should. Give it a shot! And, in principle, it’s good to wait about 10 seconds before turning a device back on.
Help! Something doesn’t look right.
Maybe there are too many devices on your wifi.
Maybe something on your streaming device is sluggish.
Maybe your streaming or casting device connection is having issues.
Maybe you’re using too high quality of a video feed.
Maybe your wifi connection is bad.
Maybe your internet is too slow.
Help! My feed has completely cut off!
Maybe the device you’re using turned off.
Maybe your internet is entirely out.
Maybe the service you’re using is down.
If you can’t find anything here that helps you can always text our Woodlands Church number for some technical help: 715-204-5373 - even on Sunday mornings! Obviously, a lot depends on your specific device, setup, and connection, and we’re not necessarily technical wizards. But we’ll do everything we can do to maximize your engagement with our Sunday streaming content. And, you have our solemn promise that we won’t have Pastor Brian doing any technical support - we genuinely want to be helpful.
Help! Something doesn’t look right or work well.
Maybe there are too many devices on your wifi.
Your wifi can only handle so many devices streaming at the same time. If a few people are using different devices on your wifi (even small devices, like phones), this might slow things down. Disconnect some and keep trying!
Maybe something on your streaming device is sluggish.
If you’re on a computer, tablet or phone and have a few apps or windows open, this might slow some things down. It can cause issues like picture:audio mis-syc (where lips and sound don’t quite match), blurring or skipping frames, and stuff slowing down. Close some windows, refresh the page (if you’re on a computer, refresh by holding the CTRL (or Command on Mac)+Shift+R to do a clean refresh), or restart the device.
Maybe your streaming or casting device connection is having issues.
If you’re using a Roku Streaming stick, Fire Stick, Chromecast, or Apple TV service - even one that’s built into your TV - the service could be slowing things down. If you’re casting the service to your TV from another device, try disconnecting and just watching on the device for a bit to see if the issues continue (awkward if it’s a phone, we know!). Consider an HDMI connection from a computer to the TV, or if you have a Smart TV, use the pre installed YouTube app through the TV directly.
Maybe you’re using too high quality of a video feed.
Most streaming services will lower the quality of the video - and therefore the amount of data needed - when it detects you’re having issues. But, maybe that’s not working. You can set it manually: in the bottom right corner of most feeds, you’ll see a gear icon. Click on that and try a lower quality stream, like 480p.
Maybe your wifi connection is bad.
Internet speed coming into the house isn’t the only thing that can slow down the connection - issues with your wifi router can make matters tough too! Try moving your streaming device closer to your wifi router (or vice versa!), or removing obstacles - especially metal or plaster ones - from between your device and router. If this ends up helping the situation, consider upgrading your wifi router or asking at a tech store about a mesh wifi system.
Maybe your internet is too slow.
Now, we’re not saying it’s always too slow. But if you’ve tried everything else, maybe your internet is too slow right now. On a computer or phone, go to Google and search “speed test,” and run the prompt. You’ll need about 4 Mbps to stream a full quality feed, but that gets chipped away by every device on your network at a time. If you’re close to or under 4 Mbps, you might struggle streaming. Contact your internet service provider, consider watching the non-live service content (which is posted by 1pm on Sunday at woodlandschurch.org/online), or contact us for other solutions.
Help! My feed has completely cut off!
Maybe the device you’re using turned off.
It’s surprisingly easy to lose track of the battery power on a computer, connected to a TV, used for streaming. Double check everything is plugged in, if something in your setup runs on battery.
Maybe your internet is entirely out.
Again, it probably seems unlikely, but perhaps your entire wifi network went down. Double check that still works, using another device. Of course, the fact you’re on this guide is pretty good evidence your internet is working, but maybe you just switched to data? If it is down, contact your internet provider.
Maybe the service you’re using is down.
Uh oh. If you’re on YouTube or Facebook, maybe one of those stream services is down. Try a different option on your device! The most likely one to still be up would be at engage.woodlandschurch.org.
Maybe it’s broken on our end.
If you try another service and it’s blank too, chances are something broke on our end. You can be sure that we’re all freaking out (in an appropriate way). If that’s the case, then there’s a bunch of us who don’t have a clue and just know it’s broken, and who are asking a lot of questions and bothering the few of us who do know what’s going on and who are scrambling to figure it out! But they’ll get it! We’ll post an update at woodlandschurch.org and on our Facebook page as soon as we figure out what’s going on. Sorry about that!