Lag is a common occurrence in most Kodi setups. You’ll often know if you’re suffering with lag if browsing through menus or loading media becomes slower. There are a few causes, with the most common ones being bloated setups or low-end devices.
Before we start
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Fix 1: Upgrade your device
The main reason that you might have a slow Kodi device that’s suffering from lag is simply because the hardware is bad. If you’re using an Amazon Fire Stick for example, you’re likely going to have a few issues. Whilst they tend to be the most common devices for Kodi, they just aren’t that powerful, and will often struggle.
There are much better devices which can run Kodi at higher speeds. Switching to the likes of a Raspberry Pi can help a little. However, if you want to spend more money for better service, look into the Nvidia Shield. It can also run other apps, as well as games and is the perfect device.
Fix 2: Clear your cache
Another potential lag fix is force stopping all Kodi applications and clearing the cache. If you’re on an Android device, you can do this by heading into Settings > Apps > Kodi > Clear cache. If instead, you’re using a Firestick, you can follow these steps:
- Go to the Fire Stick Home screen by pressing the Home button on your remote
- Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications
- Choose Kodi > Force Stop (if available) > Clear Cache
- Run Kodi
This will do a quick refresh of Kodi, clearing the memory usage and other files which might be taking up some much-needed resource.
Fix 3: Removing Kodi Add-ons to fix lag
If you have a lot of Kodi add-ons installed, it’s also going to be using up a lot of your devices resources. Add-ons have to automatically update and do their own things in the background which can cause a lot of problems.
The best thing to do is uninstall any that you are not using. Browse to your Kodi add-ons section, select any add-ons that you no longer use and remove them. It’s always a good idea to keep on top of your setup and clean it out when necessary.
