Connecting a Fire Stick to have TV and Receiver work together

[CEG]

I have a relatively new (less than 2 months old) Amazon Firestick and a relatively new Samsung Smart TV and about a 3 year old Yamaha receiver.
I can get the Firestick to work with the TV, on and off, but the receiver won't connect so I have to turn it on and off manually and also use the Yamaha remote to control the sound. When I do that I get sound and TV matched up but still not able to control volume on receiver with Firestick.
I had an AV guy come in and work on it and it seemed ok until about a week after he left and now it won't work again.
The HDMI cables seem to be connected right but it just won't work.
Suggestions?

 

[lovinthehd]

Not sure what you're trying to do with which remotes or how things are particularly connected....can you clarify? Have you tried restarting the Firestick?

 

[CEG]

I was told by the AV guy that the Firestick remote would control the TV and the receiver and I would only need that remote.
I took the batteries out of the Firestick remote and put them back in but that didn't help.
Is that restarting the Firestick?

 

[isolar8001]

I was told by the AV guy that the Firestick remote would control the TV and the receiver and I would only need that remote.
I took the batteries out of the Firestick remote and put them back in but that didn't help.
Is that restarting the Firestick?

Do a full CEC reset first...unplug all devices from power and each other for a bit, then redo....getting CEC devices to work as you want them can be tricky.
If your Yamaha is one of the models with wonky HDMI 2.1 ports, good luck.

Restart Your Fire TV Device - Amazon Customer Service

Unplug the power cord or adapter for three seconds, and then plug it back in.

www.amazon.com

 

[CEG]

Thanks and I'll try this.
What does "CEC" stand for?

 

[Trebdp83]

HDMI-CEC(Consumer Electronics Control) allows control of different devices through HDMI cable connections. This will be called “Anynet+” in the Samsung TV and HDMI Control in the receiver.

 

[lovinthehd]

I was told by the AV guy that the Firestick remote would control the TV and the receiver and I would only need that remote.
I took the batteries out of the Firestick remote and put them back in but that didn't help.
Is that restarting the Firestick?

For full control/switching of inputs/functions on the avr/tv? I can't see how the Firestick remotes would be able to do that. Restart is in your settings menu - my fire tv - restart but don't think that's the issue.

 

[Trebdp83]

With HDMI-CEC On in all devices, tapping the Home button on the Fire TV remote controller will power on the TV and receiver and switch both to the appropriate input source devices. Then, volume buttons would control the receiver volume. That’s how things work with my Fire TV Cube connected directly to the TV or connected directly to the receiver anyway.

Smart TVs are finicky concerning HDMI-CEC. A factory reset to clear out HDMI-CEC device memory isn’t a bad idea. Changed my setup yet again today and reset both the TV and receiver and reran device control on the Fire TV Cube. I’m getting faster and faster at inputting all of my settings again.

 

[lovinthehd]

With HDMI-CEC On in all devices, tapping the Home button on the Fire TV remote controller will power on the TV and receiver and switch both to the appropriate input source devices. Then, volume buttons would control the receiver volume. That’s how things work with my Fire TV Cube connected directly to the TV or connected directly to the receiver anyway.

Smart TVs are finicky concerning HDMI-CEC. A factory reset to clear out HDMI-CEC device memory isn’t a bad idea. Changed my setup yet again today and reset both the TV and receiver and reran device control on the Fire TV Cube. I’m getting faster and faster at inputting all of my settings again.

I hadn't had that experience with my Firestick remote, using home to change the input to firestick on the avr....but if I enable hdmi-cec on the avr it does work (and some options that aren't on my older avrs popped up when enabling hdmi-cec), but with hdmi-cec off it still will turn on tv/avr but doesn't turn to firestick input on avr (p.s. if I turned avr previously set to a different input)....interesting.

 

[BMXTRIX]

This just is a reminder that HDMI-CEC is a cluster f'k of a solution. @CEG, while it is clear you are having issues, the solution isn't likely going to be as straightforward as you are likely hoping it to be. This is not the fault of the tech that came to your home, as you can read, others here are constantly running into issues, having to reset their control, having to set it up again, and then having to do it over and over. This is now the life you've signed up for when you ask for one remote, which wasn't actually designed to do so, is now required to work with a bunch of gear that it really doesn't have a clear understanding of.

HDMI-CEC is bad. When it works, it can be quite nice. But, like any super buggy technology, it doesn't work just as often as it does work, and this is the headache. For those few for whom it works perfectly... great for them. But, for the rest of us, there is no simple solution.

It used to just be a standard to say: Go get a Logitech Harmony remote and program it up properly to control your gear.

Now, Logitech is out of that market, and you're left with more custom solutions, or with jenky new universal remotes that rarely have a history or long term support one might home for. Custom, a URC remote is great and a custom AV shop can program it up for you. Those are solid because they can run for years and be reprogrammed if your gear changes. A good programmer can deal with Amazon FireTV products not actually having IR control as well.

 

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, HDMI-CEC is not for the faint of heart. The new Fire devices do include IR on their remote controllers. I've disabled Alexa over speaker and she keeps her mouth shut unless I use the Alexa button on the remote controller. The "Control Equipment" setup feature with Alexa talk through is actually very good.

 

[GuyInLA]

Can you clarify more about your connections? Is your firestick connected directly to the tv or is it connected to your avr? I am one of those that seems to have pretty good luck with CEC, so I don't know what I am doing wrong . But I think my setup is pretty simple. I don't have a Yamaha avr. I have a Denon X4400h in use with Samsung TV.
Discounting the firestick for a moment, are you able to get sound to the AVR using any other sources connected to the tv? Do you have cable or OTA, or is firestick your only source?

I have a samsung 8000 tv from about five years ago, and it comes with one of the bluetooth universal remotes (without all of the buttons) and there is a remote setup function on the tv that allows a specific device to be added to the tv in a known fashion. That seems to be so the proper remote commands can be employed. With the tv new and CEC turned on, I simply connected the avr via hdmi to the ARC HDMI port on the tv and powered on the AVR. When I did, the Samsung TV automatically recognized the device and the model and now when I look at the TIZEN control bar (the menu bar at the botom of the screen) I actually have an icon that appears for the Denon. When I select it, I can get all of the on-screen menus and controls. IF you have a source beyond the firestick, I would be curious to know if you get any sound through your dvr? But it seems to me that if the tv can recognize your avr, that would be a good start.

Also note that I connected my Marantz 5010 to the same tv. This time, it recognized a connection, but it could not identify the specific avr model. I was presented with an input field to select the device type (avr), brand (Denon) and model, and I ended up typing the 5010 manually since it was not in the list by default and if I recall correctly, it made me search, and it did find it. Maybe you would have similar luck with the Yamaha.

I don't know if all of these steps would or should be normally required, especially since you have a different avr, but maybe there is something here that can spark an idea or point to a menu on your tv which would take you down another path to try.

 

[snakeeyes]

Mine works with Firestick 4K Max plugged into Yamaha RXA770 hdmi and a Samsung KS8000 TV. I think I had to tell the Firestick my tv was Samsung and my receiver was Yamaha and then for on/off I could adjust the power on/off delay until it worked right. Think I set it for 3 sec delay.