How to fix Google TV crashing and lagging with one setting

Complaints about the performance of Google TV devices are common, with some people justifiably arguing that Google TV seems broken. But despite the sometimes sluggish performance and weird quirks, I’ve always preferred using the Google TV box rather than my smart TV’s built-in operating system.

However, lately I have been facing more problems than usual. Apps kept crashing, the UI would freeze occasionally, and other strange issues kept cropping up.

That’s when I finally decided to go into the device’s developer settings – one change made all the difference.

Since switching to the Xiaomi TV box with Google TV, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I wouldn’t describe myself as a power user, but I enjoyed using various streaming apps and features like the Google Photos screensaver.

But something has changed in the last two months. Apps were frequently crashing or becoming unresponsive. I repeatedly encountered a bug where my TV would turn on, but my TV box would not turn on properly. When switching apps, I started noticing increased lag. Reboots were previously something I rarely had to do, but they were now becoming necessary more frequently.

I don’t mind the interface being a little slow, especially since it’s always been better than the OS on my old TV. But the inconvenience of the show suddenly stopping due to app crash was increasing. Sometimes what I had planned to watch in the evening would get completely derailed.

I realized that these problems were caused by too many apps running in the background. While I could close apps like Spotify easily, apps like YouTube wouldn’t let me exit properly no matter how many times I pressed the back button. Luckily, I found some advice on how to speed up the performance of my TV box, so I decided to give it a try.

To prevent too many apps from running when I’m not using them, I decided to limit how many processes can run in the background. To do this, I need to enable developer mode on my TV box.

The process is similar to Android, requiring you to select the OS build multiple times. For my specific unit, I needed to go Settings > System > About and scroll down android tv os build. Once highlighted, I pressed the Select button on my remote seven times until the OS confirmed that Developer Mode was enabled.

Once it was done, I went back System menu and selected developer options. In this menu, I scrolled down background process limit and set limits Maximum 2 procedures. By default, it is set to standard range. One thing to keep in mind is that, while developer mode persists between reboots, if you unplug your device and restart it you will need to re-enable process limits.

I prepared myself for some instability, but over the next few weeks, my TV box surprised me by performing much better than usual. As soon as I limited the number of background processes, the app stopped crashing, and the interface no longer froze or became unresponsive.

Some bugs remained, but troubleshooting and fixing them became faster and easier. For example, I have only once experienced turning on my TV without my TV box turning on properly. Turning it on and off again with my remote fixed it immediately. Previously, I had to toggle it on and off several times before the Google TV interface would load.

Prime Video sometimes stops the stream, but I can quickly restart the show to get the app working again. In the weeks before limiting processes, even restarting Prime Video would not always fix the error. The app will often stop streaming suddenly.

Although it didn’t fix every single issue I was having with my Google TV box, limiting the processes resolved many of the performance issues that were causing other problems. My next plan is to remove all the old apps that I don’t need to reduce the burden on my system.

The improved performance may eventually lead me to try some Google TV apps to further customize my experience. However, I also know that the platform in general needs improvement. I still experience lag when it comes to certain buttons, and I’m concerned about the impact it might have on my system performance if Gemini implements this on older devices. But for now, a change in one setting has greatly improved my experience.