Overview
- Amazon told outlets on Tuesday that a bug in a recent Fire TV Settings update caused the 'Install unknown apps' list to appear incomplete or empty on many Android-based Fire TV devices and that the change was not intentional.
- The company says a fix has been identified and will be pushed as an automatic Settings component update to affected devices over the coming week; users can also check manually via Settings > My Fire TV > About > Check for updates.
- The bug prevented popular sideloading tools such as Downloader from appearing in the permissions list, which stopped those apps from requesting permission to install third-party APKs and blocked sideloading on impacted devices.
- Amazon announced a new Fire TV Stick that runs Vega OS and confirmed future sticks will use Linux-based software instead of Android, a platform change that likely makes traditional Android sideloading incompatible with new hardware.
- For now the restored capability mainly affects existing Android-based Fire TV units, so users who rely on sideloading may need to keep older devices or seek alternate methods as Amazon shifts its platform going forward.