Kodi Keeps Crashing, Shutting Down or Freezing? How to Fix It

Does your Kodi keep crashing, shutting down or freezing on you? Here’s why it happens and how to fix it, whether you’re on a Firestick, an Android box or a Windows PC.

Kodi is a relatively simple piece of software. It is a database that does nothing without a skin or add-ons added onto it. People often write to ask why their Kodi keeps shutting down, freezing, or crashing, and they rarely give us any other details. That makes it hard to answer, because the cause depends on your device, your version of Kodi, and what you’ve installed on it.

Kodi keeps shutting down most frequently because an add-on, skin, or configuration change is causing an error to the Kodi database on startup.

Every fix below is checked against the current stable release, Kodi 21.3 Omega. Find your problem in the table, try the fix, and move to the next one only if it doesn’t help.

Kodi Keeps Crashing: Quick Facts

Find Your Problem: Quick Fix Table

Why Does Kodi Keep Crashing or Shutting Down?

Kodi itself rarely breaks. When it crashes, closes on its own or freezes, the cause is usually one of these:

• An add-on, skin or build that isn’t compatible with your version of Kodi
• A Kodi version that doesn’t match your device or its operating system
• A full or corrupted cache
• A device that is low on storage
• Hardware acceleration or an out-of-date graphics driver, which can cause crashes or freezes during video playback

The older your device and your version of Kodi are, the more likely you are to run into these. New add-on updates are built for the newest version of Kodi, so an old version can crash on add-ons that have moved on without it.

Quick Fixes for Kodi Crashing on Any Device

Start here, in this order. These work on every platform and none of them reset Kodi.

Restart Kodi and Your Device

Force close Kodi, then restart the device it runs on. On a Fire TV, Amazon’s own advice for an app that crashes or won’t load is to restart the device first, either from Settings or by unplugging the power adapter for one minute.

Update Kodi to the Latest Stable Version

The latest stable version is Kodi 21.3 Omega. Kodi 21 needs Android 5.0 or higher. Team Kodi has ended development of the older Kodi 20 Nexus line, so if you’re still on Nexus, bugs there won’t be fixed. Follow our guide on how to update Kodi.

Don’t install the Kodi 22 release candidate on the device you actually watch on. Wait for the stable release.

Disable the Newest Add-On

If Kodi started crashing after you installed or updated an add-on, that add-on is the first suspect.

1. From the Kodi home screen, open Settings (the gear icon), then Add-ons, then My add-ons.
2. Open the add-on you installed or updated most recently and select Disable.
3. Restart Kodi. If it stays open, you’ve found the cause. If it still crashes, disable the next most recent add-on and test again.

If Kodi crashes before you can reach these menus, skip ahead to Find the Culprit.

Kodi installs add-on updates automatically by default. If a crash started right after an add-on updated, open Settings, then System, then Add-ons, and change Updates to “Notify, but don’t install updates.” That lets you decide when an add-on updates.

Free Up Storage on Your Device

A device that is almost full has no room for Kodi’s cache, thumbnails and log files, and Kodi can freeze or close when it runs out of space. Remove apps and files you don’t use, then try Kodi again. This matters most on a Firestick, which has very little storage to begin with.

Keep Your Add-Ons Lean

Install add-ons from the developer’s own repository, and remove the ones you don’t use. A Kodi build loads a custom skin and many add-ons at once, which gives you more things that can break.

Kodi Keeps Crashing on Firestick and Fire TV

These steps follow Amazon’s own guidance for apps that crash on a Fire TV, in order from least to most drastic.

1. Force stop and clear the cache. Go to Settings, then Applications, then Manage Installed Applications, and select Kodi. Choose Force Stop, then Clear Cache, and open Kodi again. Clearing the cache keeps your add-ons and settings.
2. Restart the Fire TV. Restart it from Settings, or unplug the power adapter for one minute and plug it back in.
3. Check for a system update. Go to Settings, then My Fire TV (called Devices & Software on some models), then About, then Check for System Update. Amazon notes that an outdated system can cause app problems.
4. Clear Data, only if the cache didn’t help. This is on the same Kodi screen as Clear Cache. It resets Kodi to a fresh install, so you’ll have to set up your add-ons again.
5. Uninstall and reinstall Kodi. Follow our Kodi on Firestick guide to install the official version again.

Kodi Keeps Crashing on Android TV, Phones and Tablets

1. Check your Android version. Kodi’s wiki says Kodi 17 and later requires Android 5.0 or higher. If your box is older than that, Kodi can’t run current versions reliably, and it’s time to look at a newer device (see our Android TV box guide).
2. Clear the cache. Open your device’s Settings, then Apps, select Kodi, open Storage and choose Clear cache. The menu names vary a little between devices and Android versions.
3. Update Kodi. Install the latest version from the Google Play Store or from kodi.tv.
4. Reinstall Kodi if it still crashes. Uninstall it, then follow our guide to install Kodi on Android.

Kodi Keeps Crashing on Windows 10 and 11

1. Make sure your Windows version is supported. Kodi’s wiki lists Windows 10 as the minimum and Windows 11 as recommended. That means current Kodi isn’t supported on Windows 8.1 or older.
2. Update your graphics driver. Kodi’s wiki says your graphics drivers must support DirectX 11 Feature Level 9.1. Get the newest driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel, or run Windows Update, then restart the PC.
3. Turn off hardware acceleration if Kodi opens fine but crashes when a video plays. The steps are in the next section.
4. Reinstall Kodi. Uninstall it, then install the latest stable version from kodi.tv or the Microsoft Store.

If you installed Kodi from the Microsoft Store, your Kodi data lives in a different place than the regular installer. See the path in the userdata table below.

Kodi Keeps Crashing or Freezing: Fixes for Specific Situations

Kodi Crashes or Freezes While Playing Video?

If Kodi opens and works until you start a video, the usual suspect is hardware acceleration. This setting lets your device’s video chip decode the video instead of the main processor. When the chip or its driver misbehaves, you can get freezes or crashes during playback.

1. From the Kodi home screen, open Settings, then Player, then Videos, and scroll to the Processing section.
2. If you can’t see the hardware acceleration option, raise the settings level to Advanced using the gear icon at the bottom left of the Settings screen. Kodi’s wiki lists the Windows option at the Advanced level.
3. On Windows, turn off Allow hardware acceleration DXVA2.
4. On Android and Fire TV, the options here depend on your device. If you see a hardware acceleration option, turn it off.
5. Restart Kodi and play a video. If nothing changes, turn the setting back on, because hardware decoding is there to keep HD and 4K playback smooth.

If the video stutters or pauses to load instead of crashing, that’s a different problem. See how to stop buffering in Kodi.

Kodi Shuts Down When You Open an Add-On?

If Kodi closes only when you open one particular add-on, the add-on is the problem, or something it depends on is. Update the add-on from Add-ons, then My add-ons. If it still crashes Kodi, disable or uninstall it and check the add-on developer’s page for known issues. For the exact error, read the Kodi log.

Kodi Crashes or Freezes When You Exit?

If Kodi hangs or crashes only when you quit, the log is the quickest way to see what was still running. Update Kodi and disable your newest add-on first, then read the Kodi log and look at the last lines before the crash.

How to Find the Add-On, Skin or Build That Keeps Crashing Kodi

Many Kodi crashes come down to something in your userdata folder, which holds your settings, add-on settings, library databases and thumbnails. If Kodi won’t stay open long enough to disable anything from inside, this test finds the culprit.

Before you start: this test resets your Kodi settings and library, and you may need to set up your add-ons again afterward. Always keep a backup copy of the folder. On Android and Fire TV this folder can be hard to reach without a file manager, so try the Fire TV and Android steps above first.

1. Close Kodi, then find your userdata folder using the table below.
2. Copy the whole folder to a safe place as a backup. Then rename the original from userdata to userdata_old.
3. Start Kodi. It builds a fresh userdata folder. Does it stay open? If yes, something in your old userdata folder was causing the crashes.
4. Close Kodi. Copy folders from userdata_old back into the new userdata folder one at a time, such as addon_data, then Database, then Thumbnails, starting Kodi after each one.
5. When Kodi crashes again, the last folder you copied back is the cause. The addon_data folder has a separate folder for each add-on, so you can narrow it down to the exact add-on and remove it.

Here is where to find the userdata folder on each platform, from the official Kodi wiki:

On Windows, you can paste the path into the File Explorer address bar to open it.

How to Read the Kodi Log to Find What’s Crashing Kodi

The Kodi log records what Kodi was doing right before it crashed. After a crash, open the log file and read the last lines. They usually name the add-on or component that failed. For a full walkthrough, see our guide on how to check log files in Kodi.

For more detail, open Settings, then System, then Logging, and turn on Enable debug logging. Make Kodi crash again, then read the new log. Turn debug logging back off when you’re done.

Where the log lives depends on your platform (from the official Kodi wiki):

Kodi Crashing After an Update? How to Fix It

If Kodi was fine until it updated, the new version may not get along with an add-on or skin you have installed, or with your device.

1. Update your add-ons: open Add-ons, then My add-ons, and update anything that has a new version.
2. Disable your newest add-ons and skins, as described in the quick fixes above, and switch to the default skin if you changed it.
3. Read the log to see which add-on is failing.
4. As a temporary fix, you can install an older Kodi release. Team Kodi keeps older builds on its mirrors site, but it doesn’t recommend running old builds long term.

To keep Kodi from updating on you again, follow our guide to stop Kodi from updating automatically. The Microsoft Store version of Kodi updates itself automatically, so stopping updates on that version is done in the Microsoft Store, not in Kodi.

Last Resort: Reinstall Kodi From Scratch

If you’d rather skip the troubleshooting, a clean reinstall is the fastest way to get a working Kodi back.

1. Write down the add-ons you actually use.
2. Uninstall Kodi. On Windows, also delete the Kodi data folder, which is the folder that contains userdata (see the table above). On Firestick and Android, use Clear Data or uninstall.
3. Install the latest stable Kodi from kodi.tv, the Google Play Store or the Microsoft Store.
4. Add your add-ons back one at a time, from each developer’s own repository, and open Kodi after each one. If Kodi crashes after an install, you know which add-on did it.

Still Crashing? Who to Contact

• Bought a pre-loaded Kodi box? Contact the seller. We teach the proper way to install repositories and add-ons, and we can’t support box sellers who advertise Kodi as a set-it-and-forget-it media center.
• Crashing started right after you installed a build, skin or add-on? Go to the creator of that build, skin or add-on for support.
• Crashing in Kodi itself? The official Kodi forum is the place to ask for help. Include your debug log.

Kodi opens fine but streams won’t play? See our guides to fix “No Stream Available” and Kodi not working.

Kodi Crashing and Shutting Down: Frequently Asked Questions

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