TV Says “No Signal”? The Two-Button Fix (and a Tiny Tape Trick)

Saturday night at the Riveras’. Popcorn’s ready, the couch is perfect, and the TV politely says: No Signal. It’s not broken—it’s just on the wrong input.

We did what we always do in living rooms around Central Indiana. First, we peeked behind the TV to see where the streaming stick was plugged in. A little label next to the port said HDMI 2. That’s the magic number. On the TV remote (not the Roku/Fire/Apple remote), we tapped Input until the screen matched HDMI 2. The Roku home screen popped up like nothing had ever happened.

That little move solves most “No Signal” nights: find the port name (HDMI 1, HDMI 2, etc.), then use Input/Source on the TV remote to match it. From there, life gets simpler if you leave the TV on that same input all the time and do everything with the streaming remote. TV remote = power/volume. Streaming remote = shows. Fewer buttons, fewer mysteries.

At the Riveras’, two tiny details kept tripping them up:

1) The soundbar detour.
The soundbar’s HDMI cable was in HDMI ARC/eARC (the special “audio back” port). That’s good—you want the TV’s sound to travel back to the bar. But it also meant the TV liked to auto-choose ARC on startup. We renamed the TV inputs in Settings—HDMI 1 = Cable, HDMI 2 = Roku, eARC = Soundbar—so the names on screen made sense, and we turned off any “auto-switch” feature that kept changing inputs behind their backs.

2) Wandering inputs.
The Input button lived right next to Channel and Menu, so it got bumped. We did the silliest fix that works: a tiny dot of clear tape under the correct Input button on the TV remote, and a small sticker under the Home button on the Roku remote. Now fingers land where they should, even in the dark.

If your setup includes a cable box and a streaming stick, a little painter’s tape goes a long way. Label the cables on the back of the TV—“Cable → HDMI 1,” “Roku → HDMI 2”—and, if your TV allows it, rename those inputs on-screen to match. The next time the screen goes black, you’ll know exactly which input to pick.

One more neighborly tip: sometimes it’s not the input—it’s power. Many streaming sticks draw power from a USB port on the TV. If the TV turns on before the stick wakes up, you’ll see “No Signal” for a few seconds and think something’s wrong. Plugging the stick into a wall adapter instead of the TV’s USB can make it wake up faster and avoid the false alarm.

Five minutes later, the Riveras had “No Signal” tamed. The TV now starts on HDMI 2, the soundbar stays put on eARC, and the remotes do exactly what they expect, every time. Movie night is back to being about the movie.

If your screen loves to say “No Signal,” we can label the ports, rename the inputs, and tune the remotes so it all “just works”—a quick visit (or remote walkthrough) is usually all it takes.