Why does Apple TV disconnect from wireless network?

I have 3 AppleTv's. 1 is wired and has zero issues. The other 2 are wireless and both drop the network connection when not used for a day or so, it's very annoying. I'm using Netgear commercial grade hardware and no other wireless devices (3 wireless laptops) in my house has this issue.

My fix is to unplug and reboot the AppleTV and re-select the Itunes library source. For me it's easier to reboot then reenter the WEP key. I also stream everything and nothing is sync'd.

It's not an iTunes issue because the wired unit never gets disconnected from iTunes. The AppleTV simply drops the wireless connection because I can't connect to YouTube either it says no network detected and when I check for wireless networks it doesn't find the SSID automatically either. It's very frustrating and in my eyes this is an AppleTV wireless issue.

I have this issue with a wired ATV and iTunes on a Windows box.

I have the same problems since upgrading to 2.0...never a problem before.

I just set a fixed channel on the two airport extremes (gigabit) in the house and will report back if that improves anything.

Cmon Apple!!! Speak up!!

I'm seeing this problem (daily disconnects from wireless router) only after hooking up my time capsule. I had the Apple TV wirelessly talking to a Linksys router before with no problems, even after upgrading to 2.0. I immediately starting seeing the issue when I swapped out the Linksys for a time capsule.

I wanted to try the fixed channel tip but after changing my time capsule to channel 3, my computer could not see the router anymore and I had to do a hard reset on the TC which changed it back to "automatic". Curious to see if fixed channel helps people.

Similar issues here. I installed a time capsule set it to n only 5ghz mode and the apple tv now disconnects and requires reentering the password daily.

However if I take it off the time capsule network and put it back on the linksys it runs fine without requiring you to re-enter the password daily.

The appletv is running 2.0.

Give this Windows-fix a shot
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1434636&tstart=0

It's a less than ideal fix, but it's working for me so far. Hopefully Apple will fix it more properly soon.

Hi everybody,
due to the problems I encountered since I upgraded apple TV software to version 2.0 and iTunes to 7.6.1 I spent quite a while searching for the reasons of my problems in Apple Discussions.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one having troubles with...

- apple TV disconnecting from WiFi network
- apple TV disappearing from iTunes
- iTunes not being able to synchronize with apple TV because of it disappearing

I've got some theories on which I'd like to know some of your opinions...

1. Reentering password is not neccessary in order to reestablish network connection

I found my ATV several times disconnected from the network after it disappeared from iTunes. I'm running a WPA2 connection and I found that is is not necessary to reenter the password in order to reestablish the connection. In the Network menu of ATVs general settings I just have to select "Configure Wireless" and return to the "Network" menu by pressing "MENU". It usually takes only a few seconds until the network connection is reestablished.

I hope this hint is helpful for at least some of you even though it does not explain why ATV looses the connection.

2. ATV disappearing from iTunes even if ATV is connected to the WiFi network properly

After rebooting ATV, Router and iMac my iTunes will recognize ATV instantly an start synchronizing properly. The connection between ATV and iTunes remains stable until another WiFi device joins the network.
I found out that if I have either my ipod touch or my Windows Notebook join the WiFi network, the connection between ATV and itunes is disturbed in some way. ATV does not necessarily disappear from iTunes immediately. Starting a manual synchronization will show that the connection does not exist and it will make ATV disappear from iTunes.
By that time all devices connected to the network (ATV, iMac, ipod and Notebook) are able to access the Internet using the router. iMac and Notebook can even ping each other and the ATV.
Disconnecting the additional devices from the network will not help reestablishing a stable connection between ATV and iTunes. In order to accomplish that I have to reboot ATV and iMac again.

To those who have the "disappearing ATV in iTunes" issue as well: Can you confirm that the problem only occurs when another device joins the network?

This is the exact issue i'm having! As soon as I implemented TC. It's the Devil! It really screws it up when i'm using parallels doing my quickbooks 3/4 of the way through an estimate and then wham! Everything Gone! Son of a $^#&@#! Your printers go offline everything.

Well, i have 3 apple TV's and let me tell you what a pain in the rear. Every day i have to go through and reboot each of them to get them to reconnect to my wireless network. Its very frustrating when paying a premium for these guys. From the number of complaints it would seem apple would look into this issue further. Last time i called they told me "Maybe its interference and there is nothing they can do to help that. Which is crap, none of my PC's disconnect from my network, just the apple tv's. if anyoe has any suggestions please post them.

Thanks
zecio

Thanks, JoeDie! That worked for me. I just went to the "configure" portion of the wireless settings in ATV but didn't re-enter my password. When I exited and returned to movies I will connected again.

Of course, I would still like to have a fix but it is great that I don't have to reboot or re-enter my password anymore.

Hi zecio,

I hope that Apple is working on a solution even though they say that they do not know the problem. Even if interference was the cause for loosing the network connection this does not explain why aTV is not trying to reestablish the connection without user interaction.
Well... did you try reconnecting the aTVs to the WiFi network in the manner I described in an earlier post on this thread?

I understand you have 3 aTVs and at least two PCs in the network. Did you try activating only one aTV and one PC? As mentioned my problems start when I have a third device join the network. The third device does not necessarily cause aTV loose its network connection but makes it disappear from iTunes.

JoeDie

@Heatmiser: Good to hear that it worked for you 🙂

I suspect what is happening is that every time the AppleTV on wifi looses its "lease time" with the DHCP server (which is your router { be it Apple Exteme/Express, Netgear, Linksys, etc. } that dynamically assigns IP addresses to all your devices on the LAN), the AppleTV over wifi never knows to automatically request a new IP address. So then it just disappears from the network! Many routers by default expire IP leases every 24 hours. If a device is not physically connected (via ethernet cable) or is not active during the lease expiration and renewal, it may remain disconnected from the LAN until awaken, at which time it is prodded to request a new IP address.

Some suggestions to test this theory?
1. Set DHCP lease expirations to NEVER
2. Assign a FIXED IP address to the AppleTV
3. Force AppleTV to constantly remain active on the LAN in the background (stream it endless internet radio via iTunes???)
(Don't ask me how to change those settings and how that will affect the behavior of the rest of your network, because everyone has a different router with different settings.)

_*IDEALLY, Apple should program into the AppleTV the ability to MEMORIZE wifi settings*_ (just like how the iPhone/iTouch memorizes prior wifi connections AND joins automatically). It is a pain in the *** to have to re-enter the wifi password (especially if it's a long one) using the remote control to pick one character at a time! Entering the password once, at initial set-up, is enough! AppleTV should remember its prior wifi connection(s) settings and automatically attempt to re-connect if it loses its dynamic IP address or when awakened. Then none of us will have this stupid problem...

I have had the exact same problem since introducing Time Capsule into my network. The AppleTV and my iMac are the only things run off the Time Capsule, everything else is off of my Netgear router. The iMac has no problem staying connected but the AppleTV constantly loses the network (and entering the WPA password is not fun). I had zero problems with this until TC came into the mix.

@Peter W.: I think aTV memorizes its WiFi password - at least my aTV does. Did you already try the following?

- In aTVs menu select "General settings" -> "Network" -> "Configure wireless"
- Instead of selecting your network and entering your password just leave the "Configure wireless" menu by pressing the "MENU" button on your remote control and wait a few seconds.

So far this method reestablished my aTVs network connection. I hope this hint is helpful for you, too - even if it is not a solution for the problem.

Regards JoeDie