Apple TV, AirPlay and YouTube - no audio

Yeah, the fact it works for a split second and then stops rules out any sort of bug on Apples end. I think that it's how YouTube handles DRM since that is what I suspect is kicking in to kill the audio after a second or a few seconds etc. One thing to note, prior to this being an issue I was UNABLE to airplay to my AppleTV from my iPhone and have the Apple TV use my Airplay receiver as the audio output. I'd have to run the youtube video natively on the AppleTV in tvOS. However now the opposite is true. We're able to output a video queued from the iPhone to an AppleTV that is using an airplay receiver for audio output. So they robbed Peter to Pay Paul. How this affects me? I don't use the native youtube app anymore for youtube videos and use my phone to queue them. This ties up an iOS device for the task, but until and if they choose to address this, thats what works.

Partial But Unexplainable Success

The only live discussion on this issue within YouTube support is unanswered. However in YouTube's Debug Steps for Apple TV was something about surround sound speakers needing to have it set manually.

Starting with Airport Express Second Edition (The only of the two supported by Apple for Airplay 2)

Under Settings->Audio Format I selected Change Format and left format at default of Dolby Digital 5.1

IT WORKED!

Now the weird part. I selected the only other option under Change Format: Stereo

Still worked!

Then Changed Audio Format back to Automatic

Still worked.

None of this worked on the Airport Express. Fair because apple says it's not supported.

Maybe changing that format and changing it back was enough to set something that youTube needed. I'm going to assume that for now and research more.

i found a way for airport express users...

if u upgrade to latest firmware version of airport express it fixed the sound problem.

The latest firmware version upgrades airplay protocol to v2.

This problem only occurs on airplay v1 devices...

I have exactly the same problem! The YouTube sound for a few second then no sound since the late 2020.

I am able to fix it by updating the firmware of Airport Express to the latest version of 7.8.1 which support Airplay 2.

I Airplay the sound from Apple TV 4K to Airport Express which was running firmware 7.6.9 (Airplay 1) before. I therefore suspecting that YouTube app is supporting Airplay 2 only from that moment. To confirm it is the issue of version of Airplay, the HomePod is able to produce sound throughout Airplay from Apple TV 4K with YouTube app.

Dilemma in choosing firmware version!

When I play music from Calm Radio app, I need to downgrade the firmware of Airport Express to 7.6.9 (Airplay 1) as it had no sound on 7.8.1 (Airplay 2)!

The Apple Music to Airport Express doesn’t sound good on 7.8.1 (Airplay 2) as well. Distorted treble sound occasionally, especially Piano, not to mention skipped sound when playing the next track.

Restart the Apple tv and then go to the sound settings (long press play/pause on home screen) and select the airplay speakers.

I have found that if I select the Airplay output by holding the home button on the remote to bring up the menu, BEFORE launching the YouTube app, it works perfectly.

The only way I can get the audio on the YouTube app working without cutting out after a few seconds is to turn the app off switch the audio on apple tv to the the device itself and not through airplay or airport express and then the audio works fine. It’s a pain though as I listen to all of the other apps through airport express and so need to remember to switch audio when about to use Youtube. I hope that helps!

2021 and problem still exists.

Im an ios developer so I’ve debugged some things.

Devices:

Apple TV non-4K release then beta TvOS

Apple TV 4K latest beta

Receivers:

Boston Acoustics legacy AirPlay speaker

Same Boston speaker in Bluetooth mode

Apple Legacy Airport express

HomePod

AirPods

Any combination with an AirPlay v1 device, the audio plays for a blip and stops.

That is to say, the HomePod and AirPods and Bluetooth works fine but the older third-party speaker an airport express receiver exhibit this audio glitch.

I’ve reinstalled the YouTube app and reset all data to no avail.

Only the YouTube app is effected.

Hulu, Netflix, Plex, CuriosityStream, Spotify all tested fine.

• Changing bitrate - no change
• forcing Apple TV audio mix down to stereo - no change; mono no change.

——

it’s my conclusion this is 100% YouTube code. That makes absolutely no sense to me because AirPlay is an operating system level feature. Yes, an app can configure certain options to be available or not such as picture and picture support, if airplay it allowed at all for videos etc. but beyond that configuration stage, audio buffers are just sent to coreaudio if they’re using their own code for decompression, or if they’re using the Apple video AVPlayer apis the audio is handled automagically.

If they’re serving H264 or H265 they absolutely should just use AV player. It allows completely custom controls and more, there’s no reason to write your own decoder/demuxer But with Google I wouldn’t be surprised if they insist on doing everything themselves.

I’ve written a lot of core audio Code for tvOS iOS and Mac including compatibility layers for the Xamarian and react native. I am absolutely baffled how you can actually break this in an app specifically in such an odd way but nothing with Google and iOS can surprise me anymore.

I’m almost impressed on how badly this is broken. Almost as impressed by the fact they completely are ignoring it for months now.

you know what does work all day enough though, AirPlay from iPhone YouTube video to a tvOS device but the audio to an AirPlay v1 is perfectly fine, but annoyingly laggy 🤦‍♂️

It's a shame that YouTube still hasn't fixed its app, it's one of the main things I use my Apple TV for...

@Solaris77: I think I can help you, though: You now switch audio output by long pressing the TV icon on the AppleTV Remote, I don't know why apple removed it from settings, but for me it's actually more convenient this way (especially for switching Airplay back on for any App other than Youtube...)

I hope someone finds a fix soon...

Yeah I think its more on Youtube’s end on how it works with airplay more than apple. I looked at the firmware upgrade for the airport express im having issues with the audio and there is no change on apple’s end. To further check this, I own multiple HomePods. I can airplay the same app and apple tv to my HomePod and it works perfectly for airplay audio. But when I go back to the airport express, I get the audio cutting off after a few seconds. YouTube is the only app that does this. No other app. Not Amazon Prime video, not hbo max, not vudu, not itunes, etc etc. Just Youtube. They (Google) needs to patch in that fix for it.

I have the exact same problem. Apple TV connected to Display Panel via HDMI, audio output through airplay to Yamaha receiver. Only youtube appears to have the problem. (Netflix, Amazon and other apps work just fine). Any youtube video played with the wireless airplay receiver selected as output results in a couple of seconds of expected audio from the device followed by silence. Upon encountering the problem, I updated the tvOS to the latest version followed by a current over the air beta neither of which remedied the situation. I highly suspect the YouTube app as the issue is not present elsewhere.

Same issue here as well. I haven’t found a solution and tried the steps described in this discussion.

However, I found a way to still be able to enjoy YouTube using Apple TV. Use any other iOS device, open the YouTube app, swipe down from the screen and select screen mirroring, hit play in the YouTube video and you will see it appear on your Apple TV connect screen. Make sure the Apple TV uses your airplay connected audio.

Cheers and good luck

Maybe you can try screen mirroring, but not just AirPlay within the app.

Here is a YouTube video about AirPlay not woking error that helps my problem, hope it works for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtE-atNT1pA

Same issue with Youtube app on my Apple TV BUT it's only a problem with my WIFI speaker... plays for a split second then stops. When connected to my bluetooth speaker it's fine.

Workaround: stream it from iPad, via aTV. Tried yesterday and it is neat workaround.

i think apple killed this service as many of us used it instead of aMusic... I personally used it if non static video was available on YT many times when we had some guests. Rarely with static “video” on YT. I wish apple have such service... AppleTube... or aFruiTube.