Why does the Apple TV 4K keep disabling the Audio Return Channel (ARC) on my Samsung RU8000 TV?

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Level 1

14 points

Why does the Apple TV 4K keep disabling the Audio Return Channel (ARC) on my Samsung RU8000 TV?

We bought the newest Apple TV 4K in late December 2021 and we've had many issues where ARC has been disabled on my Samsung TV. When this issue happens there is no audio sent across the ARC channel back to my Yamaha receiver and the receiver just says, "Decoder Off". This is system wide when it occurs and no other device can send any audio across the ARC channel to the receiver. So far the only fix has been to turn everything off and unplug the TV for around 1 minute before plugging it back in.

Important:

We never experienced this issue with the TV prior to getting the Apple TV 4K.
The issue went away when we disconnected power from the Apple TV 4K and didn't return until we reconnected it.
Moving the HDMI connection from the TV to the Yamaha receiver seems to have resolved it for now, but this is not an ideal solution because the receiver isn't fully 4K compatible.

The first time it happened I pretty much unplugged power from everything that was directly connected to my TV via HDMI and then unplugged the TV for 1 minute. This temporarily resolved the issue. When it happened again I checked for firmware updates on both the Apple TV and my Samsung RU8000 TV. The RU8000 TV needed an update, so I did that and hoped the issue was resolved. About 10 times later (no joke) I finally just removed the power cable from the Apple TV 4K and left it that way for 2 weeks. During those two weeks we did not have ANY audio issues with my Home Theater setup. We finally plugged the Apple TV 4K back in after the 2 week period and within the day we had the first issue. I reset everything again and a short time later it happened again. I finally disconnected the Apple TV 4K from the HDMI port on my Samsung TV and connected it directly to an input on my Yamaha Receiver. Since then we have not had any issues with audio.

This issue only appeared after connecting the Apple TV 4K to my Samsung RU8000 TV and completely went away while the Apple TV 4K was unplugged from the electrical outlet. The issue quickly returned after reconnecting power to the Apple TV 4K. It has not returned since moving the Apple TV 4K to the receiver, so this is an Apple TV 4K issue.

System:

Samsung RU8000 55" 4K TV from 2019

Yamaha RX-V777 Receiver

We also have a Roku 4K Ultra connected directly to the TV, but that device has never had these issues. The Roku was purchased in late 2018 (model 4660X2). We tested the setup with the Roku disconnected just in case that and the Apple TV 4K were getting into an argument and the issue still happened.

Note: The Yamaha is too old for most 4K content, which is why I want to plug everything that's 4K directly into the TV. However, this is not possible with the Apple TV 4K due to the audio issues it is causing.

How do we get this issue fixed so I can put the Apple TV 4K back on the TV?

Apple TV 4K, tvOS 15

Posted on Jan 26, 2022 11:16 AM

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Answer 1

bgmeek

Level 4

1,237 points

Jan 27, 2022 3:12 PM in response to MuhChicken

I’m just speculating here but I would guess that the new Apple TV 4K is sending a modern audio stream that’s beyond the capabilities of the TV and/or Receiver (causing the TV and/or Receiver to go quiet). The ATV4K should recognize the limited HDMI capabilities of the connection to the TV, but have you tried going to Settings > Video and Audio > Audio Format and messing with the Change Format options?

Oh - before doing that, I’ve heard the just-released tvOS v15.3 has quite a few bug fixes in the audio/video area - verify you’re current (Settings > System > Software Updates). While you’re at it, verify your TV & Receiver are on their latest & greatest firmware.

Good luck with it :-).

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Answer 2

bgmeek

Level 4

1,237 points

Feb 16, 2022 1:03 PM in response to MuhChicken

I was going to ask various questions about your make of receiver and why you want to have all these devices plugged directly into your TV rather than your AVR (assuming it’s on a par with your TV’s support of AV standards), but it’s clear you’re experiencing an issue with your ATV4K that shouldn’t be happening.

The symptom appearing to be an ARC failure could be caused by many things, so my suggestion that you look at the audio formats the ATV4K is allowed to deliver to your TV shouldn’t be dismissed. It could even be caused by certain video formats that the ATV4K could deliver but your 2019 TV doesn’t understand like HDR10 or Dolby Vision. FWIW, I glanced at Samsung’s specs on the RU8000 and it doesn’t support or pass via ARC any of the modern high-bitrate audio formats that the ATV4K knows about such as Dolby Atmos. Perhaps the ATV4K should know better, but perhaps it thinks your receiver can handle one of these formats and a bug on one of the devices is confusing ARC for eARC… who knows? I confess I’m speculating but intermittent issues like this are tough to troubleshoot :-).

By the way, have you been on the phone with Apple Support about this? Some of their tech support engineers really know their chops (and others not so much - luck of the draw :-).

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Answer 3

MuhChicken Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 27, 2022 2:10 PM in response to Lissy_12

Hello and thank you very much for the quick response. However, that is not the issue...

Everything works properly without the Apple TV connected. Even with the Apple TV connected it works properly part of the time, but when the Apple TV messes up my TV I have to unplug everything and remove power from the TV for 1 minute to resolve whatever the Apple TV did to it. My receiver and TV are ARC only, so there are no eARC settings involved.

And, like I said in my initial question, now that I've moved the Apple TV to the receiver it isn't messing up my TV. This setup is not ideal because I want all 4K devices plugged into the 4K TV since my receiver is only HDMI 1.4 and cannot fully support 4K or the HDCP level required for it. By the way, the Roku has worked flawlessly since it was installed on this TV and is using the ARC channel to send all of the audio to my receiver. ARC and the setup are fine, the Apple TV is messing up something in my TV that requires it to be powered off and unplugged to get it resolved. Why?

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Answer 4

Lissy_12

Community Specialist

Jan 27, 2022 12:48 PM in response to MuhChicken

Hi MuhChicken,

We understand that HDMI ARC isn't working as expected on your Apple TV. We would recommend the guidance in the following resources that can help:

Use HDMI ARC or eARC with your Apple TV 4K (2nd generation)

Set up Apple TV

Hope this helps!

Have a great day.

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Answer 5

MuhChicken Author

Level 1

14 points

Feb 13, 2022 8:12 PM in response to bgmeek

Update:

Apparently the tvOS update didn't fix the issue. I verified the Apple TV was on tvOS 15.3 and moved it back to the TV. We didn't even use the Apple TV, but two days later went to use the TV and there was no audio being sent to the receiver. I did the whole power reset on the TV again and the audio returned like it always does. There were no issues with audio during the more than two weeks the Apple TV was connected directly to the receiver, but moving it back to the TV caused the same issue again and we didn't even have to use it. I don't know what's wrong with the Apple TV, but it is creating an issue in my environment. It looks like I'm moving it back to the receiver again... Ugh!

In response to your first paragraph above, the Apple TV only causes issues with my 4K TV by hanging up the ARC portion. This is a Samsung RU8000 Series TV I bought in 2019, which is fairly new by all standards. This is not a receiver issue. It is an issue with the TV when the Apple TV 4K messes it up. Resetting the TV by removing power resolves the issue temporarily, but the Apple TV 4K will mess it up again if we leave it connected directly to the TV.

Please Note, I have had a Amazon Fire Stick 4K connected to the TV that didn't have any issues. I also have a Roku Ultra 4K device connected to the TV and that doesn't cause any issues either. And finally, I connected a new Xbox Series X in late December 2021 and have not had any issues with that either. The TV is up to date on Firmware too. I'm going out on a limb and saying the audio stream from the Xbox Series X is about as modern as it gets, so I'm going to have to say that's not the issue either. The Apple TV 4K is causing problems and it's really frustrating me. Why is this happening?

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Why does the Apple TV 4K keep disabling the Audio Return Channel (ARC) on my Samsung RU8000 TV?

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