Apple TV and spectrum app issues

Do NOT try to use Spectrum app. It's is a piece of Sh-t. I have been in a two week battle with Spectrum techs. They won't admit it, but one of them finally told me the same as above. Reason? It was only designed for mobile, NOT TV! That's why it won't work on my Samsung, nor does it work through Apple TV, at least not all the time. I have opened a case with the FCC about the issue, filed a formal complaint four days ago. They all lie about it and pretend it's my TV or some other BS excuse. Cannot record on their Cloud dvr, no sound, can't pause or fast forward or back. So, what's the use? sometimes it works, most it doesn't. I urge you to write about your own experiences here as well. If you Google the CEO, Thomas Rutledge, the first thing that comes up is a huge complaint by his own employees (Charter) saying he's an idiot and none of them have any respect for him.

It doesn’t work on mobile devices either! Keeps dropping certain local stations and other stations that are supposed to be included in my Spectrum Select package. They reappear when I turn off, then restart my phone, then disappear the following day. Cannot find an online fix, but increasingly convinced that the real fix is to just drop Spectrum!

Spectrum got so bad, I reported them and busted them to the FCC. They had to back off...temporarily....and try to fix their (Spectrum) app. It DOES NOT WORK. It is NOT your Apple TV or your TV, or Samsung....it is Spectrum's app that is abysmal. Even their techs told me they were not a STREAMING company like Netflix, et all. They are a cable company and they designed their app for mobile (phones) not for TV!!!! FCC fined them, but that won't do any good. They are upselling customers and new customers to equipment that does not work. THE ONLY SOLUTION is to move and get Cox or someone else.

When I did move to another part of my city, I got Cox and they DO have the Sh-t together. State of the art, all wifi, no big box to screw around with and THEY ARE ahead of the streaming TV world in terms of quality of streaming and service. A world of difference!! Don't lose any more sleep over Spectrum, it will never be fixed, no matter what "whiz bang" device they are calling it. Robert

I am talking about Spectrum's relatively new tier they are offering to those who don't want the box, just internet. It's called, Cloud DVR or Cloud Choice. It applies to using their app on my Samsung TV, which it came with. Everything is glitchy about it, all failures are random and interim. From not being able to access the guide or library on its home page, to no sound on recordings (if you can even get it to recordin consistently). To, not being able to pause or fast forward recordings.

I have filed a formal complaint, which was served to Spectrum yesterday. I have sent two letters to the CEO of Charter (parent company of Spectrum), Thomas Rutledge (see his address below, we should all write him). You can also see what a google search brings up first and at top of a search page for him, written by his own employees! Wow See below. some of the techs have been sympathetic, but most pretend that the problems don't exist and it's my new Samsung smart tv. Trust me, it's not my tv. The code writers screwed this app up and the either will probably drop it soon, or will never fix it, in my opinion.

I hope they don't because ultimately, watching movies, etc. in 4k, which you can do with wifi and cannot do with their box at 1080p, better sound, faster everything are the benefits, but none of that will do you any good if you can't record and watch the content!!! The app is an abysmal failure. APPLE should throw them out of the app store! Their quality is obviously not up to their normal app standards. I don't know why they won't. But, I do know one thing....the squeaky wheels gets the oil. FCC already responded to me with what is going to happen to Spectrum next. They will have to respond to the complaint and prove it wrong, which they cannot do. So PLEASE, since this is a monopoly send Rutledge a letter. File an FCC complaint online--it's very easy and they are VERY responsive. It's what they do, keeping the already disgustingly wealthy cable companies inline.

Write letters!! Make your Spectrum woes known to Apple and Spectrum

CEO of Charter Communications:

Thomas Rutledge

400 Atlantic St.

Stamford, CT 06901

Tell him how bad his service is. Tell him Netflix, Prime, Vudu, Apple et all were smart enough eons ago to develoop apps that work beautifully across all platforms. Why can't Charter, one of the largest "communications" companies (if you could even call them a communications company) cannot simply mimic those successes. Apps for TV are apparently relatively easy to create.

Thanks for your input. I have become so frustrated with my new "Ultra" cloud dvr from Spectrum, I filed a formal complaint with the FCC and Apple App Store. For anyone who cares, the FCC case number is: 6533049 It has been served on Charter Com (parent of Spectrum) and they now have 27 days remaining to respond.

What I have discovered through over 12 hours of conversation with the Spectrum "techs, customer service," etc., is that the app was designed for phones, not TV. The app is a lost cause. The code needs to be completely rewritten, but all their reps pretend like it's a temporary "glitch." It's far more than a glitch. I paid my bill this month yesterday and deducted the credit they promised they would give me and confirm via email because they never did credit me, nor confirm. I took that two steps higher and am waiting for a call back I know I will never get.

In addition, I sent two letters via Fed Ex to the CEO, Thomas Rutledge of Charter about all this. No word from him either, which is why I escalated it to the FCC. These people (Charter and Spectrum) need to be held accountable for their neglect, abysmal service and non responsiveness.

Since this is a monopoly and we are impotent to change anything, or find another cable company (no on AT+T either), I am going to just dump the "Ultra" (hah) Cloud service and keep the internet and a much lower tier of just basic TV. For me, that will work as I'm a big movie app watcher, not a news bug. I will miss recorded NFL though. Perhaps one day, they will fix their app and I can try it again. Robert

Does this really have anything to do with the Apple TV? Or is it a spectrum streaming app issue. Do you mean that if we used to Roku this wouldn’t happen? What if we just use the smart TV apps on our Samsung TV? I am not familiar with this. I just bypassed my new TVs set up and use the Apple TV. I’ve only been streaming for two years and I can’t imagine having to input all the passwords onto each individual app and try and set up the smart tv. No young people around to help!

I'll assume you are watching recordings, not Live TV. We have similar issues with the Spectrum streaming app, but only when we watch recordings (see below). If have these issues while watching live TV, you may have an issue with your Internet (bandwidth on the ATV, or latency). You can check that by downloading the Ookla App to your ATV and running it when you see these issues. You may want to relocate the ATV to a set that is closer to your wireless router. Or, connect the router to the ATV with an Ethernet cable (if your ATV device has an Ethernet socket) to rule out bandwidth and latency. Otherwise, read on...

We watch all content via recordings that are either in-progress or completely recorded for the simple reason that pause, RWD, and FF are unavailable in Live TV. Our three TVs are connected through ATV 4K boxes (two 2021 models, one is 2022). We abandoned the Samsung Smart TV app and the Roku Stick Plus early on because they a) are slow (long buffering times); and b) cannot preview images during FF and RWD. Interesting to note that a 2017 model Apple TV that we borrowed from our daughter (before buying the others) allowed preview and was faster than the Roku Stick!

The issues below are intermittent (but not so intermittent that we are free of issues on any given day):

• Blurry images (from a few seconds to nearly a minute), associated with buffering (the spinning icon); this artifact occurs following RWD or FF.
• Frequent loss of preview during FF or RWD, with need to step out of menu and back into My Library / Resume. This is a daily occurrence, seems worse with longer recordings.
• Unintentioinal reversion to beginning of a recording (goes hand-in-hand with prior item, Resume Recording). When this happens with long recordings, I will reposition my place in the recording using a PC (where one can drag the progress bar to a known time hack -- much faster than slogging at 4X FF through one to several hours of a recording). The Apple TV 4K then resumes on the spot at which I left off with the PC.
• Inability to play some recordings (ACD-9000 error). This seems to follow unusually long buffering times. It happened three times in the last month. My solution: watch with a Roku Stick or with Samsung TV! However, with those devices, you lose the ability to preview in FF and RWD. As for ACD-9000, we've found it to be either permanent or transitory (as happened today). In both cases, the Roku Stick played the recording, no issue.

Our issues described above exist despite high internet speed (WiFi to the ATVs is between 80-500 Mbps; and latency is never slower than about 23 ms). Further, we've run the ATV furthest from our router using an Ethernet cable for several days, and found no difference in the Spectrum app's performance. I eventually replaced Spectrum's WiFi 6 router with an Asus RT-AX86S to absolutely rule out WiFi performance. I concluded that Spectrum's router (Askey SAX1V1S) is a pretty solid router, but the Asus provides better signal strength to the furthest devices in my home). I don't think these issues with the Spectrum Streaming app are attributable to bandwidth. I think they are part and parcel of their application. This is certainly a far cry from "cable TV" which basically worked when you needed it, and was as transparent to you as the old home phone.

Most reviewers of streaming devices and streaming TV services concentrate on specs; they never address the stability of a platform, or its ease of use. If they did, the service providers would spend more effort to make their apps trouble-free.

Do not use Spectrum app for dvr cloud service instead of box. It's horrible. Reason?? After many long angry phone calls with their reps, finally got one who wasn't a liar. He told me, Spectrum app was NOT designed for tv, only for mobile. No wonder it doesn't work on my Samsung. Can't record, can't even pull up library, no sound. Just awful. I've filed a formal complaint with the FCC, pass it along.

I’ve been having the exact same issue since we first had spectrum Internet installed almost 3 years ago. It is fruitless to try to talk to the techs. They either blame it on the Apple TV or they want you to completely reset your spectrum app so that you lose all of your settings and I have no hopes at all that this is going to fix anything .

There is an obvious problem with their streaming app and they refuse to fix it. I pay almost $250 a month for their services and the DVR portion is totally useless. Every single playback has some issues. to add insult to injury this is the only service available in my area so I’m stuck with them.

I’ve complained to the FTC the state attorney general, spectrum, and consumer outlets. I don’t expect to get any help, but maybe if every single one of us files complaints something will happen. I don’t know how they can get away with this.

Intermittent symptoms are tough. Here are a few things to try -- in order, and one at a time...

1. To rule out WiFi interference, turn your TV's WiFi internet connection off. This was recommended on several Redditt special interest groups, and from the number of posters who expressed their thanks, it seems to be a common solution.
2. Bluetooth can interfere with the 2.4 GHz WiFi band, so check for any Bluetooth devices (the TV, or possibly speakers) -- and turn those off as well. Cordless phones are potential offenders as well. Also keep the ATV away from glass shelves. If your WiFi router provides real-time visibility into the users on your LAN, make sure the ATV is operating on the 5 GHz WiFi band, and check signal strength in real time.
3. Connect the ATV 4K to a different HDMI port on the TV. Not expecting an effect, but it's worth a try.
4. Many smart TVs have motion smoothing. You might try turning that off on your TV. These filters can offset improvements with new artifacts.
5. The ATV 4K negotiates the best possible signal through a handshake with the TVs HDMI port, and can transmit a higher-quality signal (faster frame rate and/or HDR) in accordance with settings in the ATV's "Video and Audio" menu. Some people set the Video Format to the highest capability of the TV -- that's a mistake. Consider setting the Video Format to 4K SDR (at whatever basic frame rate the TV supports -- 60 Hz?). Then, enable both "Match Dynamic Range," and "Match Frame Rate."
6. Lastly (since you say the ATV is not far from the router) you can simply connect the ATV to the router with a long Ethernet cable (if your ATV has an Ethernet port).

Good luck.

I had exact same issue with blurring on Apple TV. Tried everything with no luck. Determined there was an issue with the apple TV's radio, NOT the Wifi, since every other device (including the apps) worked fine and downstream tests were consistently over 200Mbps and no jitter.

My solution: had a spare (retired) Netgear WiFi extender with Ethernet port handy. While I didn't need it for WiFi signal, thought I'd try and take out the Apple's Wifi radio from the list of suspects. Made sure it was still registered to the core WiFi Router and plugged it into the AC outlet closest to the Apple TV. Ran Ethernet cable to the Apple TV and bingo!. ~ 99% of the random blurring went away. Still happens, but it's so rare, I've figured it's was due to hiccups in the neighborhood's Internet connection.

Just my opinion, but based on experience. The Apple TV device ( mine is one generation older than the new one) itself has a weak WIFi radio, vulnerable to interference. That’s why using a WiFi extender with Ethernet connection worked to resolve. The newer unit I have in other rooms is much better.

But Spectrum TV app was buggy as well. ended up with YT TV app

we have this problem only with the apple tv box and app. Our other tvs have the Roku decice and spectrum app and we do not have this issue on those tvs. So frustrating.

I have a Max subscription, but any Max shows I try to start watching from the Apple TV app insist on opening in the garbage Spectrum app. Why does it ignore the actual source app and insert a go-between like Spectrum in the middle of the process?