Problems With Hulu Live TV app on Apple TV

I corrected the issue by getting rid of Hulu.

It’s actually the Hulu app on the AppleTV — I don’t have any issues like this with any other streaming app on my appleTV, and I’ve pretty much used them all. Even smaller companies with ostensibly less money and fewer resources seem to be able to stand up apps with minor glitches at the most. Hulu’s app wouldn’t have made it out of QA at any other company.

I know folks with Hulu on other platforms, and like you, they have no issues. But process of elimination puts it squarely on the Hulu AppleTV app developers. Either Hulu just doesn’t find the number of Hulu subscribers on this hardware platform worth fixing the app, or that team is just hiding behind Hulu’s practice of not really paying attention to customer feedback.

I'm experiencing similar issues. For example, while watching CNN in the Hulu Live app the time elapsed, status bar will appear on the bottom of the screen. When you attempt to use the Apple TV remote and menu back to the previous screen it just freezes. The only way to get out of the CNN live screen is to use the Home button on the Apple TV remote. You then hear audio only for about 15 seconds. This also happens on ESPN and other live programs in Hulu Live. I have also updated the app and also reinstalled the app from scratch. Very frustrated with Hulu Live app on Apple TV.

That was the most excellent, detailed, articulate, comprehensive and clear description of a problem I have ever read on any forum in the history of the world. Seriously.

I love the first paragraph especially. “No people… it’s NOT x, y, z… etc.”

I have all of the exact same problems as described. I have the same equipment you have.

I’ll add 1 additional problem. The Hulu app crashes CONSTANTLY. For me, the remedy of scrubbing live tv backward 15 seconds works maybe 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time it crashes the app, which results in the “QR Code of Death” b**l s**t. Then the Hulu app must be quit and rebooted and re-navigated to live tv because Hulu has no ability to remember any default settings.

Hulu app is 100% the problem. It’s pure garbage.

It’s as if no one at Hulu has ever even used their own app. They’ve definitely never tested it. All of these Hulu issues you describe have been ongoing for at least a year. The problem you describe with the DVR has been going on for the past 4 years since I first got Hulu.

Using Hulu is like using computer operating systems in the 90’s. It’s a constant effort just to keep the thing from crashing or to have the most basic feature actually work properly.

Remember the 90’s when computers would constantly freeze or crash and the only support solution would be… “have you tried rebooting?” That is the Hulu experience.

Insult to injury… Hulu refuses to acknowledge that all the problems you articulated so well are 100% a result of Hulu.

Not AppleTV.

Not my WiFi (Gigabyte optical)

Not TVOS.

Not the HDMI port or cable.

Not the ridiculously over priced ($350 each) HomePods.

This is 100% on the doorstep of Hulu engineering incompetence. I was forgiving 4 / 5 years ago. But now Hulu has Disney money and technological access. Hulu doesn’t get a “pass” any longer for being “new”. Hulu is Disney owned. No excuses Disney. Stop jacking up prices and FIX YOUR S**T Hulu APP.

In the past 4 years Hulu prices have gone up 300% (price increases every 6-8 months) The usability of the app is pathetically poor. The features don’t work properly. Full of glitches and bugs. And the app reliability is in the toilet.

“Cord cutting” and dumping cable companies like Comcast (evil, hateful, price gouging, s**t company) in favor of streaming and selecting apps a la carte, is still an unfulfilled hopeful promise.

Hulu now charges as much as the worst cable companies used to charge, but the Hulu functionality and reliability and UX are worse than cable ever was.

Trouble is, the live tv alternatives like Sling and YouTube TV are even worse.

Thank you for describing the issues so well. But don’t waste your time troubleshooting with Apple. It’s not Apple. It’s Disney / Hulu.

I have experienced the exact same issue as above with 7 different Apple TV 4K 1st and 2nd gen between my own service and my elderly parents service as well. It’s not the network because I have redundant service from 2 different ISP’s, one being passive fiber and the other DOCSIS. All Apple TVs are networked hardwired. I have also tested one of my Apple TVs on a 100gigE mux and had the same issue. The issue does not exist on iPad, iPhone, Mac (any browser) or competitor OTT devices Roku or fire stick. Something is specifically wrong with the Hulu app for Apple TV only. If anyone at apple or Hulu sees this, please check the coding on the last update. This is only a recent issue since this summer that I’ve noticed.

It’s not your Apple TV. It’s the Hulu app.

Similar issue with Hulu through Apple TV. To save time, I have the latest and greatest of Apple TV, no memory or streaming issues, etc. I have tried everything posted by Hulu and Apple. No change. it’s the only app that has the “spinning wheel of death.” It started a a month or so ago. After the last Apple software update.

I now watch HULU through my LG tv. Works fine. By process of elimination, it is simply a matter of Hulu and Apple not getting along. Each side points the finger at the other. Very disappointing behavior. Seem to care very little about customer service or satisfaction.

Ok, I’ll repeat this since you only got to step 1 of a differential diagnosis before settling on an answer.

The issues anre actually with the *Hulu app* on the *AppleTV* — the combination. I know folks with Hulu on other platforms, and like you, they have no similar issues. If your investigation and reasoning stops there, sure, AppleTV is the culprit. But…

I *don’t* have any issues like these with any other streaming app on my appleTV, and I’ve extensively used all the major ones and spent plenty of time on smaller ones — ones who don’t have remotely the development resources Hulu has. They all seem to be able to produce and maintain AppleTV apps, mostly with zero glitches, and minor bugs at the most. Hulu’s AppleTV app wouldn’t have made it out of QA at any other company.

Companies often, even typically, have separate groups dedicated to developing the same app for different platforms. (MS Office was not developed and maintained by the same people as MS Windows, for example.) Since Hulu’s apps are stable on Android platforms, and everyone else’s apps are stable on AppleTV, it seems pretty clear that it’s the *Hulu AppleTV group* that are at the root of the disaster that is the Hulu App on this platform. Either Hulu just doesn’t find the number of AppleTV Hulu subscribers worth the resources to build a solid app, or that dev team is just hiding their incompetence behind Hulu’s practice of not really paying attention to customer feedback. (Or maybe their Android group got saddled by the suits with developing both and are just muddling around in a platform they don’t know and don’t want to 😂)

I will say that some of the issues that look like memory leaks into areas way outside the app itself are so egregious that I think Apple should be pressuring Hulu to improve quality, as Hulu’s bad behavior can reflect poorly on the whole platform, ergo your reaction.

In any case, next season I won’t be getting Hulu Live again, barring some industry news that they fired their whole ATV dev team for incompetence and started fresh. Typical v1.0 apps have fewer bugs than we’re suffering with now.

I just spent the last roughly 18 hours on and off the phone with Hulu support. Last night from roughly 11 PM to 3 AM, this morning from 7 AM to about 20 minutes ago. It's now 11 AM mountain time. My difficulty started with (bear in mind. I had no problems whatsoever for the past year with my live TV Hulu). After having watched live TV on both my Safari browser and on my Apple TV device last evening about 630 or 7 o'clock, my browser suddenly ceased to function with Hulu. After much back-and-forth and jumping up and down and talking to a support person, it was determined that somehow my Hulu said that I had lost my location and that I needed to establish my home I did that, and after much machination ( a couple hours ) was able to get my live TV to work on my Safari browser. For the next couple of hours, I watched a couple of streaming programs on my Apple device, that is my Apple TV, on Peacock and Acorn. And at roughly 10:00 PM. I thought I would turn on live TV to see if Saturday Night Live was on. I was shunted to a screen that Hulu said that I needed to reestablish my location so I logged off and logged back on and got the same message. I contacted Hulu support and spent three hours attempting to get my live TV on Hulu back working on my Apple TV device, all to no avail. I was told they would give me a one week credit for the problem I was having without fixing the problem of course. This morning at 7 AM I reestablished contact with Hulu and spent the next four hours on the phone with a very nice gentleman from Columbia who is probably pulling his hair out because we determined absolutely nothing. He believes that it is a problem with my Internet service provider. However, as many of the other posters on these August pages have stated none, that is absolutely none, of my other apps have any problems whatsoever, only Hulu. I agree, wholeheartedly with those who have said that this is not an Apple device problem, this is definitely a Hulu problem. I feel like saying yeah I'll take a Mulligan on this.

The audio continuing after app crashes problem is so severe that it leaks out into the OS UI sometimes - I’ve had running audio that continued to play even after backing out of the Hulu app altogether, in the main app grid of the AppleTV! Sometimes I have to start running video in a different app to finally clear the Hulu audio stream. At that point any visit back to Hulu usually goes haywire fast, so I just reboot the device.

I wish Apple’s app screening process covered really flakey quality issues like this, if they rejected the app, I’m guessing it would get Hulu’s attention and get it fixed.

Same issues here. With Hulu on appleTV it does seem like it’s the app has a memory leak or something odd. App works just fine on other devices. Each Hulu app is built for the specific OS, so it has to be the Hulu app for the A-TV. Besides the spinning wheel delay in audio, on ESPN+ live broadcasts, if I choose the second of two feeds or if I chose the first and switch to the second, then it locks up completely with the spinning wheel and nothing else responds other than hitting home button, reopening app and settling for the first feed. It’s like the first feed fails to release memory locations so the second feed has no access. Crazy. Works fine on idevices and fire tv, I can go in, select a feed, if not my preference then I can simply back out, select the second and all is fine. I’ve also seen some flaky cnn behavior as another post mentioned.

The History app has also shown some strange behavior on both appleTV and on fire stick. In some case of watching one show then going to search and select a different show, the audio for the first show continues to play while the second show is playing. The fix is simply to back out of/close app and restart fresh. Thankfully this does work. Unlike the Hulu/espn+ live feed wheel of death - nothing has been able to fix that so far.

It’s a bit absurd how so many apps these days just let these problems fester. They seem to think the pool of subscribers is endless so no worries about losing a few disgruntled customers, but eventually higher prices and continuing problems will create opportunities for new, better options and the old early providers will have a reckoning.

It’s not your Apple TV it’s the Hulu app. All apps for devices are unique they have different specs for each streaming device. In this case Hulu needs to update the app.

I’ve had the same issue with my Apple TV and Hulu. Interestingly, when I use the remote app on my iPhone, I don’t have the issue. I wonder if it’s a remote issue.

I have my own issue with Hulu Live. I upgraded to the "no ads' tier today for $70+. Everything's fine on my iPad and iPhone, but... while I do see "Live' in the left navigation of my Apple TV, it jumps straight into CNN and won't let me access the channel menu (no matter what I do). Can't find it. Any ideas?

I have Apple TV the newest. I got Hulu Live TV on my fire stick which shows perfectly fine. The App works fine on my iPhone for live tv as well. It’s disheartening it’s not working on my Apple TV. @apple are you going to fix this?