Apple Broke Dolby Digital 5.1 Output on Apple TV 4K

I have the same issue. I must use a splitter to get optical from HDMI since my cheap receiver has no HDMI input.

However, the fact that the 'Change Format' option still is there in tvOS 18 should indicate that Apple haven't removed this feature, but rather messed it up with the update, no?

Adding more fuel…

Went to watch a movie tonight and discovered I’m also only getting stereo in all apps :(

ATV on tvOS 18 > LG oled > Denon receiver via ARC. It’s an older receiver that doesn’t support 4K hence why I’m using ARC. All my other devices work fine in the same scenario. So hopefully Apple fixes this ASAP.

ATV had been working fine previously. What’s funny is I specifically wanted to watch a movie on ATV+ but nope guess not

I had a vane try by pairing a non-apple pair of ear phones via Bluetooth. It hooked up alright, but didn't solve the 5.1 problem.

I switch the audio output to my Bluetooth ear phones and then back to Apple TV, but nothing changes...

I am using HDMI de-embedder out to an Integra Surround Sound Receiver.

I have dolby 5.1 via the optical from the extractor on a model A1842. I disconnect it and then connect a model A2169 to the exact same cables and lose 5.1 (only get stereo).

Both units on TVOS 17.6.1

It's weird. I don't have the 'use both' option. It's either 'TV' or my Bluetooth device.

Perhaps it's because it's a non-Apple device I connect (I down own any, so tried with my Sennheiser earphones.)?

I have th HD version (1625).

Try turning off the "B" update setting then back on and see if the update os available.. it could be you're region and/or device model which needs to wait for the update to roll out bit the fix should hit you soon

What's crazy is I have 4 Apple TVs from the latest to the earlies gen. All of them were 18.0 and the newest ATV was feeding an Atmos system. I had no Atmos all of a sudden and some of the apps were reporting either stereo of spacial audio instead of Atmos. I forget exactly what I did after that I did a factory reset and went through the painstaking task of entering all the passwords again. Then I noticed all my Apple TVs had 18.0 and the newest one was 18.1 and Atmos was now working again. This was weeks ago. And now I see the 18.1 is just now coming to some people. I wonder if it had to do with my factory reset?

So, for some time, I have noticed that my AppleTV would sometimes output in stereo. I noticed this would happen especially after it played something that was in native stereo. It seemed to get "stuck" in stereo after that, but if I restarted the Apple TV and/or my TV, it seemed to get "unstuck" and would work fine.

It didn't always happen consistently but restarting always seemed to fix it. This time, restarting did not fix the issue.

My appletv 4k gen 2 started displaying this bug out of the blue. Audio suddenly wouldn’t sync with any apps besides youtube, Then I figured out that It was an issue with the 5.1 audio and found this thread.

Suggested fixes by other users in this thread did not work. The only temporary solution I found is to force stereo audio.

I suppose if this is anything like my iOS stickers disappearing, I better just get used to stereo audio. If It’s not a big enough bug, I just don’t think they care.

[Edited by Moderator]

Same. Was working great on tvOS 17. Updated to 18, it took me about half a day to realize where are my rear speakers? Nothing worked. I got into my system settings, and futzed with video and audio/audio mode, I set that to 16 bit and then, suddenly I had rear speakers. Audio format at the time was set to 5.1 surround, but I have change format turned off now. I put audio mode back to auto and it is still working. My audio output is pointed to my Samsung M47A 4.0 sound bar it only has front left and right and rear left and right but no center channel but it does have a massive subwoofer. When that is not connected via Bluetooth, the sound goes into my Kenwood VR 209 5.1 system by default, and I was only getting my left and right sidefill speakers, but none of my center or my rear speakers. But the subwoofer was working on both systems.

I don’t know if it was any of my settings changes that caused it to work, and at this point, I will not reboot the system, until I know what will happen.

I’ve got a Lg G3 and LGX 3.1 sound bar. latest gen Apple tv. Completely lost all sound on E-ARC after updating from tv os 17. Just installed lastest update still the exact same. Im stuck what to do after waiting patiently on an update. Do i take my box back or?.

I have Apple TV 4K 1st Gen and use it in combination an older Sony Receiver STR-DB790 and an HDMI audio splitter as the STR-DB790 does not have HDMI. In this way I can use 5.1 surround and also DTS (no Atmos though as my receiver simply is too old). I had no problems at all whilst on TvOS 17.x After updating to TvOS 18.0 I immediately lost all surround (incl. DTS) to the Apple TV box.

All audio was reverted back to 2.0. Strangely enough only the Youtube App on the Apple TV box still gave me 5.1 and 5.1 DTS.

Alle other apps on the Box only gave 2.0. TvOS 18.0.1 did not solve it.

Yesterday I updated to 18.1 (public) and now I have 5.1 and DTS back. I am so happy. So this updated fixed it for me but I read in this thread that others who already had the issue before TvOS 18.0 still seem to have it.

The latest TVOS 18.1 fixed mine. My AV receiver is ancient Yamaha DSP-Z7 that supports hdmi 1.3 and DD/DTS (no DD+ or Atmos). It seems like the new update fixes DD 5.1 but still has a problem with DD+ or ATMOS (specifically when the source is DD+ Atmos and the sound output is set to AUTO, not forced to DD 5.1)