YouTube buffering on Apple TV

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Level 1

13 points

YouTube buffering on Apple TV

YouTube videos play well but every time I do the10sec skip, the dotted wheels come on and keep going for a while even though when I see on the time bar the video has already been downloaded for next few minutes. I’ve been using 3 generations of Apple TVs and this one is the latest one and it used to work well but from a few months I’ve been seeing this issue and it’s really annoying. I’ve Google 1Gb fiber and measuring about 680mbps on the Apple TV Speedtest app…I’ve tried everything from reinstalling the YouTube app to restarting all gadgets in line until the fiber termination point on the wall. I’d really appreciate if someone can help me resolve this absolutely annoying issue. As I mentioned, almost 6-8 months ago I didn’t have any issues for the same scenario and even now it doesn’t happen for any other app on the same Apple TV

iPhone 5, iOS 10

Posted on May 12, 2024 10:03 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

sbr62

Level 1

14 points

Jun 1, 2024 4:33 PM in response to KrishRB

Also on MacRumors:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problems-with-live-streams-on-youtube-app.2427723/

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Answer 2

sbr62

Level 1

14 points

May 30, 2024 9:19 PM in response to KrishRB

Running 17.5.1 on Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen) and it still happens. In the YouTube app, while the video is playing, go to the Settings gear and enable "Stats for nerds". Look at "Network Activity" and "Buffer Health". When things are going well, you will see occasional short bursts of Network Activity, and Buffer Health will fluctuate between 40 and 90 seconds, give or take. When this bug occurs, you can see Buffer Health gradually drop to 0.00s, at which point the video stops and you see the spinner. But, you can still see longer bursts of Network Activity, going up to 5000 KB (i.e. 5MB, a very large amount for streaming). It's hard to say whether the bug is tvOS or YouTube app. But given some other Reddit posts, it looks like YouTube. It also looks like Google knows something about it, because it will slow down to 480p if you increase the playback speed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1d34y7x/tvos_174_causing_youtube_issues/

https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1czbwpy/increasing_playback_speed_on_youtube_forces/

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Answer 3

KrishRB Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 1, 2024 4:56 PM in response to sbr62

yes, it does slow down to 480p if I increased the speed...just last year I remember the speeds were so blazing fast...even at 4k when I skip with 10sec it used to play back instantly absolutely no wheel spinning...not sure hat happened...maybe the traffic has increased so much and amount of data is beyond manageable proportions for youtube

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