Apple TV4K Airplay HBO Max failure

Hello CharlieXrayDelta, and welcome to the Apple Support Community.

Since Netflix, Apple TV+, Prime Video, and YouTube TV all work correctly with your Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini stereo pair, the issue is unlikely to be with AirPlay, tvOS, or your HomePod setup. It appears to be specific to the Max (HBO Max) app.

Here are a few steps you can try:

1. Restart your Apple TV and both HomePod minis.
2. Make sure tvOS and the Max app are fully up to date.
3. Go to Settings > Video and Audio > Audio Output and temporarily switch from the HomePod stereo pair to your TV speakers. If Max works normally, this helps isolate the issue to the app’s interaction with the HomePod audio output.
4. Delete and reinstall the Max app, then sign in again.
5. If the problem only affects Max while all other streaming apps work correctly, it’s likely an app-specific compatibility issue that should be reported to Max Support.

The information you read on Reddit regarding the Premium subscription is not an Apple requirement. Audio playback through AirPlay or HomePod should not depend on the subscription tier alone.

Helpful links:

Use HDMI ARC or eARC with your Apple TV 4K - Apple Support

Change audio settings on Apple TV 4K - Apple Support

Could you let us know whether the issue affects audio only, video only, or both? Also, does Max work correctly if you use your TV speakers instead of the HomePod stereo pair? That will help determine whether this is an app-specific audio routing issue.

Please let us know the outcome.

Your feedback may also help other members of the Apple Support Community experiencing the same issue.

🙏🏻

Have a great day.

And one more thing…

Never forget to think different.



I have the same issue as well. HBO premium, Apple TV 4K, Bose soundbar. Tried reinstalling the app, multiple sound settings, unplugging, restarting, etc. All my apps work just fine except the HBO Max app. No sound on any show but the video works.

I tried streaming from the HBO app on my iPhone to the Apple TV, works fine. 100% an issue with HBO’s Apple TV app.

I'm having the exact same problem. I reset the Apple TV to factory defaults, reinstalled all apps and logged back into everything, changed various sound settings but it is unquestionably this garbage Max App. I went into Prime video, accessing Max through there and got sound. When I go back to the Max app... nothing. It's trash.

As of today (08-03-2026) this now works. Update to very newest TvOS, deleted and reinstalled the HBOMax app and it works ON MY SYSTEM.

The current version of the HBO Max app for tvOS is 7.7.0 which was released on July 13.

That is likely when it was broken.

I am told that the developers are working on a fix, but support would not give me a timeline.

Maybe, but it's on HBO's end if that's the root of the problem. Everything else works fine and, in this greediest of ages, we can be sure that HBO isn't the only provider implementing DRM.

It's been half a lifetime now, but I've done some Apple TV and iOS development. There's a concept of the audio path and your app absolutely receives information from the OS about the state of the audio path and any changes to it. For example, your app will receive a message from iOS telling it that the headphones have been unplugged (if wired) or otherwise disconnected (bluetooth).

For 20 years, Apple's instructions to developers has been something akin to "if a new audio path was just added, switch audio to it if already playing ... if the path you were playing on got removed, pause playing" (obvious, huh?). Everyone gets this right except, unless they've fixed it in the last couple weeks, Audible. The dozens of times I've pulled my AirPods out of my ears only to have some embarrassingly low-quality audio book start blasting from the phone speaker at maximum volume has been infuriating.

The point is, it's an Apple platform, but 3rd parties must show pride in their work. It's easy to imagine HBO shipping the update that broke playback for all of us simply because their lowest-bidder software development partner coded the app to deal with only audio source zero (or some similar default) because that worked on their single test Apple TV, which itself was connected directly to a $150 Black Friday TV. They may have used sample code from the internet that has a placeholder to the effect of "Place your app's audio path handling code here".

Such is the effect of outsourcing everything, but dang, it'd sure be nice if Apple had mandated that their player own playing and (DRM) protecting the content, even if that meant the video itself was just a frame in the 3rd-party app. Maybe we'd still have to log-in whenever least convenient, new shows wouldn't show up in the episode list without an app restart, etc... But the video and audio, once we got it playing, would just freaking work!

I would say we are all affected, but for HBO Max it's ok. They are invoicing the same every month and we are complaining on an Apple forum, so from their point of view... it's perfect.

I called them twice, they told me weeks ago that they know about the issue and they recommend not usign the HomePod mini and use the TV Speakes instead 😩

I already reviewed their app with "horrible support" in the App Store, I think that we can only wait and do something like this.

Yeah.. I have the same version :/

Thank you 🙏🏻

Edit:

I had some issues with Disney+ so I tried to reinstall again and to switch to the Airplay from the Homescreen (not during a show) - and now it's working (also on HBO)

Same issue here as well. I’ve got a Samsung Picture TV with Apple TV hooked up to it, 4 Sonos speakers in the room to cast from the Apple TV. HBO Max is the only app that I get no sound from, but if I cast from my phone to the Apple TV it works fine. Very FRUSTRATING!

The first post here was on July 3, so not likely. I noticed it July 6 and spend several days trying to troubleshoot and deal with tech support before posting here. I can't believe someone in IT at HBO hasn't resolved this. We've all getting the same "this has been escalated..." message for a week now and they don't seem to be taking it seriously. Can anyone at Apple please escalate this at HBO? It's only affecting AppleTV users using airplay, in my case 2 HomePods.

Just got off the phone with HBO Max support, again, they collected information again and again verified that they are aware of and working on the problem. Unfortunately, I could not get any information from them about a timeline and they couldn’t even tell me how long they have known about and been working on the problem. Couldn’t or wouldn’t.

if you have the time I feel it’s probably worth adding your voice to their support ticket. At some point it might even be time to start yelling loudly about it on social media, but I’m not quite there yet.

I’ve being getting no audio with HomePods since middle of June. All other Apps have audio no problem. It used to work on HBOMax. I’ve complained to HBOMax about 15 times. They seem in no rush to resolve. They have said they will review and then research. They given me impression audio not important. I pay over £400 per year for HBOMax.

I find it unbelievable hasn’t been fixed yet and extremely frustrating.

I can see that we are a lot complaining about the same and seems that HBO doesn’t give a sh*t about it.

Maybe this is not the best channel, I would recommend sharing a bad review for the App in the App Store since the support is horrible, that’s what I’m going to do