Apple TV video freezes but audio continues

I had been in touch with Apple about this and originally the problem was that my Apple TV was set to 1080p when my actual TV only supports up to 720p. Changed the setting and it worked perfectly. For a week. This product has become a major waste and quite frankly it makes me not want to purchase another Apple product. Originally the problem occurred (on my device) every 10 minutes exactly. Now it happens at random times. Apple needs to recall this device. It is not worth spending $100 on a device, and then potentially hundreds more on movies and television shows if the device is not going to work properly.

Same here. Everything was great with my system (I have 3 Apple TVs, and it is my primary rental system for TV shows and movies). Then the UPDATE came on Sunday, and it took a solid hour to install, which was extremely annoying -- and after it, the video freeze/audio play issue surfaced. And surfaced. And surfaced. What made it worse was that we were trying to watch the second-to-last episode of BREAKING BAD when this started. Had to exit the content and enter again five times to finish watching it (and each time, it forgot our place and we had to fast forward back to where we were).

(Don't mess with my BREAKING BAD.)

Will try the fixes suggested, but it seems as if this update is a real POS. I have no idea why they would break something that worked so beautifully. It pretty much destroys my faith in Apple, and I'm an all-Apple household ... have been since the Apple IIc.

They NEED to put out a fix and an apology.

t's not that I dislike Apple products. I own a ton of them (multiple apple tv, ipad, iphone ect)

I am amazed that Apple has not addressed this issue or publically acknowledged that a fix is in the works Also as an IT professional my post signals that I have given up (1. Solving it on my own, All Researched Solutions have failed, and the Apple Support was a waste of time).

I can temporarily fix the issue by signing in & out of Itunes on my Apple TV (but that is not an acceptable long term solution)

Fairly sure the issue is with the Apple TV’s ability to complete the handshake with Itunes to validate if the device is authorized to view the content. Which happens every 10 min while watching content (hence why the video freezes, audio continues).

I have had many issues with stuttering problems using Appletv 3s. It seems to be resolved by doing a RESTART in the GENERAL menu. I hope that helps.

Similar problem, watching movie on ATV, video freezes while audio continues. If start movie again from beginning and fast forward will get a black screen around same point. I tried watching same movie from iTunes on my Mac, with same problem, so didn’t appear to be the ATV. Then I tried watching the movie without iTunes, using QuickTime Player 7 Pro, and got ’QuickTime couldn’t open movie - an invalid public movie atom was found in the movie.’ Then I tried using QT Player 10, and movie opened and played, but then froze at the same point. Then I tried using VLC and the movie played fine, with no problems. So in my case it appears to be a QT issue, not the ATV. My movies are usually .avi or other, converted to H.264 mp4/m4v using Handbrake. I’d be interested to know if anyone else having these problems on their ATV encounters the same problem using QT outside of iTunes, and then has the movie play fine with VLC.

I'm guessing noone has figured out the problem, but I have the same problem that JD94 has.

I have not had this issue in quite some time, about a year now. For me, the first thing that I noticed may have helped was changing internet providers. Used comcast when issues were occurring, and wifi reception was terrible if you were more than 8 feet away from router. Thought it was the router and went through 4-5 in a few months attempting to fix the problem, but comcast really just is a terrible provider. Had no issues when we switched to Verizon FiOS, where the wifi worked perfectly upwards of 30 feet away from router. Since then we have moved to an area where FiOS is not available, so we have had to go back to Comcast. Again, wifi reception (on every wifi capable device) is terrible, even one room away from the router. Difference this time is that the Apple TV is plugged into the router directly via ethernet instead of using wifi. No problems have occurred since it has been hooked up via ethernet, which leads me to believe this issue is solely a internet issue. It also makes me think that this is not a hardware issue with the Apple TV as I've dealt with 2 different internet providers and 2 very different results over wifi.

I should clarify my comment after looking at more items. So, my issue is not the apple TV. In iTunes, the movie will freeze and audio will continue. In Quicktime and VLC, it works just fine. So, if I try to stream it to apple TV, the iTunes issue is causing my video freeze with continued audio problem.

elitebox007 wrote:

File a report here: https://bugreport.apple.com

This is a wrong link you have provided above. It is for developers and not end users.

If anyone wants to file a complaint, submit an enhancement request or a bug, this link should be used instead:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Unplugging all and wait 30 sec. solved the problem for me 🙂

JD94:
You're awesome..!!
I was getting so very annoyed at my 2013 Apple TV (rev A) momentarily freezing the video that was being mirrored from my 2012 MacBook Air.
I was convinced that there was a glitch with my ATV. I also wondered if maybe there was a Wi-Fi issue with my home network, where maybe the ATV was sitting in a dead-zone. I moved the ATV around on my TV stand, but the freezing video continued.
The video would continue to play on my MB Air, but the mirrored video would temporarily freeze on my TV for about 3-5 seconds, then it would catch up and play normal. Unlike some others, there didn't seem to be any predictable time increments of when this would happen, although I have noticed that the freezing issue was more prevalent when there seems to be a lot of fast moving action in the video (like Captain America fighting the bad guys, with lots of explosions happening in the background, and helicopters flying around and stuff, but less noticeable during the quiet, dull, slow-moving scenes).

I normally convert my .avi/.mkv movies to .mp4 using Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate, and mirror the movies from my MB Air to the ATV via QuickTime (currently using v10.3).

I tried JD94's suggestion of using VLC instead of QuickTime, and was pleasantly surprised that I haven't yet observed any freezing video issues yet (although I haven't watched an entire movie yet with VLC, only the parts that were terrible with QT).

I've changed my default setting to now use VLC with all .mp4 files. Hopefully this fixes my issue.

Thank you, JD94. You may have saved my sanity. 😀

We have recently experienced this problem, we tried updating the software, unplugging it and plugging it back in, the problem still persisted. Eventually we unplugged everything and left it for a day, gave the AppleTV box a good clean and plugged it all in again. Good as new! I know it sounds silly but a weak wifi connection and a thin layer of dust can stop this product in its tracks. Must keep up with my housekeeping to stream my favourite TV series!