When using airplay from mac to apple tv it lags/freezes, but works fine with iPhone

Hi i have been having the same issues....

am not sure if this will be useful :-/

http://isource.com/2012/03/31/a-few-tips-for-improving-airplay-mirroring/

I had the same issue but figured out what the problem was....Maybe this will help someone else 🙂

I have two 20" cinema displays connected to a mac mini and was trying to extend desktop to my apple tv but it would

freeze the screens and the computer when turning on airplay.

What was causing it was when I enabled airplay mode it was trying to mirror all displays....

but both of my cinema displays are lower resolution compared to the HD 1080p resolution on my newer apple tv.

So what I did was go into apple tv settings/ Audio and Video / TV Resolution and temporarilly changed it to a lower resolution

then it worked and I was able to shut off mirror all displays mode on the mac mini to get it to stop freezing.

then I went back to apple tv and put the resolution back to HD.

Hope this helps!

New member in the ATV club. I have tried everything on this forum from page 1 with no luck: wires, resolution, airport channels, etc..etc.

Seems there is a software problem with our MACs and not a hardware one because this is working 100% without any lags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IhvNIFEn04

having lag issues too. I have the latest Apple TV and Macbook Pro Retina 15' late 2013 Highest spec. My father's iPhone 5S seems to be running smooth, but my Mac lags. FPS is like 25 instead of closer to 30-60fps.... It also freezes every couple of seconds. I'm on Yosemite btw..

Same issue here. Doesn't do what it says it does on the box. iPad mirroring works superbly, but my brand new 2014 Macbook Air freezes every 5 seconds when mirroring. I bought the Apple TV in order NOT to rely on cables, so when the Apple "genius" told me to try connecting the Apple TV by ethernet I was laughing my face off. Talk about not understanding your customer's reasons for purchasing the product in the first place. I guess I'll return it back to the store.

I had the same issue since a couple of days, even with Netflix!
Sound stopped every 5 minutes, movies were freezing without any possibility to look further while the files worked fine on my laptop.
All of this and the fact that Netflix did the same thing made it clear the problem came from the Apple TV, I went on a search in the preferences, found nothing that could rely to the problem and then I saw "restart" at the end of the "general" list, so I tried that.
Everything works fine now, streaming without problems, Netflix without problems!
My thought was that the Apple TV always goes to "sleep" but never restarts and if we have problems with a computer or laptop we can mostly resolve them by restarting, I thought right! 😀
I really hope this works for everyone!
***Using Macbook unibody mid 2009 installed with Mavericks and Apple TV 2***

You would think that the Mac is more powerful than the iPhone that it would be smooth, but it's not. My father has an iPhone 6 and it runs really smooth, but on my 5 and my Mac is stutters and sometimes shows artifacts.

Also disabling WMM doesn't solve the problem. WMM should be enabled, because it was built around streaming video in mind.

Information about WMM here: http://nuangel.net/2012/01/in-my-router-what-is-wmm-and-should-i-enable-it-yes/

I had the same problem when streaming sound from Spotify on my MacBook Air mid 2013. I solved it by lowering the quality of the stream in Spotify. Go to preferences -->playback and make sure to uncheck high quality streaming. Sound quality is still good can't tell any difference.

When it comes to video I stream to apple-tv using a program called Beamer. Works great, even in Full HD. Get beamer here: http://beamer-app.com

I had the same problem as many of you here, video was lagging like crazy (looked like one frame per second) and audio was horrible as well. BUT my iPhone worked fine streaming.

I read this whole thread, tried EVERY fix, one by one and when I did I turned off AirPlay Display, tried a new fix and then turned it on. Just to mention a few things, I tried: updating Apple TV, the routers firmware, (had already the latest updates for my macbook pro), tried turning off bluetooth, tried using 5GHz as well as 2,4GHz radio, restarted all my units one by one, etc etc. The last thing I tried worked and now I am a happy camper again!

Solution: I logged into my router (ASUS RT-N660U) and turned off WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia), ironically it worked...

Relevant specs:

Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2012, Yosemite 10.10

Apple TV 3rd rev A (connected wirelessly to my router)

ASUS RT-N660U

Same problem here.

I have the latest MBP retina 15" 2,6Ghz Core i5 8Gb Ram 512Gb SSD, Apple TV3, Airport Extreme. My house is Apple-gear-only :-)

No problem with mirroring from iPod 5, iPhone 6, iPad mini retina, iPhone 5C, iPad 3,...

Unfortunately mirroring screen from MBPr to Apple TV3 is a disaster.

Worked fine for years.

Somehow loads of problems started when upgrading to Yosemite.

I feel like I'm on Windows95

Thanks "huana" I didn't have the option to turn off WMM on my modem, but there was a option for WMM AUTOMATIC POWER SAVE DELIVERY to be disabled. Streaming now works perfectly.

Thanks again huana

1 SOLUTION:

Mine worked flawlessly while I was in Korea and I moved to the US and found it lagging too. Thus I knew it was my set-up and the only difference I had was I had my apple tv directly connected to my SOHO switch (a cisco 10port switch -- if you want wireless speeds of 80+mb/s you'll need a good switch). Note the switch just ensures I get what I pay for on my internet speed.

Since the router/switch are further away I used an extra airport extreme to connect directly to the apple TV. The computer is plugged into the switch. This appears to have removed the load off the Apple TV and it is now flawless.

I agree that this means spending another $40 or so, but that is what worked for me.

So my system is this:

imac ---> switch ---> time capsule <wireless connect> airport extreme ----> apple tv

I have the same issue, I just got a Mac Book Pro, and I have a Airport Extreme, my Internet is 25 mbp, with the Airport Extreme the speed is between 25 and 30 all the time..but when I do the Airplay from my Mac to the Apple tv 3rd generation the video lags or freezes....all devices are up to today. (Mac, Apple TV, Airport Extreme

APPLE PLEASE REVIEW THE ISSUE AND ADVISE, no issues with my new Iphone 5, no issues with my Ipod......

FINALLY FIXED IT! The issue is the "TCP Max Buffer Size" within my router. The only way I could access this is with a custom firmware for it. I'm using a TP-Link WR1043ND. As soon as I changed that buffer setting airplay mirroring has been running smooth. The only time it hiccups is when it first connects for a couple of seconds and then it works without a problem. This is where I got the information for setting up my router for OpenWRT. (This will be different for other routers thats not mine.) http://aspiregemstone.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacking-tp-link-wr1043nd-part-4.html

This looks like a major issue with some after market routers so if you have a router that's not Apple then you all should start reporting that they need to raise the TCP buffer with their next firmware release.