Connection refused

Okay so this problem keeps coming back for me and I've given up trying to figure it out! It is so annoying. I've swapped to using Airfoil as it manages to consistently keep a connection and allows streaming to multiple speakers.

I am having the same issue. My wireless network is comprised of two Apple Airport Express. I'm broadcasting music via iTunes airplay from my iMac to my AppleTV3. The music seems to play for only about 5 minutes then I too get the Connection Refused error. If I choose my iMac for airplay then click back on my AppleTV3 it will begin playing again. This is very odd.

Exactly the same issue here. It started in Yosemite, but still behaves the same way in El Capitan.

The network between my Mac with iTunes and the AppleTV is wired Ethernet LAN, WiFi is turned off on both devices.

Anything else is the same as in your post, including the time it works until it drops again, and the error message.

Could someone please help?

I am exhibiting the same behavior. I just recently upgraded to El Capitan and a new Century Link model to allow for Prism TV. It was previously working.

Problem been around for long, long, long time. Long enough for me to send in hundreds of bug reports to Apple. Good to see it still is the same as it ever was. My fix was to use the optical connection, turn off TV, and only listen to music through the optical connection. TV4 has killed that option by only giving an HDMI, which is terrible. Don't get me wrong, the Apple TV airplay is still awful, and the HDMI connection has a time lag in it to really make you irritated, so I don't get upset over it too much, it is a terrible implementation of something that works fine on Airport Express with the same setup and router. Apple TV Airplay is buggy and needs fixing, but since it hasn't happened over the last 3 years, it won't.

Same here. It's really annoying issue and looks like never will be fixed because of the time that passed when problem is only appeared.

Apple, hello?

I have a similar problem and it's only with the Apple TV. I'm using a 4th gen tvOS 10.0 and both my Mac and Apple TV are connected to a wired network, not wireless. The problem is quite recent, likely with the latest Apple TV firmware update. Hopefully Apple is listening and is working on the fix.

This a user forum, you aren't addressing Apple nor will they see this.

Test on another network or take it to Apple

Hi. Do you have the latest update for your Mac, released Sept. 1?

It is unlikely to be the network. After 30 years of designing and maintaining networks I know my way around one pretty well. I've already eliminated that as an option. Not only have I tested streaming from the same Mac to other devices on the network and found no fault, in timing the disconnects they are extremely consistent at about 3 minutes. This sounds like a timer of some sort running on the Apple TV. Furthermore, I have active monitoring on my network and use enterprise class equipment. Sorry but you are way off base on this one.

Yes, I'm running the latest patch set 2016-001 of 10.11.6 along with the latest iTunes 12.5.1.21 and the latest tvOS 10.0. Given that the iTunes version and tvOS came out about the same time I cannot say for certain it isn't related to iTunes but I have tried streaming from other sources (I use AirFoil most of the time) and that's where I noticed the problem first. I then tried streaming from iTunes to see if it wasn't a problem with AirFoil. When the problem persisted and remained consistent at about 3 minutes of play (give or take about 5 seconds) I became suspicious of the Apple TV. If only there was a clean way to back out to my previous tvOS version I could go back and check. I've been using that kind of feature on network hardware for years and it just seems backwards to prevent such functionality on these devices. It's not like it's that hard to do, just takes a bit of disk space/flash and a little bit of code in the boot loader to allow the previous version to be made current.

Other devices working wouldn't rule that out. I was simply stating that you take it to another network to see if the issue persists. You can take it to Apple so they can do a proper test as well.

I have tried another "network" if you want to call it that. I created a network over ethernet with only my laptop and the AppleTV and a 1M piece of Cat6 cable. It doesn't get simpler than that. The problem remains virtually identical in all three environments. I'm convinced the problem is _not_ the network and _is_ something with the AppleTV 4. I just finished a similar test using my AppleTV 3 (tvOS 7.2.1) and the problem does not exist there. I did discovere that streaming video does not suffer from the same issue, it appears it is exclusively tied to the AppleTV 4 and audio/music. Now that I have a fairly portable and isolated environment I obviously need to take this to Apple support.

You would need to take it to another location to test on a different network, however if you are taking it to Apple they will be doing proper testing there.

After 30 years of networking, designing, building and providing the Internet services for a University the size of a small city (> 35,000 end systems) with both wired and wireless network infrastructure, using equipment from Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, F5, HP, 3Com, Sun, Oracle, etc. I think I've earned the right to call myself an expert in networking for both home and enterprise. Based on your comments, you are not ignorant but you do not meet that qualification. I will admit that I do not know everything (no one can and one who claims so is a liar) but I am an expert and I learned from some very skilled professionals along with significant body of experience. Perhaps I mis-interpreted you but you seem to be questioning my expertise in a field that I'm certain you are not expert and should not be claiming so or insisting upon your solution when significant work has been done by an expert in the field to eliminate your supposition.

A network can be constructed out of many or few pieces of equipment and having a single computer (as the server) and a single devices (as the client) is a perfectly sane and valid network. What I built was completely isolated - and consisted of a Mac (server) and the Apple TV (client) - and is completely different from the usual one I use, connected via a Juniper Networks gigabit switch. Yes, the interface on the AppleTV is exactly the same in either case but that's not what's in question here. The only device causing problems with streaming of audio is a fairly new AppleTV 4. That AppleTV 4 was not having this problem before a recent firmware upgrade of the AppleTV 4. Nothing else in my environment has changed with the exception of a test network that only proved beyond any shadow of a doubt the problem isn't the network. I've been monitoring the ethernet interface of the Apple TV and it does _not_ flap so that is not part of the problem. Neither does the interface on my Mac. That leaves the Apple TV 4 and tvOS 10.0. Not the network.