AppleTV3 will not act as Bonjour sleep proxy

Question

AppleTV3 will not act as Bonjour sleep proxy

Hi everyone - I'm one of these people who has a 'little bit of everything' in my local network, so its only as I'm tearing it down to move house that I'm starting to find a few things. This one in particular relates to the Bonjour Sleep Proxy on the network - specifically that my AppleTV3s (I have 2 of them), neither will advertise a sleep proxy service (checked using 'dns-sd -B _sleep-proxy._udp local'), resulting in me being unable to wake sleeping machines (which do have 'wake for network' access enabled).

Now I have an old TimeCapsule, and also an old AppleTV2 - which, when I plug them in both will advertise as sleep proxies on the local network - but based on my understanding from this article;

About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy - Apple Support

Anything later than an ATV2 should also work (i.e. either of the ATV3's). I've tried resetting to defaults, they are both running the latest firmware, and I have confirmed that it doesn't offer the service either over wifi or ethernet. I'm getting rid of unnecessary hardware as I move, the ATV2 and TC being both surplus.

Anyone else come across this and have a solution for ATV3's as a sleep proxy? (other than leaving the ATV2 and old TimeCapsule installed, purely for this purpose)

Apple TV, null

Posted on May 3, 2015 8:15 PM

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Answer 1

prasys

Level 1

0 points

May 11, 2015 12:54 AM in response to Richard Burrows

I am also having the same issue , the main issue why I bought Apple TV is that it supports Bonjour Sleep Proxy and to stream content to my TV. I have an ASUS router which runs on OpenWRT. I thought it could be an issue with my primary router so what I did was to use my old Apple AirPort Express (802.11g) and Apple TV together and yet , bonjour sleep proxy service is not being advertised at all.

Did Apple remove Bonjour Sleep proxy services from Apple TV 3 or is there any way to activate it

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Answer 2

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 11, 2015 7:42 AM in response to Richard Burrows

Just to clarify, did you run the experiment with the Time Capsule on or off the network?

From the article you mentioned:

Once installed, your AirPort Base Station, Time Capsule or Apple TV (when no AirPort base station or Time Capsule is present on the network) will make itself available as a Bonjour Sleep Proxy to other devices on your network with no other configuration necessary.

I read this to say that if the TC is present, the ATVs will not advertise.

Let us know the combinations of Sleep-Proxy-capable devices that you have tested with.

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Answer 3

May 11, 2015 10:37 AM in response to jjkraw

So the experiment goes like this;

1) Only TimeCapsule on the network - TC advertises sleep proxy

2) Only ATV2 on the network - ATV2 advertises sleep proxy

3) Only ATV3 on the network - no sleep proxy is advertised

4) ATV3 and Timecapsule - TC advertises sleep proxy

5) ATV3 and ATV2 - ATV2 advertises Sleep Proxy

6) All devices on the network - BOTH TC and ATV2 advertise sleep proxy

7) Just TC and ATV2 on network - BOTH TC and ATV2 advertise sleep proxy

I have tried various combinations of the above, and in all cases the ATV3 refuses to offer the SleepProxy, but the TC and the ATV2 always do.

I originally suspected the same as you re: the TC role, but as you can see when both ATV2 and TC are connected they both offer the SleepProxy Service (implying that the sleeproxy is not a one-only service, although the TC is always likely to advertise itself as the more preferential service).

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Answer 4

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 18, 2015 12:22 PM in response to Richard Burrows

It appears that this has been an issue for a while:

sleep proxy Apple TV 7.0.2 not working

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Answer 5

Aldur300

Level 1

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May 18, 2015 12:43 PM in response to Richard Burrows

Was just going to post the same question. AppleTV v3 has stopped announcing the

_sleep-proxy._udp service. No solutions yet?

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Answer 6

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 18, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Aldur300

Have heard of no fixes yet. Anyone have any contact w/ Apple regarding this?

It is curious that some users are saying that their ATVs do not wake up for AirPlay requests and won't even respond to pings / arps when asleep:

Apple TV won't wake up for AirPlay request

I don't know if that is related or not.

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Answer 7

Aldur300

Level 1

0 points

May 18, 2015 1:35 PM in response to jjkraw

Just went through your linked thread and have to say I don't have the same issue. It announces the airplay service properly and wakes up upon connecting through the Remote App or just direct AirPlay usage.

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Answer 8

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 18, 2015 1:52 PM in response to Aldur300

I don't see that issue at home either. I have 3 ATVs and all respond to network commands all of the time. I only see sleep proxy announcements from my TC and AE.

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Answer 9

gotschi

Level 1

0 points

May 30, 2015 4:36 AM in response to Richard Burrows

Same for me, tried two different ATV 3 (both on 7.2, tried factory reset and everything),

none of them advertise the sleep proxy...

Seems I have to buy a Airport station, but I don't want to!

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Answer 10

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 30, 2015 5:52 AM in response to jjkraw

As an aside regarding:

Apple TV won't wake up for AirPlay request

A few of us have found that by programming a second remote (e.g., a DVD remote) to work with the Apple TV that it will then stay responsive and wake up properly for AirPlay.

Not that this helps with the Sleep Proxy issue.

Any of you still have an ATV under support? If so, mind making a phone call or having a chat w/ Apple Support about this to see what they say?

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Answer 11

May 30, 2015 10:49 AM in response to Richard Burrows

I did notice the next update of OSX is going back to the old bonjour service - so hopefully this will get resolved 'magically' alongside.

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/26/apple-discoveryd-replaced-with-mdnsresponder /

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Answer 12

prasys

Level 1

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May 31, 2015 7:06 AM in response to Richard Burrows

I don't think mDNS would fix it as the service itself is turned off in Apple TV3 , it is not even advertising. i have done scans using avahi (on linux) and on my old ibook g4 and it seems apple tv does not want to advertise sleep proxy

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Answer 13

jjkraw

Level 2

449 points

May 31, 2015 7:59 AM in response to prasys

I can +1 what prasys writes. Via the dns-sd command in the Mac shell, the mDNS iOS app, and just looking at packets via Wireshark, there are no sleep proxy advertisements from my ATV3s (I have three of them).

How does something like this get through QA?

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