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Airport Extreme 6th gen slow streaming to apple tv

I'm having this problem where my Airport Extreme 6th gen would stream really slow to my ATV 3rd gen, to the point it would frequently stop because it has to buffer. Sometimes it wouldn't stream at all, even though checking the activity monitor shows it is sending data. I am streaming movies I bought through the iTunes store. Streaming Netflix Hulu and all other ATV apps are normal. Restarting iTunes or my Mac doesn't change anything. The only solution is to restart the AE when it happens. It will run fine for several days to a week, but then I have to restart it again. It happens on all 4 ATVs, so it is safe to say its the AE thats the problem. Any suggestions other than restarting the AE eveyrtime it happens?

Airport Extreme-OTHER

Posted on Jun 27, 2015 12:52 AM

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8 replies

Jun 27, 2015 4:44 AM in response to amielfrommnl

This is going to be hard work but on the day that the wireless is poor do a wireless survey using a laptop or pad or phone with wifi analyser software to discover the actual signal level and how many wireless signals you have.


I would setup the AE again with different names for the 2.4ghz and 5ghz band.. make all names short no spaces and pure alphanumerics..


Then force the ATV to connect to 5ghz and see if you get any improvement.

Jul 3, 2015 3:52 AM in response to amielfrommnl

I did the 5GHz band and it has the same problem. I also used a wifi analyzer and it shows good ping time and connection on all devices connected. Airport Utility shows the Apple TV has Excellent connection and 65MB/s, as well as the other 3 Apple TVs. I tried Airplay mirroring and its also slow and wouldn't play.


Restarting the Airport Extreme doesn't work anymore. I'm not sure if upgrading my Mac to 10.10.4 has any effect, but I should mention it as well.

Jul 3, 2015 5:30 AM in response to amielfrommnl

Restarting the Airport Extreme doesn't work anymore. I'm not sure if upgrading my Mac to 10.10.4 has any effect, but I should mention it as well.

I doubt it would help.. So far we are not hearing a lot of change in the latest version.


Are you using wireless from itunes on a computer to wireless on the atv? What happens if you fix one of those links with ethernet??


Give me the whole network layout..


What modem? Make and model.


Is modem also a router?


How is the extreme connected and in what mode?


How is everything in the network connected?


Do you have multiple devices using wireless at the same time?? Remember wireless can service just one device at a time.. so it time shares.. any activity to the internet over wireless from any other device on the network will cause delays on other wireless links especially for video.


I want you to do actual file transfer tests if you still have issues.. put a computer in place of the ATV and from the computer that acts as itunes.. copy a file to the disk on the other computer and use activity monitor to watch its progress.. look for spikey activity.. and actual real world file transfer.


65MB/s (assuming you mean bits not Bytes) is far from fast.. real world links tend to go at 1/2 the link speed Max.. and if I read bits.. then divide by 10 to get bytes.. your actual streaming speed is 3MBytes/sec.. that is not fast enough for video without stuttering and pauses.

Jul 16, 2015 4:43 PM in response to amielfrommnl

Ok the network layout


AE#1-----AE#2-----AE#3----(wireless)---AExpress


Mac Mini connected to the AE#1 through WiFi(also tried ethernet w/ no difference), iTunes library is connected to the Mini by thunderbolt. Apple TV is about 18 feet away. AE reports 1300Mb/s connection to the mac mini.


Second Apple TV is about 20 feet away and is also at 65Mb/s as reported by AE#1 when I check on the wireless clients.



Test



I used a Macbook Air to download a movie file from the ATV location. It downloads normally. Activity monitor reports 10Megabytes per second. I also used my iPhone5s to sync to my iTunes and it does it normally.


Macbook Air also downloads fast at 10Megabytes per second at the second Apple TV location. Likewise the iPhone5s test is normal.

Other notes

The other day it worked flawlessly on both ATV and all of a sudden, it did it again. But all network activities from the other computers were normal. It comes and goes. I hooked up an old Linksys E900 router and everything worked fine. Which lead me to believe that the AE is the problem. So I switched AE#1 with AE#2 with the same results. Could it be a firmware issue?

Jul 17, 2015 12:27 AM in response to amielfrommnl

Ok the network layout


AE#1-----AE#2-----AE#3----(wireless)---AExpress

This is a much more complex setup than your first post suggested.


You mentioned ONE AE gen6 and 4x ATV.


Now we have 3 x AE one is gen6.. what are the other two.. ?? And are they all plugged in by ethernet, in bridge.. and creating a wireless network of the same or different names?


Plus an express which also wasn't included in the first post.


All these items must be setup exactly correct.. and I need to know how the ATV's connect and to which AE??


Is the AE gen 6 the main network router??


Please post screenshots of the full setup from your airport utility.


I hooked up an old Linksys E900 router and everything worked fine.

AEgen6 has a problematic WAN port. It fails with some modems or is unreliable.. Surfboard / ARRIS being the worst but others are also affected.


If using a Linksys fixes it.. then stick with the Linksys.. Apple have considerable network issues to fix in the latest Airports and Yosemite.


You can continue to use the AEgen6 as long as you bridge it into the network and use a LAN port not WAN.

Airport Extreme 6th gen slow streaming to apple tv

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