Apple TV keeps turning itself on after being put to sleep

Thought for sure this had to be happening only to me. Just did a search on a whim - and low and behold, I am not alone. :-/

I have the 4th gen with Siri remote hooked up to a Panasonic plasma display. This has happened multiple times to me - even when watching shows on my cable box, which has a completely different input source! All of a sudden, it will just switch to the Apple TV input source and show whatever screen it was last on.

This morning, I heard music faintly playing in the house. Traced the source to... the Apple TV. It had turned itself on and was playing some seemingly random music source. Crazy!

Hi. Since the release of tvOS 10.2 for Apple TV 4, there have been several reports of Apple TV not sleeping. This seems to be caused by other devices on the network scanning for open ports. Try turning off (not just sleep) everything on the network, and see if Apple TV will sleep. Then turn them on slowly until you find the cause. Known culprits so far are the Plex app on Android, Stremio on computers, and the Twonky media server on some NAS devices. You should also report it to Apple at this link: https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html.

Diana.McCall wrote:

Hi. Since the release of tvOS 10.2 for Apple TV 4, there have been several reports of Apple TV not sleeping. This seems to be caused by other devices on the network scanning for open ports. Try turning off (not just sleep) everything on the network, and see if Apple TV will sleep. Then turn them on slowly until you find the cause. Known culprits so far are the Plex app on Android, Stremio on computers, and the Twonky media server on some NAS devices. You should also report it to Apple at this link: https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html.

hello again Diana 😉

simple test to sadly disprove your theory is to pull the network cable:

Powered up Apple TV

Pull ethernet (shows message saying networking not detected)

Press SLEEP

Apple TV goes off, LG-TV begins thinking about it.

Apple TV comes back on, TV has now gone off.

....its not a scanning thing IMHO

Its something in the 10.2 update and the only way to prevent it occurring i've found is to pull the HDMI the second the Apple TV goes off. THAT stops it waking again of its own accord.

None of this happened in the previous build.

registered twice with that link... but not hearing anything official.

Apple TV is turned off at the wall, to prevent iNsomnia 😕

your initial response seemed to overlook the fact I didn't have the problem BEFORE i upgraded to 10.2.

Diana.McCall has been actively involved in many of the posts since the 10.2 insomnia issue occurred.

Her findings definitely err on the side of it being an app scanning issue, and while my LAN setup would also support such a theory... the other ATV in my life, would not (as she knows from another post)

while I agree my television model may now be to blame, would Apple kindly remove the anti LG TV feature they added to 10.2, because I was very happy with 10.1.1 and the ability to leave my ATV plugged in and asleep.

In terms of it being a first world problem, for me it isn't as my ATV is switched off when not in use (along with the media amp)

However my parents and others who have approached me for advise as to why their's have developed this ON like status, would like to know what changed and caused it.

🙂

* I was not the original finder of the HDMI solution, I simply tried THAT suggestion (along with the many other suggestions out there) and also found a connection (or lack off) is what is required to keep the ATV off since upgrading.

I am ha

Worked on a newer 40 inch MU7000. My older Samsung TVs don't have this issue FWIW.

Just bought 4k Apple tv. 2 weeks ago. It turns on by itself. No Remote contact.. ive barely even used The tv. Think im going to be making one of Those “Will it blend” videos Any time soon...

Yes, it’s super annoying. Almost as annoying as the bug. Apple. Can I be having a on again off again fight with a neighbour?

Come on Apple, do something!

The Apple TV doesn't turn itself on, something else does, why don't folks look to fix the problem rather than just turning the feature off.

@tive You are awesome! :D Exactly what I needed. Thank you very much.

And exactly what reason do you have for excluding your network just because you are using ethernet instead of Wi-Fi.

When I watch Netflix sometimes my Apple TV turns off like nothing happened by itself and I need to fix it

Same issue here with ATV 4th gen with new Samsung flat TV. Had no problem with old 8 year-old LCD TV.

I'm using the latest ATV with a 5-year ago Samsung smart tv and this started happening a few weeks ago. I also have multiple iPhones and iPads that each have the latest OS versions and the ATV app.

I can get around this random issue of it turning itself and TV on by turning the TV off with the Samsung remote, but I'd like to only rely on a single remote (ATV).

Seems like a software bug in the ATV sleep function to me.

I have been seeing this with my latest Apple TV as well. I have been able to trace down the time the Apple TV comes on to when one of the Mac's on my network boots up. It's the oddest thing, but I'm able to recreate it consistently. The Mac that causes the issue is running Mavericks because it's old hardware, I wonder if that's a consideration. I never had this with any of my other Macs.