4th Gen Apple TV Wifi Issues

I'm not sure of this wil help, but some routers cancel DHCP leases after a certain time, or maybe a period of inactivity. It sounds like this may be happening when the network connection is lost after sleeping. Forcing a restart, or changing an ATV network setting would cause it to re-negotiate with the router. If your network is relatively static; not too many devices walking in and out; you might try modifying these parameters in the router wifi settings.

I had this problem with iPad years ago, and the solution was to make the IP address static. When you want to use a static address for a device, you must be sure to remove it from the router's DHCP pool. Otherwise, there'll be chaos. The easiest way to do this is to adjust the bottom or top limit of the DHCP range, and use the addresses outside the pool range for static devices. You can adjust the pool limits in the router setup.

More on DHCP leases. This stuff is supposed to be transparent. When the lease is reaching the end, the router should ask the device to renew, and the device will normally renew the lease immediately. The whole purpose is to allow the server to recapture the addresses of devices that have actually left the network, since those devices don't say goodbye when they go. Of course, this is all just a nuisance for those of us with stable configurations. It sounds like the sleeping ATV, at least with tvOS 9.2, is not responding to these renewal requests. You do need to be sure that "Configure IP" and "Configure DNS" in the ATV network settings are both set to Automatic. You don't want to be too clever with this stuff, because it really does work the way it's supposed to.

Hi Diana,

As you probably know I've been replying in this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7456064.

As I mentioned in that thread, I did try setting a static IP for my Apple TV and initially I thought this solved the problem but unfortunately the same thing happened and had to restart Apple TV to get the connection back. My Apole TV settings are untouched which means 'Configure IP' and 'Configure DNS' are set to Automatic.

This is all getting too annoying. I have sent multiple feedback. Hopefully an update fixes this soon.

Helo Swainstm,

Sorry to be a tail-end-Charlie, but your hypothesis was basically right. One of the ATV was running the Bonjour Sleep Proxy, which handles service requests for other sleeping devices. It runs on either an Apple Airport router or on an Apple TV, as described here About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy - Apple Support. It works by spoofing the sleeping device's IP and MAC address, so the recipient can then contact the correct device. Cisco supports this by running the Sleep Proxy on the router, as described here https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/12068926/common-apple-bonjour-and-cisco -wireless-related-issues. Check the links from that page for lots more detail.

Cheers

Hi Diana,

Thanks for the clarification. However, I have looked hard for the Bonjour Sleep Proxy, and can't find it. Can you give me a little more direction.

Thanks heaps.

Cheers

Matthew

Hi. I'm not sure how you're looking for the Bonjour Sleep Proxy... Every Apple TV and AirPort (I believe) is capable of running one as a Bonjour service. The service name is "_sleep-proxy._udp.". You can see them using the Net Analyzer app for iOS devices and tapping the Bonjour Services item in the overall info display or the data for each device. I believe Mac computers have a similar capability built-in. As I said before, the problem (for you) is that, when a device is searching for a Bonjour service, the Sleep Proxy may respond as a stand-in for a sleeping device, spoofing its IP address, so the client thinks the reply came from the sleeping device.

Hi,

Anyone found a solution for the WiFi connection problem?

I have same problem as pepepolla!!

My ATV4 is a couple of months old; updated to latest tvOS, but still problem!

What troubleshooting have you done?

Hard reset ATV4 a couple of times, set static IP address on TC.

Did you get a diagnostic report? What were the results? Did you test on another network?

No, I do not have a diagnostic report because I don't know how to do it.

At the moment, I do not have the possibility to test it on another network.