Apple TV 4 pauses streaming after ~5secs

I have read all the posts, and have the same problems, with certain exeptions.

After giving up all troubleshooting the ATV4, I connected my old ATV3 to the TV. Same problem!

All video or audio from any application barely start before it stops.

Another symptom (ATV4 & 3) is that selecting "Sleep now" in the control settings switches the unit off, but it starts again ca 30 seconds later.

But the problem is fixed now! I cannot explain why, only how. What put me on track, was ragex1337 mentioning that his/her "Mac laptop was trying to connect to the ATV". I went upstairs to my iMac (from 2010) and shut down Youtube in the browser (Firefox). I had been working in that room all week, and always have had some sort of Youtube show running. By the end of the day, I would pause the show (to continue the following day). Shutting down Youtube fixed the problem - even "Sleep now" works as it should.

Upstairs again, start a Youtube file, and pause it. Problem back? No, ATV still works fine. It simply feels like something has been "reset" and wasn't "set" again by having a Youtube file paused. I would love to hear the full explanation!

My issue was my MacBook Pro being on the same network. I tuned off wifi and the issue went away. I'm not sure the actual setting causing it (audio/video) but try disabling other devices on the network - especially if they support airplay.

Make sure DNS is set to auto (settings - general - network)

Make sure router is up to date. How long have you had it?

Test on another network

Does the ATV progress bar show that it's downloading smoothly?

Are you using AirPlay from another device, or using apps on ATV?

It's not a wifi problem, since you're on ethernet.

When you say it pauses, do you mean the video player stops, displaying a thumbnail of the last frame played? Or does the video just stop moving, while the player remains iin Play?

When you say resume, do you mean that you hit Play and it plays the next 5 sec and pauses again?

Force quitting sometimes resets a balky app; these things are in a pretty early stage of development. You might be running an app that corrupts memory, or some such. Also, it probably helps not to have too many apps running; they remain active once started, just like in a smart phone.

Power cycling ATV will clear out everything and give you a clean start.

Try power cycling all your network equipment and the ATV. The fact it works fine and then seems to go south suggests a power glitch or intermittent network issue that causes the ATV to stumble.

OK. Does the progress bar show that downloading is continuing, or is it stuck also?

It's strange that it actually pauses. Slow streaming would normally just hang, without showing the thumbnail screen.

Just as a guess, could the remote battery be low? You can check it in the ATV Remotes settings. Some users have reported strange behavior caused by a weak remote battery.

Also, are you running the remote app on iPad or iPhone? You might quit it, just to remove it from the equation.

Startting to sound like a hardware problem.

I would do a factory restore (not reset) and then return it to Apple if unresolved under warranty.

http://help.apple.com/appletv/#/atvbf9db0a52

On ATV 4, you see the status bar when paused, with a thumbnail of the current picture, the time played and the time remaining. You also see it if you touch the touchpad while playing, but it fades out after a few seconds. It fills in with grey, showing how far the download has progressed. Note that some videos won't play until the download is a certain distance ahead. It sounds like your ATV is not able to continue downloading,so it stops because it reaches the end of the data.

This begins to sound more like a network issue. There have been some odd reports of settings changed after tvOS 9.2. You should check your settings, and especially the DNS, as vazandrew suggested. Dropping into pause is still strange, as if maybe it is losing the feed, or maybe being dropped by the server.

Can you try running the YouTube app on another device and using AirPlay (not mirroring) to send the video to ATV. I expect it will malfunction in the same way, when the problem condition prevails, of course.

When it's in the stuck state, do other devices still have good internet response? Can you play a YouTube video on another device while ATV is stumbling?

Can you identify any other change that occurred when this trouble began? Maybe a new router, new isp, local network reconfiguration?

Hmmm.

Does ATV 4 play OK from the Plex, or does it exhibit the same problem? That would eliminate the internet, if it fails on local data also.

This odd dropping into pause sounds like it's disconnecting from the server, or the server is dropping it. The intermittent nature is really hard to explain. Maybe it only happens on full moons, like yesterday 😉

Couldn't be an MTU problem, could it? I assume you've set it at the router suitable for your connection.

No chance you've enabled parental restriction?? I'd walk through all the settings, and make sure they make sense.

To verify test it on another network or take to Apple for testing

We are running kind of low on options. Since it's intermittent, taking ATV somewhere else in unlikely to be conclusive, unless it can be stuck in failure mode.

Since you also have ATV 3, I assume you've changed the name of one of them to eliminate clashes. That shouldn't affect playback, but who knows?

Could it be taking commands from the connected TV over HDMI-CEC? Does hitting Enter or Play on the TV remote affect the ATV?

There's no chance of an IP address conflict, possibly another device using the same IP statically? Maybe a visitor brings their device or computer, which is configured for some other network.

The trouble with the hardware assumption is that there's not much hardware involved. It's the same on wired and wifi, so it's not the NIC, since they're different. There's probably a graphics output chip, but that would only affect the screen output. Everything else is embedded in the core chip, and a hardware problem there is unlikely to be intermittent. There' a remote possibility that it's temperature dependent, but you imply that it can remain bad after sleeping, whcih should allow cooldown. Once we eliminate all of these, we're left with software, or some network or configuration issue.