SteveK-Oz
Level 1 (7 points)
Apple TV

Q: Constant Apple TV 4 Airplay Drop outs on Sierra

Has anyone else noticed that Airplay dropouts between iTunes and Apple TV 4 are so much worse after upgrading to Sierra?

I have 3 ATV4's and a Mac Pro (Late 2013).  Running Sierra v10.12, iTunes v12.5.1 and tvOS 10.0.  All connected by GB ethernet, WiFi switched off on the Mac.

Under El Capitan, I had frequent ATV dropouts where the only way to get Airplay going again was to reboot the ATV.  This is well reported on these forums.  I was able to mitigate that by doing a pre-emptive reboot of the ATV each time before trying to stream (that seemed to avoid the issue most times).

But not anymore.  After upgrading to Sierra, latest iTunes and tvOS (these were the only changes) the problem immediately escalated.  Sometimes I might only get 30 sec of music play before the ATVs show as offline in iTunes.  I can deselect and reselect them in the iTunes airplay menu to get them going again, but then 30 sec later they drop off again.  I've tried rebooting the ATV's, restarting iTunes, rebooting the Mac, rebooting my router and switches - none of this stabilises the situation.

I couple of interesting things I have noticed... if I'm streaming to multiple ATVs at once they ALL drop off at the same time each time.  During these periods of instability, I can still AirPlay to my Denon amp (again, via ethernet) and it plays just fine.  I can also play content from my Mac using the ATV computer app & Plex app without any dropouts (ie. initiate playback from the ATV, rather than from Mac iTunes).

I've spent a ******** on Apple products and ethernet cabling with the intention of using AirPlay as the streaming app for my local media content throughout the house.  My network infrastructure hasn't changed, only the Apple app/OS versions.  Really frustrated.

Please tell me I'm not the only one experiencing this.

<Edited by Host>


Posted on Sep 29, 2016 8:40 PM

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SteveK-Oz

Q: Constant Apple TV 4 Airplay Drop outs on Sierra

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  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Sep 30, 2016 2:46 AM in response to SteveK-Oz
    Level 10 (104,463 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 30, 2016 2:46 AM in response to SteveK-Oz

    You seem to have a problem with your network environment, once you accept this you can move on and perhaps resolve your problem. Take your Apple TV to a store or someone elses network for testing if you have any doubts about this.

  • by nerfTractor,

    nerfTractor nerfTractor Oct 3, 2016 12:47 PM in response to SteveK-Oz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 3, 2016 12:47 PM in response to SteveK-Oz

    Exactly the same situation here. I can reliably vouch that this is an issue with Sierra and not the new tvOs. I noticed this constant, and I do mean constant, issue cropping up as soon as I installed public beta 3 of Sierra a couple months back. I've since updated to GM release of Sierra and still a huge issue that never existed before the latest software updates. I'm lucky if I can get even a couple of minutes' Airplay connection before I see the familiar orange icon telling me that iTunes can no longer contact my ATV.

  • by vazandrew,

    vazandrew vazandrew Oct 3, 2016 3:34 PM in response to nerfTractor
    Level 6 (19,293 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 3, 2016 3:34 PM in response to nerfTractor

    Network issues can come at any time. Proper troubleshooting needs to occur. You can also test on another network or take to Apple

  • by SteveK-Oz,

    SteveK-Oz SteveK-Oz Oct 4, 2016 2:06 AM in response to nerfTractor
    Level 1 (7 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2016 2:06 AM in response to nerfTractor

    Thanks for confirming that nerfTractor.  Although I take Winston's comments onboard about network issues, if it is that then it's a network issue that's very specific to Sierra, iTunes & ATV.  I'm able to stream hi frame-rate 3D / 7.1 DTS-MA Bluray rips over this network without missing a beat.  Plex is also very sensitive to network issues as it doesn't buffer on the ATV.  Both of these work without issue (and of course my troubleshooting has included making sure they weren't running at the same time as airplay).  It's only after the Sierra update that things (immediately) took a turn for the worst with AirPlay to ATV.  For now, I'm relying on Airplay to my Denon amp.

  • by Diana.McCall,

    Diana.McCall Diana.McCall Oct 4, 2016 10:20 AM in response to SteveK-Oz
    Level 5 (4,802 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2016 10:20 AM in response to SteveK-Oz

    Hi. Of the processes you describe, only AirPlay and Home Sharing depend on Bonjour and mDNS. You mentioned that your network includes switches, so routes through the switches are multi-hop, making things more complicated. Does your main router support a Bonjour proxy server? Are the Apple TVs configured by DHCP from the main router? Finally, can you check that mDNS is running correctly on your computer. I believe your computer includes a Bonjour browser. Can you review what it sees when things are normal, and after the ATVs have disconnected?

  • by nerfTractor,

    nerfTractor nerfTractor Oct 5, 2016 8:36 AM in response to SteveK-Oz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 5, 2016 8:36 AM in response to SteveK-Oz

    Steve, as an experiment, I switched my ATV4 to WiFi (802.11ac via Airport Extreme) rather than Ethernet, and have not had dropouts in the last couple of days, when using AirPlay from the notebook to the ATV. You would assume that physical cables would give a more reliable signal, but apparently not in this instance.

     

    Incidentally, it is also in the timeframe of the Sierra update that I have begun to see additional ATV instances show up as Airplay targets. Apart from my own (which I have renamed to "myAtv"), I now see "Apple TV (3)" and "Apple TV (4)" showing up in various lists namely the Sound menu bar and system preferences. I can't connect to them (I get a prompt to enter an "Airplay code"), and I can't reliably get rid of them. This, too, is a new feature of macOS Sierra, and I have to suspect it's related somehow.

  • by nerfTractor,

    nerfTractor nerfTractor Oct 5, 2016 8:40 AM in response to nerfTractor
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 5, 2016 8:40 AM in response to nerfTractor

    And one more note, as before, I can AirPlay from the MacBook to my Airport Extreme (which is connected via Ethernet but performs totally reliably when on WiFi) with pretty much 100% reliability now, just as I could before any of the recent OS updates.

  • by Diana.McCall,

    Diana.McCall Diana.McCall Oct 5, 2016 9:21 AM in response to nerfTractor
    Level 5 (4,802 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 5, 2016 9:21 AM in response to nerfTractor

    Hi. Those other devices may just be prior instances of your Apple TV. The (3), etc. suffixes appear when a named devices announces Bonjour services with a different IP address. They should go away after restarting your router(s) and computer.

  • by nerfTractor,

    nerfTractor nerfTractor Oct 5, 2016 10:34 AM in response to Diana.McCall
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 5, 2016 10:34 AM in response to Diana.McCall

    Thanks for the reply, Diana!

     

    I wish that this were the case. However, after restarting all devices, including the gateway, and all routers, the ghostly ATV's continue to pop up intermittently. They may disappear for a while, but will come back pretty reliably. In the latest iteration of iTunes (12.5.1.21) those ghost instances of ATV are no longer present, but they remain in the Sound menu bar and sys prefs.

     

    FYI, the Airplay dropouts from Steve's original post, and the unexpected instances of ATV all appeared at the same time when I updated to Sierra (and made no other hardware), but *before* the update to tvOS 10.