4th Gen AppleTV Airplay Audio Streaming Stops

Question

Level 1

15 points

4th Gen AppleTV Airplay Audio Streaming Stops

I have 2 4th gen Apple TVs and 2 3rd gen. I also have an Airport Express and a Denon receiver that supports Airplay. Streaming iTunes from my MacBook Pro to the 3rd Gen ATV, the Airport Express and Denon works perfectly fine. Streaming from my iPad or iPhone to all the devices, including 4th gen Apple TVs, works fine.

However streaming from the MBP to either one of the 4th Gen AppleTVs always stops after about 30 seconds. This happens when the MBP is simultaneously connected to Ethernet and Wifi on the same Airport Extreme router. It also happens if I turn off Wifi on the MBP and am only connected via direct Ethernet or turn off Ethernet and am only connected via Wifi.

One of the 4th gen AppleTVs is on the same Wifi network, the other is on the same router and connected via Ethernet. One of the 4th gen ATVs is only about 6' away from the MBP and both are about that distance from the Airport Extreme router.

If I look at the Console when the streaming stops I cannot see any entry that would seem to have any relationship to the audio stopping. Clicking on the orange triangle in iTunes shows the message "An error occurred while connecting to the AirPlay device 'name'. The network connection was refused."

I have searched the threads here and found various issues w/the 4th gen but have not turned up anything that seems to help solve my problem. Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)

Posted on Feb 23, 2017 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

Ron Guest Author

Level 1

15 points

Mar 28, 2017 7:41 AM in response to Ron Guest

I updated to this week's AppleTV release. Since doing so I am able to stream from a Mac to a 4th gen without it dropping out. Only had time to test it for about 15 minutes, but that's about 15 minutes longer than it would work before.

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Answer 2

Feb 26, 2017 7:24 AM in response to Ron Guest

Same exact scenario here. I am streaming from a MBP and have 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen Apple TV, receiver with Airplay, Airfoil speakers running on some docked iPhones and none of them drop the stream (wired and wireless) except the 2 4th Gen Apple TVs I have... Very frustrating.

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Answer 3

reward72

Level 1

4 points

Mar 7, 2017 9:50 AM in response to Ron Guest

Same problem here...

If I use my brand new MBP to Airplay audio from within iTunes to any of my three Apple TV 4, the connection gets dropped after 30-60 seconds.

If I use Airplay mirroring instead (from the OSX top bar instead of within iTunes) it works fine

If I Airplay stream within iTunes from my MBP to one of my Marantz receivers it works just fine

If I Airplay stream within iTunes from a Windows box it works just fine

If I Airplay from an iPhone or an iPad it also works fine

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Answer 4

Mar 9, 2017 8:39 AM in response to Ron Guest

I can confirm same situation, though mine is far simpler.

I am using a 5k iMac / iTunes (latest software updates applied) to a 4th gen Apple TV (updates applied) exclusively over WIRED ethernet.

Wireless is turned off on iMac, and no credentials for wireless given to 4th gen (verified it's using wired via network status)

Drops for me in the 30sec to 1.5min range with "connection lost" in iTunes.

Frustrating - as it's wired.

Pinging continuously at .1 sec interval shows now dropped packets and/or delay in packets surrounding the lost connection.

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Answer 5

Mar 9, 2017 2:33 PM in response to dornquast

Following up with more info and tests.

I have 3 AppleTVs in home total - another two are wireless

So I tried streaming to those, 3 minutes each:

- The unit 2 did not drop

- The unit 3 did not drop

So then I returned to my primary AppleTV (unit 1, that is wired ethernet) that drops - dropped at 40sec mark.

So I did a "reset and update" under system menu to see if that would help.

I selected "set up manually" as I didn't want to risk wifi info leaking into unit.

I then repeated test - unfortunately, it's the same issue - it drops (51 sec).

This really seems like hardware and not software. I have another new AppleTV 4th gen I can use. So I'll try that.

New unit (4th) - configured and dropped into exact spot 1st unit was. Drops out at (51 sec) mark again.

Tried changing name of unit from Office to "great room" - dropped at (41 sec)

Final point - they are both plugged into the SAME ethernet switch.

~Matthew

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Answer 6

ronwal

Level 1

17 points

Mar 20, 2017 8:29 AM in response to Ron Guest

Pretty same her, ATV 4, iTunes on 2014 RiMac, Streaming drops after 15-60s. After a few new tries it eventually keeps playing.

BTW the whole AirPlay experience seems to be getting more and more instable. iTunes needs pretty long to connect to my 2x AirPort Express (while my iPhone connects faster), sometimes refuses connection, ATV 4 drops too often (although they are all connected via gigabit lan). My Bose Soundlink Air has connection issues, too - but that may be specific to this model.

When I had my first ATV, 2x 1st gen Airport Express streaming was at least pretty stable :-/

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Answer 7

reward72

Level 1

4 points

Mar 7, 2017 10:18 AM in response to reward72

Also... I can confirm this has nothing to do with wifi. It happens even when both the MBP and the AppleTV are wired on the same network.

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Answer 8

davrille

Level 1

4 points

Mar 23, 2017 12:36 PM in response to Ron Guest

Had the same issue - solution is to remove Apple TV from hard line, let it use WiFi - solved. Obviously this is a hardware issue, and the issue resides with Apple, not it's users configurations.

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