Apple TV (4th gen.) won't turn off; light stays on

Hi tennisproha. I don't believe Apple software causes this wakeup. 3rd-party software, running on Android (Plex), Apple computers (Stremio), and NAS servers (Twonky Media Server), does cause this wakeup. A random connection to port 7000 (AirPlay) causes an on-screen message, as you observe. However, connection to port 5000 (AirTunes) wakes Apple TV without a message. Apple software indentifies these services using Bonjour, which does not wake Apple TV. Apple TV still sleeps normally, with no light, in the absence of these disturbances.

I don't have anything connected to my Apple TVs. Only my iPhone accesses the device via AirPlay. There are no 3rd party devices connected to my network. I even have an Airport. So I have a complete Apple ecosystem yet the problem still persists on my Apple TV.

In fact, I have 2 Apple TVs. One has automatically updated to 10.2 but the other one hasn't yet. Not surprisingly, the one that hasn't updated yet behaves like before, but the one that has updated exhibits the light issue. When they are both off (sleep), they both show up as AirPlay devices on my iPhone in Control Center, as they've done in the past.

Sleep implies sleep like how an iPhone sleeps. It's not really ever off. So the question is whether this update is forcing the Apple TV to continually do something in the background that it didn't do prior to this iOS update, or whether it's simply a false light that just shows on while the device actually remains asleep.

I Agree that it seems to be a software issue. Up until I updated my iPad to the latest IOS I could put my ATV to sleep using the Remote app on the iPad and it worked properly - no light coming back on. However after the update yesterday even when I use the remote app the light comes back on.

I Have no third party connections.

I've had this issue since the last OS update, I raised a case with support, but was just told to flash the device. After reading this I turned off a Twonky Media server that I had on a NAS but had not used in ages and experimented. This has 'fixed' things, in so far as if it is OFF then the ATV will not turn on and if it is ON then after a couple of mins of sleep the ATV restarted itself. This is a change in behaviour as my older devices (OS-wise) certainly do not exhibit this. I suppose that all the PnP providers could update to change their behaviour, but I would really class this as a bug in the update, since no ATV I have had since the first gen failed to sleep properly.

My guess is that others have something on their networks that try to wake up their ATVs and the only way to sort it out would be to do what I did and disconnect devices one at a time and find the culprit, in my case this was only the NAS and then Twonky itself as a control within it and took an hour, but for others it might mean a lot of hassle.

In my case, I just waited with the TV until it started. I played with the NAS and then disabling/enabling the Twonky Media server. This nailed the issue for me. I would really try to nail down the cause. Perhaps simply disconnecting everything and watching the device without any networking at all (including wifi) would be a good start, at least you could see if it was the device itself or part of the environment. This in and of itself should not take too much time. Mine has now been behaving for 24 hours.

Hello All,

Just to report that after today's update: May 15th, the problem is still there. You put your TV to sleep and it comes to wake up by itself, also this reproduces on not connecting anymore via CEC with the TV (in my case Samsung, although changing the volume with the Siri remote works).

So.. looks like the Devs are still too busy to hear us eh?

D.

ps. Yes, I did submit the bug to the devs.

I get the airplay pop up, saying the os needs updated, all the time for no reason. I have no idea what device is trying to connect, and it's annoying. I also get the apple TV turning itself on too. I haven't been able to figure out what's causing it.

In my case test with no network or wifi conection and the problem persist, i think that apple must be and update to solve that problem and i wish it, im boring for waiting for apple slow problem solutions... so sad

My samsung remote seems to be causing the issue on my system. If I use my phone to put ATV to sleep and cover my Samsung sensors it stays off (and turns TV off). If the remote is even sitting on my table, with no buttons pressed, and I use phone app to put ATV to sleep .. both go off but ATV light pops back on a couple of seconds after going out.

(Siri remote broke, so I have to use Samsung remote or iPhone app)

I know this is a bit of an old thread but I just found it as I have a new 4th gen ATV. I found the culprit was my TV itself. My LG TV has "Simplink" for HDMI linking. Turning that off on the TV allows the ATV to go to sleep and stay asleep. Hope this helps someone else.

Yeah, it's definitely CEC that is the problem. Mine also started doing this earlier this year starting with tvOS 10.2.

Unfortunately, after updating to tvOS 11 today, the problem is still there. I was really hoping that they fixed it by now.

It’s definitely a bug but also think it has something to do with how it is taking the CEC signal from the HDMI port.

In my case the work around was having the tv in a different source, for example my cable service, and then preforming the steps to putting the Apple TV to sleep.

I can can confirm that on my Sams 4K 2017 this worked and was the only way I can turn off the Apple TV.

Disconecting the HDMI cable and trying to put the ATV to sleep didn’t work.

Personaly I think that as long as the tv source is set to the port were the Apple TV is connecting it will prevent the Apple TV from going to sleep since the TV will keep looking for signal specially new tv.

I had the issue where the light on the AppleTV 4K with TVOS 11.1 would turn back on after successfully powering off the connected TV. The root cause turned out to be a Samsung Smart TV interfering over the HDMI connection. The solution was to turn off all the Samsung Smart TV features, especially the "External Device Manager" items. I just use the smarter AppleTV device as the master control over the TV over the HDMI connection.