Apple TV Device Verification Not there anymore

Question

Level 1

11 points

Apple TV Device Verification Not there anymore

Recently my Apple TV (4th Gen) has started to ask me to verify my devices when I Airplay to it. I know there is a setting in Airplay that turns that on but mine has seemed to disappear and I can no longer turn Device Verification off. Makes it really annoying and only allows me to use Apple apps to airplay to my Apple TV. I use a third party app to watch movies with because it supports all video types but it won't work. Is this a bug on my system or a new apple security setting to prevent 3rd party apps?

Apple TV, tvOS 10.2, Device Verification Setting

Posted on Apr 10, 2017 6:43 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Apr 11, 2017 3:23 AM in response to csbehel

Hi. tvOS 10.2 has made Require Device Verification the minimum level of AirPlay security. This has had the effect of blocking connections by some 3rd-party programs, including Beamer, Airfoil, and Stremio on Macs. Could you please identify the program you're using?

Reply

Answer 2

csbehel Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 11, 2017 6:29 AM in response to Diana.McCall

Well that's kinda disappointing to hear. But thanks for the info. I couldn't find that anywhere on the update notes but I could've overlooked it.

I'm trying to use Beamer to stream from my MacBook Pro.

Reply

Answer 3

Apr 11, 2017 8:51 AM in response to csbehel

Right. The Apple release notes tend to concentrate on cool new features (Indian cricket scores), not on geeky technical changes (no delete all in Mail). The Beamer website suggests reverting to tvOS 10.1.1, but it's too late for that, since it's no longer signed by Apple. You could try VLC on Apple TV itself as an alternative to Beamer.

Reply

Answer 4

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Apr 11, 2017 10:35 AM in response to csbehel

This is really infuriating as for me the TV is woken in the night due to a device on the LAN looking for iTunes/Airplay services which causes a spec for Airplay banner to be displayed by AppleTV which wakes the TV.

I really cannot see why the device verification is needed by default - yes if some joker was using Airplay to show things you didn't want, but this will not be the case for the majority - it should be optional.

Reply

Answer 5

csbehel Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 11, 2017 12:23 PM in response to Diana.McCall

Can you Airplay from VLC? Ive never seen that option so Id have to mirror. Guess it'd work but I really don't like doing that lol. Or if apple made iTunes to play more video formats, but we can't make things too easy now :/

Reply

Answer 6

csbehel Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 11, 2017 12:25 PM in response to Alley_Cat

Mine also turns on randomly, which also turns on the TV/Home theater system, but I'm not really sure why. I didn't assume it was related to this issues but I guess it could be. I don't know why else it'd turn on by itself when I'm in the other room. But I definitely agree device verification should be optional. I should be able to control my own security. Nobody can get on there that I don't want on there anyways so verifying my own devices doesn't make much sense.

Reply

Answer 7

Apr 12, 2017 3:32 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Hi Alley_Cat. The problem is caused by programs that do not use the correct procedure to locate AirPlay servers. The correct implementation uses the Bonjour protocol to identify the available services, and this does not wake up the device. An example is Fing, which identifies the Bonjour services correctly, while running on Android or iOS.

Reply

Answer 8

Apr 12, 2017 3:39 AM in response to csbehel

Hi csbehel. Regarding random turn-on, Stremio and Airfoil running on computers, and the Android Plex app, are known to make these Airplay connections that wake up Apple TV. Programs running on WD NAS servers (iTunes, MediaServer) also do this. There may also be programs that attempt to locate UPnP servers on the network; Apple TV incorrectly responds to these connections.

Reply

Answer 9

csbehel Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 12, 2017 6:45 AM in response to Diana.McCall

Oh ok! I didn't realize Apple TV had a VLC app available for download. This seemingly works great and actually has more options to stream things from anyways! So thank you very much! 😀

As to why my Apple TV turns on by itself, that goes over my head a little but I get the gist. As long as my Apple TV doesn't decide to randomly stream things I'll be ok lol.

Once again, thanks. Still don't know why Apple made things more complicated but I'm ok with this.

Reply

Answer 10

Apr 12, 2017 7:03 AM in response to csbehel

Hi csbehel. You're very welcome. Sorry about the over the head part. Simply, some 3rd-party code performs network scans looking for certain services (ports), and some of these connection attempts cause Apple TV to wake up, which was not the case before tvOS 10.2. This seems to be a mixture of bad code in the apps and inappropriate response by Apple TV.

Reply

Answer 11

Apr 22, 2017 8:50 PM in response to Diana.McCall

Seems far-fetched. Most TVs have auto-off, and if unauthorized parties streaming to unconfigured apple TVs was really a problem, either the end users would simply configure device verification on their end, or do what they should have been doing all along and secure their network.

Turning something on like this with no easy way to turn it off has NO utility to anyone other than Apple, and that is in the service of their bottom line.

Thank you so very much Apple, for reducing the functionality of a product I paid for AFTER I bought it 😉

Reply

Answer 12

Apr 12, 2017 3:26 AM in response to csbehel

Hi csbehel. My suggestion was to use the VLC app on Apple TV 4. It handles multiple formats, and can stream from almost anywhere, including files copied to the device.

Reply

Answer 13

Apr 22, 2017 8:46 PM in response to csbehel

I guess streaming was eating into their iTunes sales. Wonderful company, Apple.

Reply