My Apple TV 4th gen has recently started having a weird problem. Every now and then, it'll suddenly stop responding when I do something on the remote, but a few seconds later it'll suddenly do whatever I did while it wasn't responding. So say I'm trying to swipe through a menu. It doesn't respond at all, and I keep swiping, and then ten seconds later it does every single swipe all at once. And it's not just the Siri Remote, the Remote app does it too. Already rebooted the thing and did a "reset and update", but it's still happening. Anyone else dealt with this?
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Apple TV 4 lagging on remote input
- Thread starter caramelpolice
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I get very similar to this when I find the battery on the remote needs charging.
Annoyingly the battery indicator still shows around two thirds full but charging the remote does seem to cure it. When this happens the remote app works fine though so although similar it might not be the same problem.
Still annoying though.
Annoyingly the battery indicator still shows around two thirds full but charging the remote does seem to cure it. When this happens the remote app works fine though so although similar it might not be the same problem.
Still annoying though.
I thought I'd update here so that in the event someone in the future has this problem and finds this thread, they get an answer.
In my case, it confusingly ended up being the HDMI cable that was the culprit. So, the Apple TV uses HDMI to determine your TV model so that the Siri Remote can control the TV volume and power, right? In my case, I was using a very, very long HDMI cable with a kink here and there, and it seems to have been causing issues with the Apple TV getting that info - so whenever it tried to read that info, it would stop taking remote input temporarily until it could get a response from the TV. I believe this is the case, because I noticed going to the remote settings was a pretty consistent way to trigger the issue, and often it was not reading the "use remote for power and volume" settings correctly. I swapped the HDMI cable with a much shorter one and now it works perfectly fine.
In my case, it confusingly ended up being the HDMI cable that was the culprit. So, the Apple TV uses HDMI to determine your TV model so that the Siri Remote can control the TV volume and power, right? In my case, I was using a very, very long HDMI cable with a kink here and there, and it seems to have been causing issues with the Apple TV getting that info - so whenever it tried to read that info, it would stop taking remote input temporarily until it could get a response from the TV. I believe this is the case, because I noticed going to the remote settings was a pretty consistent way to trigger the issue, and often it was not reading the "use remote for power and volume" settings correctly. I swapped the HDMI cable with a much shorter one and now it works perfectly fine.
I’ve had following issues:
**4K ATV no available for ~5 Sec when iPhone remote seeking for ATV. While older model is already awake. (Maybe my fault and need to check settings)
**while watching show on ATV, tv suddenly goes blank and flashes fuzzy screen and blank. Takes a minute for system to reboot. (I think I solved this by upgrading HDMI to 4K 18Gbs cert cable; highly recommend this if your just using an old HDMI. Most cables from past are not 4K HDR certified)
**and I agree, the Siri remote is crap. The iPhone remote needs updating from previous versions also if you haven’t done so.
**4K ATV no available for ~5 Sec when iPhone remote seeking for ATV. While older model is already awake. (Maybe my fault and need to check settings)
**while watching show on ATV, tv suddenly goes blank and flashes fuzzy screen and blank. Takes a minute for system to reboot. (I think I solved this by upgrading HDMI to 4K 18Gbs cert cable; highly recommend this if your just using an old HDMI. Most cables from past are not 4K HDR certified)
**and I agree, the Siri remote is crap. The iPhone remote needs updating from previous versions also if you haven’t done so.
We just solved this.
Found a post that claimed that - get this - just using Siri to for instance 'Open Netflix' solved the lagging problem on the remote. We saw this here : https://www.cultofmac.com/407770/how-i-quickly-fixed-a-weird-siri-remote-problem/
No idea but it worked for us instantly. ATV 4 . Siri remote was lagging, etc.
Found a post that claimed that - get this - just using Siri to for instance 'Open Netflix' solved the lagging problem on the remote. We saw this here : https://www.cultofmac.com/407770/how-i-quickly-fixed-a-weird-siri-remote-problem/
No idea but it worked for us instantly. ATV 4 . Siri remote was lagging, etc.
Worked like a charm for me. Just told Siri to “Open Netflix”. No more lag in menus. Bizarre.
hi - did you find a solution to your issue below? Workaround seem to first connect to via airplay and then it wakes up instant.... the issue can for me otherwise be waaaaay longer than 5 secs. Atv 3 - no problem.
I assume that it is about interference mostly. I tried everything:
Last idea was to turn off 2.4GHz wifi. My Apple TV was connected via Ethernet cable to router (I was assuming that it is always best to have wired connection). While moving apple TV I have disconnected Ethernet cable and decided to give a try and miracle happened! Everything started working smooth on 1080HD, after playing for 30 minutes I turned on all features like 4K/HDR/4:2:2 and it is working perfect now!
So in my case it was Ethernet cable. Either it was defective without proper shielding or it was working like 2.4GHz signal booster which was creating more interference for connection.
- Change HDMI port
- Replaced cable with Belkin
- Turned off HDR and 4K
- Unpair/pair remote
- Full reset
- Charge remote
- Turn off Siri
Last idea was to turn off 2.4GHz wifi. My Apple TV was connected via Ethernet cable to router (I was assuming that it is always best to have wired connection). While moving apple TV I have disconnected Ethernet cable and decided to give a try and miracle happened! Everything started working smooth on 1080HD, after playing for 30 minutes I turned on all features like 4K/HDR/4:2:2 and it is working perfect now!
So in my case it was Ethernet cable. Either it was defective without proper shielding or it was working like 2.4GHz signal booster which was creating more interference for connection.
That fixed it! Thx!I had the same problem, this is how you fix it!
Hold down the "Menu button" and "Volume down - " hold at the same time for 10 sec and your remote should be normal again
Seriously. this was super bizarre and worked. I tried power cycling, etc. and finally found this post. thanks!
Seriously. Are you ***** kidding me. It worked. Can anyone please explain how telling Siri to “open Netflix” fix my remote lag. I’m seriously happy and pissed at the same time that it worked.
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Most of the cases, low quality HDMI cable can be the issue. Check if your HDMI cable has proper shields. It needs minimum triple shields: braided shield + aluminium foil shield + aluminium foil shield(each pair of wires) + 28AWG or thicker pure copper wires. Low quality cables with no braided shield can cause bluetooth interferences which make the Siri remote lag.
will confirm. It’s the HDMI cable. How did I discover that. Well it started with the sound of the television increasing out of nowhere. Then as time passed, the sound coming from my speakers seemed low despite raising the volume as much as I could. I figured there must be some connectivity issues. So I changed the HDMI cable and wow!? The remote lag and sound issues went away. I never realized how a degrading HDMI cable impacted sound and the connectivity of the remote. I guess it all makes sense now.
In my case battery is at 100 %. Was definitely the cable. Funny thing is: we had the same issues with the 2018 Mac Mini and Bluetooth lag while using the Apple keyboard. Used a cheap HDMI cable for connection and the Apple Bluetooth keyboard was unusable. Switched to a premium hdmi / DisplayPort cable: problem solved.