Anyone else having issues with their Apple TV not connecting to the their Soundbar since the 16.5 update? Mine has lost the ability to control the volume from the Apple remote unless I kill both at the power socket which fixes the problem but is a real pain.
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Apple TV OS 16.5 and Samsung Soundbar
- Thread starter SlimDusty
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It seems like about every third TV OS update is a step forward. Most are a step back.
Yesterday, I got nagged to update. So, I did. Now, the problems with some apps (Netflix. Peacock, to name two) where they go into half speed mode for sound and video has gotten worse compared to the previous version of TV OS. You'd think that this could be fixed, since it's been going on for a few years over several versions of TV OS and Apple TV hardware versions.
It'd be nice if Apple didn't constantly try to force an update down your throat. You were probably much happier before you updated.
Yesterday, I got nagged to update. So, I did. Now, the problems with some apps (Netflix. Peacock, to name two) where they go into half speed mode for sound and video has gotten worse compared to the previous version of TV OS. You'd think that this could be fixed, since it's been going on for a few years over several versions of TV OS and Apple TV hardware versions.
It'd be nice if Apple didn't constantly try to force an update down your throat. You were probably much happier before you updated.
Yep, I have a thread here somewhere where I discuss this same issue. The fix was not messing with the Samsung TV or Apple TV settings, I had to perform a reset of the new ATV remote. As soon as I performed the rest of the remote I was able control my TV and sound bar audio from the remote once again.
Thanks for that Soondae. Unfortunately I tried that (& even tried it again after your post 🙂) but it doesn’t work for me. It’s really weird because it’s not even consistent; sometimes it works fine but every now and again it stops so a hard or a soft reset of the ATV is the only way to get them connected again (it’s just volume, all the other output directions from the remote work fine). No updates for the firmware for the Soundbar so it’s definitely to do with the TvOS 16.5 🤡
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Wired or wireless? If the latter, can you (HDMI) wire connect? That may buy you time until the next tvOS update or two or three where you can check again.
Option 2: train a spare remote to control AppleTV but control volume on the Soundbar directly (vs. through the AppleTV). If you have some remotes, you can probably get control of soundbar volume in AUX mode and then train the things Apple TV can do with the rest of the buttons. AppleTV can easily learn any remote, so the key trick here is finding one that will let you assign volume control to the volume buttons.
CEC is a frustrating (barely) standard that can just seem to do anything or not do anything at any given time. I find it can be easier to bypass it. Perhaps either or both of the above options can help you?
If you love it as is (when it works), just retry the "as is" way on each tvOS update and maybe what is now broken will be fixed sooner or later.
Option 2: train a spare remote to control AppleTV but control volume on the Soundbar directly (vs. through the AppleTV). If you have some remotes, you can probably get control of soundbar volume in AUX mode and then train the things Apple TV can do with the rest of the buttons. AppleTV can easily learn any remote, so the key trick here is finding one that will let you assign volume control to the volume buttons.
CEC is a frustrating (barely) standard that can just seem to do anything or not do anything at any given time. I find it can be easier to bypass it. Perhaps either or both of the above options can help you?
If you love it as is (when it works), just retry the "as is" way on each tvOS update and maybe what is now broken will be fixed sooner or later.
It's a eARC HDMI direct from the soundbar into an LG TV. Then the ATV is connected to the TV via HDMI. Worked flawlessly till 16.5 & now still driving me crazy since my first post. Sometimes it works, sometimes I need to get it to rediscover it via settings & sometimes it's a power cycle.
Low level on tech whinges but for me - such a pain in the arse.
Low level on tech whinges but for me - such a pain in the arse.
I also had some early issues when setting my system up, found out that there are some HDMI cables that just don't play well with eARC. Try swapping your device cables to see if you can resolve the issue. My 2 cents
Have you managed to get this sorted? I just updated to TVOS17 and the problem is happening to me too. Like you, it seems to be intermittent. Sometimes I can get it working again by doing unplugging the ATV, but then it just stops again.
I did not that when I look at the sound output on my ATV, it shows TV speakers rather than the sounder, but when volume control returns, the ATV sound output shows Sounder.
I called Apple Support, but they have no idea what is going on, but made me do the usual stuff of trying different HDMI ports, different HDMI cables, etc but we still could not solve the problem.
Frustrating as everything was working fine until I updated to TVOS17
Nope. An annoying intermittent issue since I started this thread. It is something to do with the ATV and Dolby I think. The latest thing since Apple stealth updated the firmware on the remote is that I get no volume at all. So I go into the not very Samsung Smarthings app on my phone, go to the audio source section, select phone via bluetooth, it attempts to connect and then I select eARC and that forces it to link to the sound bar. An easy enough workaround but just strange that it worked for a while perfectly and then now I have to run through this process.