Apple TV Randomly Slows Down

[BKDad]

Short description:

Every now and then, our Apple TV 4K 2nd generation just slows down. The video goes to half speed or slower as does the sound. I can't really find a set pattern for this, but it most often occurs when changing from one episode of a program to another or scrolling through different programs. But, sometimes it does this without any user interaction at all. The Peacock TV app seems to be the worst for this, but that might be a coincidence. It takes a reset of the ATV to clear this up. Sometimes, it takes two restarts. Worst case ever is having to remove power entirely - twice.

Here's the funny thing. I tried a second sample of the ATV and got the same results.

It's not the network speed - one of the speed test apps I downloaded from the Apple TV App Store shows the download speed to routinely be over 600Mbps, which should be enough for anything video and beyond. Usually, when we're watching TV, there's very little other activity on our network (no kids at home any longer...)

Is anybody else seeing this? It seems like this would be a software problem, but it's been like this over a couple versions of tvOS and presumably a number of application updates. Oh - I routinely close unused applications. (Close Apps on Apple TV)

I'm betting that somebody here has seen this problem and that somebody smarter than I am has found a solution.

Edit: Forgot! Last summer we replaced our previous internet provider with a different one. The newer one is faster and a bunch of other good things. But, the problems described above were there before the switchover as well as after. No change. The change in provider meant that we are using a different modem (VDSL vs Cable), with different routers. So, it's hard to blame the ISP or the router since they both were changed. And, I tried several different HDMI cables, too, so it's not that, either. The same cables work fine with the cable TV set-top box as well as the Blu-ray player.

 

[niteflyr]

I have never seen or heard of anything like you are describing. Anything network/signal related (router, wifi, cables, etc) will usually cause buffering with the spinning wheel delays or no picture at all. Not half speed video and audio. This sounds more device related. When you said " I tried a second sample of the ATV and got the same results" did you mean a second, different, ATV4K device?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

First guess is to think about the problem INSIDE your home. Try the easy things you can try: for example, try a different ethernet cable or if using wifi, try any ethernet cable to see if the problem shows that way too. A simple switch from a wifi test to/from an ethernet test could be quite telling.

Take one of the problematic AppleTVs to a friend/fams house, hook it up to an entirely new wifi/ethernet setup and see if the problem can repeat there. If not, that shines a brighter light on your home equipment mix... or your own broadband provider if different than theirs.

Rule out broadband itself by putting some videos on the Mac to which these AppleTVs are connected (home sharing) and stream your own video within your wifi or ethernet connection WITHOUT having to lean on any external broadband at all. Can you repeat the issue that way?

Have you perhaps had close proximity neighbors over and shared a wifi password with them? If so, they may not even realize that they are still using your wifi instead of their own... and thus their activity is sometimes taking bites of your wifi pie, possibly causing this to happen. If you can't recall or are not certain, the easy solution here is change your wifi password to kick all connecting devices OFF.

Document WHEN these slowdowns occur to see if there is a time pattern? Perhaps someone is doing something at select times that impact radio waves causing the slow down? For example, does it seem to happen when homes very near yours are preparing meals?

Can you make this happen with any predictability? For example, can you make it happen at the same point in the same video from the same source every time? If so, that is an excellent test video(s) for when you try the second (paragraph) suggestion on a completely different wifi or ethernet setup at a friends/fam home. If it plays fine there, you'll know it is not AppleTV but something in the equipment at your home or provider.

 

[BKDad]

I have never seen or heard of anything like you are describing. Anything network/signal related (router, wifi, cables, etc) will usually cause buffering with the spinning wheel delays or no picture at all. Not half speed video and audio. This sounds more device related. When you said " I tried a second sample of the ATV and got the same results" did you mean a second, different, ATV4K device?

Yeah, a second, different ATV4K right out of the box.

 

[BKDad]

First guess is to think about the problem INSIDE your home. Try the easy things you can try: for example, try a different ethernet cable or if using wifi, try any ethernet cable to see if the problem shows that way too. A simple switch from a wifi test to/from an ethernet test could be quite telling.

Take one of the problematic AppleTVs to a friend/fams house, hook it up to an entirely new wifi/ethernet setup and see if the problem can repeat there. If not, that shines a brighter light on your home equipment mix... or your own broadband provider if different than theirs.

Rule out broadband itself by putting some videos on the Mac to which these AppleTVs are connected (home sharing) and stream your own video within your wifi or ethernet connection WITHOUT having to lean on any external broadband at all. Can you repeat the issue that way?

Have you perhaps had close proximity neighbors over and shared a wifi password with them? If so, they may not even realize that they are still using your wifi instead of their own... and thus their activity is sometimes taking bites of your wifi pie, possibly causing this to happen. If you can't recall or are not certain, the easy solution here is change your wifi password to kick all connecting devices OFF.

Document WHEN these slowdowns occur to see if there is a time pattern? Perhaps someone is doing something at select times that impact radio waves causing the slow down? For example, does it seem to happen when homes very near yours are preparing meals?

Can you make this happen with any predictability? For example, can you make it happen at the same point in the same video from the same source every time? If so, that is an excellent test video(s) for when you try the second (paragraph) suggestion on a completely different wifi or ethernet setup at a friends/fam home. If it plays fine there, you'll know it is not AppleTV but something in the equipment at your home or provider.

In order:

Tried the cabling/wifi thing.

This problem has persisted across two different broadband providers, so I doubt it's the provider. Or their equipment. But, I can try the internal streaming idea - thanks.

Never shared a password.

I wish I could make this happen with predictability.

At this point, the only variable is the TV set. If nobody else has ever observed this issue, I'm going to lean toward that being the problem. It's possible there's a setting that's not right, although I reviewed those again this morning. But, I could've missed something. Just as an observation, this phenomenon has never happened either with a Blu-ray Disc or with the CATV set-top box.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Obviously, if you have easy access to a second TV, hook it up and watch some Peacock to see if the problem shows itself again.

There are settings on both TV and AppleTV that MIGHT be causing this effect IF it is fairly quick... but the "having to unplug/reset" reads like it is not quick. On the AppleTV side (settings), match frame rate may play a part here as different videos at different frame rates are adjusting for your TV. On the TV, there are picture settings that usually revolve around the word "judder." On my Samsung TV, it is called "Auto Motion Plus Settings" but it will be different for other TVs and for that to be the cause, it probably had to be changed around the time this started AND it should show in Blu Ray & CATV usage too.

So if you have the same problem with TWO AppleTVs, that probably rules out AppleTV or else probably narrows it to "same settings" in both AppleTVs.

Since you've experimented with cables vs. wifi (both ways), it's probably not internal bandwidth (which is different than broadband speed to the home) and since you don't have wifi "freeloaders", I'm leaning towards settings in the AppleTV or temporary interruptions of signal in the router. Have you tried rebooting the router since the new one was installed? Those can benefit from occasional reboots. If router, blu ray would not be affected because its video is "streaming" from the disc and CATV would not be affected because its signal is "streaming" via the cableTV portion of the cable.

I'm presuming HDMI connections from AppleTV are direct and not through a middle-man piece of hardware like a Receiver. If not, test bypassing any middlemen tech and see if the problem repeats. Some people insert what is called an HDMI extractor to split out audio for audio-only needs and those can easily cause problems like yours.

You've already swapped HDMI cables in tests. Have you tried swapping the HDMI inputs on the TV? For example, the one currently receiving Blu Ray with no issues could be good to test with AppleTV to see if the effect would repeat.

If the TV or Blu Ray or CATV box also run apps, try Peacock on them for a while and see if the effect occurs. I'd be especially curious about Peacock OFF of the presumably Comcast CATV box, such as the BD box or the TV itself.

Taking an AppleTV to a friend's place and watching Peacock there would rule out a LOT of possibilities... or zero this in much more specifically to the AppleTV itself... even more so if the friend has an AppleTV, watches Peacock and doesn't seem to have the same problem. I'd probably try that as soon as I could.

 

[BKDad]

Obviously, if you have easy access to a second TV, hook it up and watch some Peacock to see if the problem shows itself again.

There are settings on both TV and AppleTV that MIGHT be causing this effect IF it is fairly quick... but the "having to unplug/reset" reads like it is not quick. On the AppleTV side (settings), match frame rate may play a part here as different videos at different frame rates are adjusting for your TV. On the TV, there are picture settings that usually revolve around the word "judder." On my Samsung TV, it is called "Auto Motion Plus Settings" but it will be different for other TVs and for that to be the cause, it probably had to be changed around the time this started AND it should show in Blu Ray & CATV usage too.

So if you have the same problem with TWO AppleTVs, that probably rules out AppleTV or else probably narrows it to "same settings" in both AppleTVs.

Since you've experimented with cables vs. wifi (both ways), it's probably not internal bandwidth (which is different than broadband speed to the home) and since you don't have wifi "freeloaders", I'm leaning towards settings in the AppleTV or temporary interruptions of signal in the router. Have you tried rebooting the router since the new one was installed? Those can benefit from occasional reboots. If router, blu ray would not be affected because its video is "streaming" from the disc and CATV would not be affected because its signal is "streaming" via the cableTV portion of the cable.

I'm presuming HDMI connections from AppleTV are direct and not through a middle-man piece of hardware like a Receiver. If not, test bypassing any middlemen tech and see if the problem repeats. Some people insert what is called an HDMI extractor to split out audio for audio-only needs and those can easily cause problems like yours.

You've already swapped HDMI cables in tests. Have you tried swapping the HDMI inputs on the TV? For example, the one currently receiving Blu Ray with no issues could be good to test with AppleTV to see if the effect would repeat.

If the TV or Blu Ray or CATV box also run apps, try Peacock on them for a while and see if the effect occurs. I'd be especially curious about Peacock OFF of the presumably Comcast CATV box, such as the BD box or the TV itself.

Taking an AppleTV to a friend's place and watching Peacock there would rule out a LOT of possibilities... or zero this in much more specifically to the AppleTV itself... even more so if the friend has an AppleTV, watches Peacock and doesn't seem to have the same problem. I'd probably try that as soon as I could.

I've rebooted the router. This is not the same one as with the previous broadband provider. Both have shown the issue.

Tonight, we watched a program on Netflix. No problem. Then, when done, I went back to the tvOS home window, closed the Netflix app, and scrolled across to the Peacock app. When I clicked on it to open it, the ATV crashed. Immediately. Of course, it started back up again after it reset itself. Then, I tried that again. Same result. A one minute power down and a restart cleared up that problem.

Since no video even started to play - I was only just trying to get to the main Peacock window - I'm now thinking that this probably isn't anything downstream of the Apple TV. How could it be? There was no video playing when it crashed - the app didn't even open.

So, maybe the problem is something to do with the Peacock app and, well, something else. As I said previously, this kind of event occurs randomly with a couple weeks between incidents and then two or three incidents in a row. It does seem to happen more often with Peacock, but I've also seen it with Max as well when I think back. No rhyme nor reason.

This all is occurring with the very latest version of tvOS, as was the case in the past. All the apps are updated, too. Just to be sure of things, I entered Settings and reset the video parameters to the optimum values as set by tvOS - no special options set by me.

If this problem was with only one ATV, I'd think it was the ATV. If this was limited to one cable, out the cable would go. If this problem arrived with a new modem, router, and broadband provider, the source would be obvious. If this only happened while actively playing video, I'd suspect the TV itself. But, none of that is the case.

One other note - I don't suspect overheating, either, because these glitches have taken place after the ATV had been unplugged overnight.

I appreciate all the help, but I'm concluding that this is something that can't easily be fixed with the combination of apps what we have. (No games, BTW) I couldn't find any kind of diagnostic app to download, which might give a better idea of what is going on. I think this is like some of the persistent bugs in macOS that nobody seems interested in repairing, for reasons known only to Apple. I've reported this before and the only help Apple has offered beyond the usual obvious stuff has been to replace the ATV. Of course, there's some indications on the ever helpful internet that some of the apps might be on the buggy side, too...

 

[niteflyr]

This could be a storage memory issue. Do you have the 32gb or 64gb model and how many apps are loaded on this device? There is an app in the TVOS app store called System Info that will show how much used and free memory you have. TVOS uses this memory for many things like video cache, sreensavers, etc. Low free memory might cause issues although you should get a low disk space warning. I think my next move would be a call to Apple Support.

 

[BKDad]

This could be a storage memory issue. Do you have the 32gb or 64gb model and how many apps are loaded on this device? There is an app in the TVOS app store called System Info that will show how much used and free memory you have. TVOS uses this memory for many things like video cache, sreensavers, etc. Low free memory might cause issues although you should get a low disk space warning. I think my next move would be a call to Apple Support.

I will get that App, run it, and report back.

Thanks!

Not many apps at all. Aside from the standard Apple supplied apps, maybe a half dozen or so. As I said, no games.

Your suggestion makes great sense.

 

[BKDad]

OK...

System Info hasn't been updated for a while, so one of its windows doesn't work properly. Specifically, the one showing memory usage. So, I tried several other similar in concept apps and found that Hex Terminal seemed to work best. Here is a photo of part of what Hex Terminal says about my ATV. This is just with Hex Terminal running.

(Sorry for the quality - I didn't really feel like setting up AirPlay and all that just for a screen shot of some numbers.)

Note that this ATV has 32 GB of storage capability. And, 77% is being used! I added up the footprints of all our apps as shown in the Manage Storage portion of Settings and it came to about 1.9 GB. I'm not sure what the rest is being used for.

With just this one app running, 2.1 GB of the 3 GB memory system is being used. I could see a possible issue there. But, why?

Is there some not so obvious setting causing this? Screen savers run amuck?

Update since I started typing...

Downloading and then letting the Space Reclaimer app from the App Store run for over an hour knocked that 77% storage usage down to 38%. I don't know if it will help with this issue, but it seems like it might be a good thing in any case. I have to wonder what all that detritus was. Left from some apps not cleaning up after themselves?

 

[niteflyr]

My guess is you have Aerial screen savers turned on. It down loads a new one every day or week and they are fairly large files and add up after a while. The Space Reclaimer app will clean those out but they will come back. I had to run Space Reclaimer 3 or 4 times back to back to get all available space back. 7gb free is still quite a lot. It will be interesting to see if freeing up more memory has any effect.

 

[BKDad]

My guess is you have Aerial screen savers turned on. It down loads a new one every day or week and they are fairly large files and add up after a while. The Space Reclaimer app will clean those out but they will come back. I had to run Space Reclaimer 3 or 4 times back to back to get all available space back. 7gb free is still quite a lot. It will be interesting to see if freeing up more memory has any effect.

Just checked. Indeed, Aerial screen savers was selected. That was obvious from when the screen saver activated. That must be the default, since I don't recall ever even looking at that. My wife wouldn't think of such a thing. I didn't connect the screen saver downloading more images because that was never something I even thought to look into. I guess I could also set the screen saver to never download any more.

So, thanks for the suggestion. I'll run Space Reclaimer a couple times tomorrow. It's not clear that will have any bearing on my issue, but it can't be helping the overall performance.

 

[BKDad]

Update:

Last night, we were watching something on Peacock. The slowdown took place after about an hour or so. An ATV reset fixed the problem.

So, this all beats the heck out of me. Maybe it's the Peacock app. I guess we'll just live with it, as annoying as it can be.

Thanks everybody for all the suggestions. None worked, but they all made a lot of sense and I did try them. Again, I appreciate the advice.

 

[dotnet]

Short description:

Every now and then, our Apple TV 4K 2nd generation just slows down.

My Apple TV 4K 3rd gen is all of a sudden slow over Ethernet, too. Not sure how long that’s been going on, I’ve been blaming occasional stutters and buffering on the services or on Internet issues. Now I see that download speeds are in the low 10s of Mbps, sometimes single digits.

I’ve eliminated everything on my network as source of problems, from cables to switches, and confirmed that other machines get full speed over Ethernet (close to 1000Mbps).

On WiFi, the Apple TV get good speeds (600-700Mbps) if I pull it out in the open for best reception.

Is the Ethernet port on the Apple TV going bad? Is that a thing, has anyone had that happen before?