Apple Acknowledges Airplay Mirroring Issues for Late 2013 MacBook and Mac Pro on Slower Wi-Fi Networks

MacRumors · Feb 5, 2014

Apple today released a new support document that offers a solution for Late 2013 MacBook Pro and Mac Pro owners having difficulty with Airplay mirroring when connecting to an 802.11 b or g network.

The company suggests that users who are experiencing issues with dropped connections and frozen images on the television when using Airplay mirroring should turn off Bluetooth.

Turning off Bluetooth can enhance the performance of Airplay considerably. To turn off Bluetooth, locate the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar on the upper-right corner of your screen. Click the icon and choose Turn Bluetooth Off.

While it is unclear how widespread the Airplay mirroring issue is, there have been complaints about Airplay performance with the newly released MacBook Pros on both our forums and the Apple Support Communities. Users have noted both image freezing and significant lag when attempting to use Airplay mirroring.

Complaints about Airplay picked up in November, shortly after the October release of the latest Retina MacBook Pro models. Though there have been few complaints about the Mac Pro due to its limited availability, it is also displaying the same problem.

Because the issue is limited to b or g networks, another fix could include a router replacement supporting the n or ac standards.

Article Link: Apple Acknowledges Airplay Mirroring Issues for Late 2013 MacBook and Mac Pro on Slower Wi-Fi Networks

pmz · Feb 5, 2014

I dunno if I would even be trying mirroring on a b or g network.

matthew12 · Feb 5, 2014

Yeah, I'm having this issue on my 13" rMBP. Bluetooth is always off for me, so this doesn't help much. I will get a new router soon, though.

tevion5 · Feb 5, 2014

Because HD Streaming and wifi b and g usually go hand in hand...

JonneyGee · Feb 5, 2014

I'm having trouble even streaming audio to my Apple TV (via my late 2013 15" rMBP). It has significant lag/choppy connection issues. I thought it might be an issue with the Apple TV, because I've also had issues with it losing audio after streaming Airplay via my iPad or iPhone.

2010mini · Feb 5, 2014

Who still uses wireless b/g??

2457282 · Feb 5, 2014

Come on people. Let's upgrade to n at least.

MarcusCarpenter · Feb 5, 2014

Yet how long does it take them to acknowledge the 2011 15/17" GPU issues

bushido · Feb 5, 2014

pmz said:
I dunno if I would even be trying mirroring on a b or g network.

dont even know what that means

all i know is ive got wifi

analog guy · Feb 5, 2014

i've got a 2013 MBA connecting via a new (5th gen) Time Capsule (802.11ac network).

When I am using Airplay mirroring, I am unable to connect to network shares and do screen sharing to other machines on my network.

Anyone else experiencing this?

melearls77 · Feb 5, 2014

I have the same problem when trying to mirror from my iPad (4th generation) to my Apple TV. Knocks my router out every time.

FirstNTenderbit · Feb 5, 2014

bushido said:
dont even know what that means all i know is ive got wifi

+1
That's a pretty funny comment made even funnier by the fact that it's probably more true for the vast majority of consumers out there.

duffmanth · Feb 5, 2014

I have an early 2011 15" Macbook Pro and the Airplay mirroring ******** blows. Easily one of the worst things Apple has come up with, hard wired concoction all the way!! We need HDMI ports!!!!!!!!!!!!

analog guy · Feb 5, 2014

melearls77 said:
I have the same problem when trying to mirror from my iPad (4th generation) to my Apple TV. Knocks my router out every time.

weird thing is that it worked just fine with my 2011 MBA and mirroring.

love mirroring in general--it's great.

yashrg · Feb 5, 2014

I'm curious why turning bluetooth off fixes this issue.

tevion5 · Feb 5, 2014

bushido said:
dont even know what that means all i know is ive got wifi

It's people like you that keep me busy with calls about how "the Internet is broken"!

flottenheimer · Feb 5, 2014

Question:

Bought an Apple TV last month.

Rather dissappointed that most of the time SD videos don't play smoothly via AirPlay mirroring and HD 720p and 1080p always misses lots of frames (low framerate).
Both from a late 2012 hires 15" MacBook Pro with SSD and from the latest high-end late 2013 retina 15" MacBook Pro.

Is that normal on 802.11n wifi?
(Playing from QuickTime or VLC doesn't seem to make a serious difference).

Bluetooth is always off is there anything I could do to improve things?

DaveTheRave · Feb 5, 2014

2010mini said:
Who still uses wireless b/g??

There's still a bunch of devices out there that use b/g, like my Kindle (the one with the keyboard) and older iPod Touch's that haven't died yet. For that reason my wifi network still allows b/g/n devices to connect instead of n-only.

Lionel Messi · Feb 5, 2014

bushido said:
dont even know what that means all i know is ive got wifi

Same here! But only because I have other priorities as I am one of the greatest football players of all time.

5t3f4n · Feb 5, 2014

DaveTheRave said:
There's still a bunch of devices out there that use b/g, like my Kindle (the one with the keyboard) and older iPod Touch's that haven't died yet. For that reason my wifi network still allows b/g/n devices to connect instead of n-only.

Get a dual-band router so you can have modern devices on n and legacy devices on b/g simultaneously.

wizard · Feb 5, 2014

And people argue with me when I say wired Ethernet won't go away anytime soon.

The reality is RF bandwidth is limited, as such the industry needs to use it conservatively.

petsounds · Feb 5, 2014

Wait. The big story here is that the new Mac Pro can use AirPlay Mirroring, as the previous gens could not. This was due to (afaik) AirPlay Mirroring requiring a hardware feature on the Intel integrated graphics chips that enabled on-board H.264 encoding, so I'm not sure what's changed. Do the new Xeon chips now have a H.264 encoder?

2010mini · Feb 5, 2014

DaveTheRave said:
There's still a bunch of devices out there that use b/g, like my Kindle (the one with the keyboard) and older iPod Touch's that haven't died yet. For that reason my wifi network still allows b/g/n devices to connect instead of n-only.

Maybe I should've clarified.

Who still uses a b or g only router?

As for still using older devices..... Time to upgrade.

Parasprite · Feb 5, 2014

2010mini said:
Maybe I should've clarified.

Who still uses a b or g only router?

As for still using older devices..... Time to upgrade.

Considering that the older/other devices they mentioned probably don't support AirPlay anyways, I don't see why upgrading would matter for this issue.

----------

5t3f4n said:
Get a dual-band router so you can have modern devices on n and legacy devices on b/g simultaneously.

I have mine set up as dual band because my 4S can't connect to 5GHz (n) networks.

Which is kind of obnoxious because sometimes my Mac connects to the 2.4GHz network automatically if it doesn't see the 5GHz one first. I would remove it from the network list on my Mac If the iCloud keychain didn't automatically remove the wifi login from my 4S in the process...

DaveTheRave · Feb 5, 2014

2010mini said:
As for still using older devices..... Time to upgrade.

Nope. If it still works for me, I'll use it until it dies.

Apple Acknowledges Airplay Mirroring Issues for Late 2013 MacBook and Mac Pro on Slower Wi-Fi Networks

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