Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Graz9

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 21, 2014
41
9
I picked up my ATV4 yesterday despite the concerns over this and I had a good play to see if I was experiencing it too. I have a varied library of tv and movies, encoded and from the UK and US store all stored on either my NAS or a portal hard drive and I made sure I tested a lot of stuff.

My first test was a 3 hour film and I could see the film being buffered a reasonable way in front and had no stalls with it for 10-15 mins. That's as long as I tested for.

All my other tests seemed to work in the same way, plenty of movie buffered up front, no pauses.

Then I tried Inside Out. No matter where I started the film the buffered line kept moving forward and backward to the current point in the film and began to pause regularly.

So, I tried watching it on my macbook pro, home sharing from my mini, same EXACT problem with this film. Tried on my on my iphone 6+, same problem again. It took an age to load and paused constantly on playback.

This one film clearly doesn't buffer correctly. It doesn't seem to be a limitation of the ATV4 it is the film itself!

Obviously it is fine on my ATV3s as they buffer differently.

I noticed other people spotted this issue with Inside Out, it would be interesting to hear other peoples experiences of specific films and whether they have the same home sharing problems generally with those films, not just with the ATV4.
 

rkieru

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2015
65
88
From what you've posted it's impossible to give any real diagnosis... there are any number of factors. Consider:
  • There could be a legitimate issue with the ATV4
  • There could be a factory defect with YOUR ATV4
  • The encoding/format of this particular movie could be corrupt; causing playback issues.
  • The encoding/format of this particular movie could cause it to be so large your network is having trouble transmitting data faster than it is being played.
On my old ATV3 I couldn't play 1080p videos via Home Sharing without a lot of buffering. The combination of my device and my home network was insufficient. I haven't tried home-streaming anything in 1080p on the ATV4 yet.
 

rkieru

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2015
65
88
Home sharing did not work on our ATV4 until we connected our Mac to the ATV4 via a Ethernet cable.

Do you mean it did not function at all (ie. could not recognize the computer) or just that the playback was unreasonable? As I said earlier... I only stream 720p video but I've not had a single issue of buffering / playback failure outside of issues where the problem was with the video itself.
 

Graz9

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 21, 2014
41
9
I have been home sharing 1080p files in excess of 14GB to all my devices, not just ATVs, without issue for many years.

As I said I have a specific issue with one movie, Inside Out, I don't have a problem with home sharing generally.

This one movie file, purchased from the iTunes store and which is only just over 3GB won't buffer correctly when home sharing it to any device in my household, except the ATV3.

My point is that I don't necessarily believe the ATV4 is at fault here, at least in my example, and I am looking for feedback from other ATV4 users who are experiencing the buffering issue as to whether they are having issues with the specific movies as, from reading about, a lot of people also mentioned Inside Out when mentioning buffering.
 

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
Do you mean it did not function at all (ie. could not recognize the computer) or just that the playback was unreasonable? As I said earlier... I only stream 720p video but I've not had a single issue of buffering / playback failure outside of issues where the problem was with the video itself.

I'm curious if there is something specific to the units that are not streaming correctly. Is yours a 32GB or 64GB model? Can you share the first part of the serial # in case there is a batch that are defective?
 

Mac... nificent

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2012
943
498
Do you mean it did not function at all (ie. could not recognize the computer) or just that the playback was unreasonable?
It did not function at all. Everything was turned on correctly but when you went to use it the message "Turn Home Sharing on in iTunes" appeared (even though it already was turned on). Tried LOTS of debugging but nothing worked. Only when you use the Ethernet cable does it "work" correctly.

I'm curious if there is something specific to the units that are not streaming correctly. Is yours a 32GB or 64GB model?
32GB.

Can you share the first part of the serial # in case there is a batch that are defective?
I'm not around it right now but I'll try to post it tomorrow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Donka

rkieru

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2015
65
88
FWIW - I too have a 32GB ATV4. I'm able to access Home Sharing and wirelessly stream from my computer w/o issue.

Is it possible that your computer is associated with a different iCloud account than your ATV4? That might account for the issue?
 

Mac... nificent

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2012
943
498
Is it possible that your computer is associated with a different iCloud account than your ATV4
Nope. 6 brand new Apple products ranging from Mac Pro, 5k, 4K, to new Mac minis and MacBook Pros... None of them can connect via Home Sharing. All on same network with same iCloud account etc...

I think that Apple rushed the ATV4 to get in on holiday sales.
 

rkieru

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2015
65
88
It's a little obvious... but did you quit iTunes and re-open? I used to have an issue with my ATV3 where when my iMac went to sleep it (the ATV) would not always recognize the device on my network until I closed and re-opened iTunes. Super annoying.
 

MrTemple

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2013
448
1,092
Canadian Pacific North Wilderness
This problem is widespread, with many people reporting it across a multitude of different setups (which all worked under the previous ATVs).

Things that do not affect the buffering/stuttering issue:

1. HomeSharing via iTunes or playing the identical video file via Plex.

2. ATV connected via ethernet or wireless.

3. Sharing the video file via iTunes on Mac/Windows.

4. Media served off a network drive or a local drive.

5. Restarting the ATV/PC/iTunes/Plex/HD/etc.



Things that do affect the buffering/stuttering issue:

1. Using the ATV4 instead of the ATV1/2/3.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wavell

crhendo

macrumors member
Oct 28, 2009
48
20
I have been home sharing 1080p files in excess of 14GB to all my devices, not just ATVs, without issue for many years.

As I said I have a specific issue with one movie, Inside Out, I don't have a problem with home sharing generally.

I also have the same buffering problem on two recent purchases from the iTunes Store being Ed Sheeran Live at Wembley and Inside Out. I have two 64GB ATV4's which both have the same problems playing these movies using Home Sharing from both a Mac Mini and a Mac Pro connected via Ethernet or Wireless. Both work fine on my old ATV3's.

I have tried all the usual suspects ie reauthorizing Apple ID's, turning Home Sharing off and on etc etc etc

As soon as my USB-C cable arrives, I will try the new developer releases to see if this makes any difference.

I have been using Home Sharing for ALL Apple TV viewing (Because I have a lousy Internet connection and have to download content after hours) for many years and I have never seen anything like this. Interestingly, on these two movies there is no buffering done at all and yet all my older movie purchases buffer normally without any problem. And of course, straight streaming works just fine.

What has Apple done with these two movies that is different?
 
  • Like
Reactions: eldervovichka

Chill2

macrumors newbie
Oct 26, 2015
26
14
Brisbane
I get buffering issues on both Home Sharing and Plex, happens often on a range of program but not with any consistency
like I might start watching a movie and het three "stalls" in the first 30 min - need to press "menu" and then click on play to get back watching - but then the movie will play fine for a hour

No issues with ATV3 or ATV2 ( and these are on wireless and much further away for the Air port extreme)

Id does seem, looking at the progress bar, that the ATV4 is not buffering at all sometimes on local content
 

6AL5

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2015
50
6
I opened a thread recently on the buffering issue, for me it buffers on HD content doesn't matter on the files size plugging an ATV3 or 1 into the same network port and the HD content plays fine and they are all purchased from the iTunes store. I have the 64Gb model
 

chuyn

macrumors 6502
Nov 13, 2015
365
110
I have been home sharing 1080p files in excess of 14GB to all my devices, not just ATVs, without issue for many years.

As I said I have a specific issue with one movie, Inside Out, I don't have a problem with home sharing generally.

This one movie file, purchased from the iTunes store and which is only just over 3GB won't buffer correctly when home sharing it to any device in my household, except the ATV3.

My point is that I don't necessarily believe the ATV4 is at fault here, at least in my example, and I am looking for feedback from other ATV4 users who are experiencing the buffering issue as to whether they are having issues with the specific movies as, from reading about, a lot of people also mentioned Inside Out when mentioning buffering.
I've been coming to a similar conclusion with my ATV4 as well. First experienced this issue when Inside Out came out, and was worried I had a bad ATV4 (ATV3 played it just fine). But lately we've been watching a few other movies through home share (cartoons, computer animated, live action) and they all have been playing/buffering fine. Each time I try Inside Out again though, same buffering issues. Not saying the ATV4 has zero issues, but something is going on with this particular movie too.
 

JustinsUserName

macrumors newbie
Oct 18, 2015
15
5
I've tried both Plex (no transcoding) and Home Sharing on my 32GB ATV. My setup is Plex and iTunes run on my rMBP with all my media stored on my time capsule. I've had my ATV hardwired and used over wifi (N) and both ways buffering. Today I hooked my MBP to the TV and watched an entire movie streaming through iTunes over wifi from the time capsule and not one hiccup. I'm convinced there's issues with buffering on the ATV. I'm pretty much waiting for someone to investigate the issue with 9.1 and report on their success or failure. I'm coming up on my return window and I'd rather just go back to the ATV3 for the time being if there is no fix in the near future
 

crhendo

macrumors member
Oct 28, 2009
48
20
Posting so I can get notified about crhendo's experience with 9.1. Thanks.

Amazingly, getting hold of a USB-C to USB-A connector in my part of the world is taking longer than I thought. Stay posted....

I had a LONG chat with Apple customer support (having been escalated to Level 2 after a record 30 seconds) and the hardest part was convincing the "so called Apple TV expert" that Homesharing was the primary method for my family to access content from our two new ATV4's. It took him a while to get past the fact that simply streaming the content would mean that the problem was solved. Having wasted time on this first step, he wanted to take me through all the usual low level checks....router reset, Apple TV reset etc etc etc. Eventually I cracked and asked for escalation to somebody who new more about Apple TV than I did (in the nicest possible way) but was refused on the basis that he was the most senior Apple TV tech available. So I politely suggested that he go to the lab (apparently he has his own lab!), download Inside Out onto a Mac running iTunes, setup Homesharing and see what happens. Apparently the Lab wasn't capable of performing such an exercise so all he could do was escalate the problem to the engineers. I asked if he could send me a copy of the document he had prepared. He said no but then read back through his case notes and I decided he had most of it covered. I was then told it would take up to 4 days for a reply AND I would receive a confirmation email after our call finished......which of course never arrived.

Fortunately, I haven't sold my "old" ATV3's on eBay as yet so we have simply moved back to our old reliable configuration and I now have two distinctive black paperweights on my desk.

Even if this problem is fixed, my bigger concern is that Apple seems to believe that Homesharing isn't important and I worry that it will be gradually phased out in future updates. We currently have a massive iTunes library that we have gradually built up over many years (ie since ATV1!) AND we have lousy internet access (which won't be resolved anytime soon) so we simply do all our downloading in the background and then watch it has it becomes available. In total we have spent $$$$$'s on the Apple iTunes library but without Homesharing we are in big trouble.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BuddyRich

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
Ok, I tested this all last night with a brand new ATV 4 - this time a 64GB model with a completely unique serial number so definitely from a different batch than my existing 32GB model and the issue remains identical. Plays perfectly for around 10 minutes then I get up to 30 seconds of stuttering when watching 1080p content, around 10 seconds when watching 720p content. I'm pretty confident this is a problem in TVOS at the moment and it seems something is happening roughly every 10 minutes which causes this. I can actually hear my router make a high pitched whine every minute or so as it streams content so the interval of stuttering does not seem related to that. For the 10 minutes when it is playing, the playback is perfect so the whole set up is clearly capable.

I also reported this to Apple Support last week on the phone and they logged a support issue but I never got the follow up email either but I did get a consumer feedback email with the case ID so at least I have something to go back on.
 

MrTemple

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2013
448
1,092
Canadian Pacific North Wilderness
I'm pretty sure the issue is that it's not trying to buffer the video at all. Merely grabbing a couple hundred megabytes at a time, instead of the whole file.

That it happens identically whether playing videos via Home Sharing or Plex suggests to me that it's an issue with the standard video playing libraries in tvos.
 

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
I'm pretty sure the issue is that it's not trying to buffer the video at all. Merely grabbing a couple hundred megabytes at a time, instead of the whole file.

That it happens identically whether playing videos via Home Sharing or Plex suggests to me that it's an issue with the standard video playing libraries in tvos.

Yup, I completely agree. The buffer is being chunked and the stutter is most likely as the buffer is being cleared out and refreshed making a mess of the playback while this happens.
 

JustinsUserName

macrumors newbie
Oct 18, 2015
15
5
I have Beta 3 downloaded. I'm going to Best Buy in an hour or so to spend $50 on an adapter and USB cable since I'm at my girlfriend's like 6 states from home. I'll report back with any news. I'll try streaming through both Home Sharing and Plex. I'll do both wired and wireless. I'll use a large 1080p file and pretty much see how far it buffers ahead. How does that sound everyone?
 

Donka

macrumors 68030
May 3, 2011
2,842
1,439
Scotland
I have Beta 3 downloaded. I'm going to Best Buy in an hour or so to spend $50 on an adapter and USB cable since I'm at my girlfriend's like 6 states from home. I'll report back with any news. I'll try streaming through both Home Sharing and Plex. I'll do both wired and wireless. I'll use a large 1080p file and pretty much see how far it buffers ahead. How does that sound everyone?

It would be welcome information. Are you currently impacted by the buffering issue?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.