Apple TV 4K display flashing

[blujein]

Hi everyone!

Throughout the last fortnight or so my Apple TV 4K has begun intermittently flashing a white screen. The flashing happens for approximately one or two seconds and it can happen anywhere from once every five minutes to once every hour. My Sony (X8500E) TV was purchased two months ago and doesn't seem to show any problems with other devices.

Does anyone know what this problem might be?

 

[waw74]

make sure your cables are firmly seated.
(sometimes an unplug/replug of both ends can fix things)
have you rebooted your aTV?

make sure you have a high speed cable if you've got 4:2:2 enabled.

is this happening randomly? or when you stop/start playback? or only during (or not) playback?
it could be related to the way your TV is handling the new auto switching of SDR/HDR by the aTV

what video mode do you have the aTV set in?

 

[blujein]

make sure your cables are firmly seated.
(sometimes an unplug/replug of both ends can fix things)
have you rebooted your aTV?

make sure you have a high speed cable if you've got 4:2:2 enabled.

is this happening randomly? or when you stop/start playback? or only during (or not) playback?
it could be related to the way your TV is handling the new auto switching of SDR/HDR by the aTV

what video mode do you have the aTV set in?

Thanks for the reply!

Yep; I've tried unplugging and plugging the cables repeatedly, and I've restarted the device numerous times.

The cable that I'm using is the Apple HDMI cable that shipped with the previous Apple TV model.

The flashing does seem to happen randomly. It's during playback and when the display is idle.

 

[waw74]

not sure any versions of appleTV shipped with HDMI, maybe the 1st gen.

but if that's the cable you're using, you probably need to upgrade the cable, or switch to SDR
HDMI 2.0 is only about 4 years old, any cable older than that may not be able to handle the signal.
4k and especially HDR require a HUGE amount of data

 

[Sin]

I've also been seeing this sort of thing happening recently. I haven't changed any hardware or settings, but the problems coincided with updating to the latest OS, so I've been suspecting a software issue, except there don't seem to be too widespread reports.

I mostly see it in the UI and the aerial screen-savers. Doesn't seem to affect video playback through Netflix or Prime.

 

[blujein]

not sure any versions of appleTV shipped with HDMI, maybe the 1st gen.

but if that's the cable you're using, you probably need to upgrade the cable, or switch to SDR
HDMI 2.0 is only about 4 years old, any cable older than that may not be able to handle the signal.
4k and especially HDR require a HUGE amount of data

Thanks for that tip... I bought a new HDMI cable, though, and the issue is still there.

 

[priitv8]

Thanks for that tip... I bought a new HDMI cable, though, and the issue is still there.

Then your appleTV may have developed a problem.

 

[waw74]

i think the problem might be software related

mine has started to do this, every so often i'll get a white flash followed by a pink flash, normally a couple in a row, every so often.
it's probably just a difference in the way our TVs handle the signal glitch.

I'm on the public beta, not home a lot right now, and not sure what versions i've been on when i saw it.

 

[priitv8]

i think the problem might be software related
...
I'm on the public beta, not home a lot right now, and not sure what versions i've been on when i saw it.

I have been only on release versions, but such behaviour is unknown to me.

 

[ninethirty]

Noticed this last night also.. was hoping there was an easy fix.

 

[chuckm1020]

I have the same exact problem with my 32gb 4K Apple TV. Sometimes only happens once every couple of days. Sometimes 3 times a day. I’ve changed the hdmi cable. Moved it to a different tv. Same issue. I believe it is a software issue since it seems to happend with a lot of people.

 

[Ted13]

I’ve mainly seen it while watching the screen saver photos - at first I though it might be airplane flashes, but from this thread I see it must be an aTV 4K/tvOS issue. Brand new HDMI cable, TV, etc, not happening via Blu-ray player

 

[Sin]

Mine seems to be fixed for now. There were two possible changes:

1) I updated to the latest public beta (the problems arrived with the last non-beta update).
2) I double checked the output resolution, and noticed that after updating it was set to 4k50, so I set it back to 4k60.

 

[tibrowyko]

Did it look anything like this:

? I'm having a similar issue, (which I though was caused by the TV first), but it would be so much better if this was only ATV.