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Apple TV buffers so slow!

tardman91

tardman91

macrumors 65816
Original poster
My Apple TV is so SLOW buffering content, particularly from HBO Go and watching Apple trailers. Netflix is usually pretty good. Are those apps just horrible or what? I can run them from my ipad via AirPlay and they work great, but buffer forever directly through the Apple TV. I have FIOS 50/25 Internet so my connection speed is not the problem. Is there something wrong with my Apple TV, or are certain apps worse than others at streaming from the Apple TV?
 
you need to restart on your AppleTV. Since it always sleeps, it needs a restart now and then to dump and clean the memory
 
Restarting helps, rebooting your router helps, and having a hard wired network helps a lot. But, its probably your internet speed. Who is your provider, what speed do you have, (test it at speedtest.net) and what time are you trying to watch these? Primetime is pretty congested, and netflix scales the playback quality depending on the available bandwidth. As far as I know, trailers and hbo go dont, (or dont do it nearly as well)
 
Direction

Is your modem in a straight line or near straight line to the apple TV?
I changed the location out of my home office, down to walls, mounted
in on top of the door so that it was almost a direct line. My Verizon serviceman suggested it and it changed the strength of the wifi signal so that the buffering was very short.
 
It's an ATV3 and its wireless. I have Verizon FIOS 50/25 Internet. It seems that a reset did the trick. I didn't really think about the fact that it never shuts off and only sleeps. The only time it's ever been reset since I got it for Christmas is the few times its needed to be updated. I'll have to remember to do that once a week or so.
 
tardman91 said:
It's an ATV3 and its wireless. I have Verizon FIOS 50/25 Internet. It seems that a reset did the trick. I didn't really think about the fact that it never shuts off and only sleeps. The only time it's ever been reset since I got it for Christmas is the few times its needed to be updated. I'll have to remember to do that once a week or so.
Click to expand...
I have mine set to never sleep. Have never had that problem. But glad to hear your reset worked.
 
Glad that my answer helped. Same thing happened to me, ran it for 6 months like you without a restart..... did one and was like "hey, that was an easy fix". It also helps with the general snappiness of the OS. I also do a restart about once a week or so.

I think the always sleep thing is from iOS based software combined with flash memory... works like my ipad.



tardman91 said:
It's an ATV3 and its wireless. I have Verizon FIOS 50/25 Internet. It seems that a reset did the trick. I didn't really think about the fact that it never shuts off and only sleeps. The only time it's ever been reset since I got it for Christmas is the few times its needed to be updated. I'll have to remember to do that once a week or so.
Click to expand...
 
GarrettL1979 said:
Why do you have yours set to never sleep?
Click to expand...
Not absolutely sure. 😱

It might have been some initial issue with sleep (in first firmware) that caused me to set it to never sleep. Also, the energy usage is minimal so why not just leave it on and there is no lag in it starting up. I remember having a good reason but can't remember the specifics now. Anyway...it's been working flawlessly and I operate in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode. I'm even slow to adopt the new firmwares unless it really provides something I need. I often wait a few weeks to install it, watching the forums for issues before I do.
 
mic j said:
Not absolutely sure. 😱

It might have been some initial issue with sleep (in first firmware) that caused me to set it to never sleep. Also, the energy usage is minimal so why not just leave it on and there is no lag in it starting up. I remember having a good reason but can't remember the specifics now. Anyway...it's been working flawlessly and I operate in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode. I'm even slow to adopt the new firmwares unless it really provides something I need. I often wait a few weeks to install it, watching the forums for issues before I do.
Click to expand...

Pretty much do the same on my end (well, except for disabling sleep). But yeah, don't fix it if it ain't broke.
 
I was having a problem with slow caching and unplugged and replugged the ethernet cable and things took off like lightning. It appeared that the jack on the ATV was a little sloppy, or the cable was slightly nonstandard, but the problems completely disappeared after that. (Assuming you are using cables)
 
"Restarting helps, rebooting your router helps, and having a hard wired network helps a lot......." correct except for the hard wired - go WIFI with AppleTV always.

Never reset your router just turn it off for a min or so it'll fix 99% of network/wifi speed issues.
 
Netflix is reliable because they have the infrastructure to support video on demand. Apple does not. Buffering, hanging, "iTunes Store is not available" is common. While the device is slick 50% of time it just doesn't work for me -unless I'm using the Netflix app.
 
mic j said:
Not absolutely sure. 😱

It might have been some initial issue with sleep (in first firmware) that caused me to set it to never sleep. Also, the energy usage is minimal so why not just leave it on and there is no lag in it starting up. I remember having a good reason but can't remember the specifics now.
Click to expand...

I also have mine set to never sleep. If I recall correctly, when it went to sleep, it wouldn't release the network connection to my iTunes server. Waking the Apple TVs and browsing my iTunes library again would create a new network connection to iTunes. Fairly soon, the iTunes server would slow down. Rinse, repeat and eventually the iTunes server would stop accepting new connections.
 
BigAudio said:
Primetime is pretty congested, and netflix scales the playback quality depending on the available bandwidth. As far as I know, trailers and hbo go dont, (or dont do it nearly as well)
Click to expand...

HBO GO does also. My :apple:TV drops down to SD sometimes while watching Boardwalk Empire. I also have a 50/20 connection via Ethernet to Ethernet to Power line port. I think my bottle necy is the Ethernet to Power line port, evern though Linksys says it will do up to 200 Mbps.
 
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