Freezing requiring pulling plug, buffering issues, screensaver stuck

[nickdalzell1]

I've had to reboot my ATV 4K three times this weekend. First it was after finishing an episode of Deep Space Nine, attempted to switch to Farscape, it wouldn't load. just stuck at an infinite loading circle. no error, nothing. just stuck there five minutes before I yanked power and reset it. Worked then.

Tends to get stuck at one screen saver over and over and over until again, yanking plug and rebooting.

Last time it literally froze. Playing a movie, it just stopped. audio kept playing but video frozen. Yanked plug and was able to finish it.

It's NOT an HDMI issue. It's some type of memory leak with tvOS 14 I guess, as it acts up weirdly usually manifesting itself through the screensavers getting stuck, or booting back to home screen seemingly at random. Sometimes a show is working fine, but buffers indefinitely unable to recover, pressing menu or home won't back out of it, or it gets stuck in lowest possible quality until a reboot. I'm also having more app redraws than normal. If I leave my screen showing the purchased movies list, I used to be able to let it go to screensaver mode and if I tapped the remote, it went back to that. Now, it always redraws the app and starts back to the recommended movies, It hardly ever remembers the state of any app anymore. I also randomly lose my login and it makes me sign in again, or 'forgets' I own any movies/TV shows. Rebooting fixes it. checking network does nothing but report nothing wrong, and soft rebooting via the settings can't fix it. Only yanking the plug from the wall and plugging it back in can resolve the issue.

Anyone else having issues like this? I've never had issues before. In fact, until tvOS 14, it was the only streaming box that could play movies without rebuffering all the time.

 

[jz0309]

What streaming app(s) are you using when this happened?
I’m in the latest tvOS and have not any of those issues. I do have issues with Hulu but those have been independent of tvOS versions...

 

[nickdalzell1]

Apple TV app, watching purchased content via iTunes, accessing the music, movie, and TV shows apps, letting it sit idle at the screensaver, waking from screensaver.

The only thing I can think of is an update bug of some sort. I've done nothing else to it. It's needing reboots quite often. Used to let it go months without having to pull the plug, now it's every day or two.

Friday evening, I watched two episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and switched to Farscape and attempted to play an episode (I own both) and it just sat there at the loading screen for five minutes before I gave up and rebooted it. The remote didn't seem to do anything, couldn't back out of it, or restart. It was frozed but the circle animation kept going around.

Saturday, I woke up, turned the TV on, and the screensaver was frozen. no animation, just still image. Remote wouldn't respond. rebooted again.

This morning it was stuck on replaying the same cityscape over and over and over indefinitely, but would go back to the home screen. I attempted to play an episode of Captain Planet (another show I bought) and it was in extremely low quality (think: 144p YouTube). It never improved and then rebuffered but froze, animation stuck.

Later I tried watching Unbroken, a WWII true story. It got mid-way but the audio kept playing but video was frozen. Eventually it booted me to the home screen (an app crash?) and I tried reloading the ATV app and it just got stuck loading the screen. Wouldn't do anything so I pulled the plug, and it worked fine after that.

Not sure if it's another update bug but I occasionally get some error about HDCP 2.x compliance not being compatible with my TV, and I have to twiddle the cables in my TV, and when that fails, I pull the plug and restart and it works. It's NOT my cables (I paid like $50 for them, Monster brand cables)

I'm either going to have to switch to another streaming platform or find some HDCP bypass switch to fix the last issue. it starts with occasionally going blank, then resuming video, then eventually not recovering (staying on black screen) and I turn TV off and on, it shows 'no signal' for a second, then 'incompatible video source' and then 'this content requires HDCP 2.x support, which your TV does not support. Try again with a compatible TV.' or something to that effect. My TV isn't some ancient CRT TV, it's a 2019 4K Vizio Smart TV. It also wasn't cheap. It has Homekit support so I'm not buying it not being compatible.

The error is only resolved by a hard reboot of the ATV 4K. Sometimes by pulling the plug on the TV and resetting that.

 

[jz0309]

if you haven't done it yet, have you tried to reset your ATV and start from scratch?

 

[nickdalzell1]

No, I'm unsure what would happen. I'd have to install all my apps, and re-login to services I've long forgotten the password to. It'd be hell. I'm trying to avoid it if possible. Hoping the next update might fix it.

Worst case scenario, I'll just buy a new ATV and not the 4K version since it doesn't work nearly as well as my non-4K version I got in my bedroom. It's running the same tvOS version yet works fine, and HDCP 2.2 isn't needed in 1080p. Whatever that is it must have been added more recently to my 4K version and has messed tons of stuff up. They're both connected to respective 4K TVs and I don't notice any difference in video quality either way so maybe the non-4K version is better for myself in this case?

 

[jz0309]

No, I'm unsure what would happen. I'd have to install all my apps, and re-login to services I've long forgotten the password to. It'd be hell. I'm trying to avoid it if possible. Hoping the next update might fix it.

Worst case scenario, I'll just buy a new ATV and not the 4K version since it doesn't work nearly as well as my non-4K version I got in my bedroom. It's running the same tvOS version yet works fine, and HDCP 2.2 isn't needed in 1080p. Whatever that is it must have been added more recently to my 4K version and has messed tons of stuff up. They're both connected to respective 4K TVs and I don't notice any difference in video quality either way so maybe the non-4K version is better for myself in this case?

if you're willing to go the route, you'll have to install every app again so maybe you should give the reset a try ...
Sorry, don't have any better ideas ...

 

[HDFan]

It's NOT my cables (I paid like $50 for them, Monster brand cables)

I realize that you don't want to look at cables. The error in post #3 is symptomatic of a cable problem. According to Sound United (Denon, Marantz) 90% of connectivity issues are due to cable problems. Unfortunately the amount that you paid or the brand doesn't mean much.

According to Widescreen Review (a dealer magazine):

"All of this just demonstrates that mandatory HDMI testing is needed. But how do you know your products have passed all these new require-ments? This has become a very important part of the test certification.
Every cable product determined by its gauge, its length, and its material has to be tested individually. This is not an inexpensive process. Companies that do strive for this level of product should be con-gratulated. This is where intellectual theft can cost, but how does the consumer public get protected with this?

The only way this can be accomplished is if each cable product carries an anti-counterfeit mark on the product, so the customer knows it passed all of these test standards."

I looked at the Monster $50 cable. I saw no testing certification.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It worked perfectly fine until the update. IT's only 4K stuff that's doing it, not 1080p. the other issues (re: freezing, screensaver looping only one video, or buffering out of nowhere) aren't cable related.

Cables don't just stop working due to software. rebooting and having it fix the issue is a definite software glitch, not a hardware glitch.

So far it's been working all day but I just re-enabled sleep mode so the ATV turns off when my TV turns off. I used to just leave it on 24/7 like a cable box. We'll see if it helps.

 

[HDFan]

Cables don't just stop working due to software. rebooting and having it fix the issue is a definite software glitch, not a hardware glitch.

Hard to tell. Rebooting resets the software, HDCP transmitters/receivers, and the port connections to the external device among other things. The hardware signals are processed by software into the video that you see. The problem could be at either end, in hardware (such as the handshake) or software.

After years with no problems all of a sudden I got the issues in your post #3. Replacing the HDMI cable fixed the problem. If this were a major problem with the IOS release then we would be seeing hundreds of posts about HDMI being broken. It could be just your specific TV-Apple TV connection is for some reason problematic.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It appears to work fine for a day or so then slowly starts to fade. Starts by going blank in and out, eventually staying black, fiddle with things, reset the receiver/TV and it shows the error. I pull the plug, and reboot, and everything works fine for a few more hours/days. It's obviously running out of RAM, to the point that whatever is doing HDCP handshaking is crashing in the background. That's merely a theory, but makes more sense to me.

This only affects my 4K Apple TV unit. If I leave same unit in 1080p SDR it works fine. Only 4K or upconverted content is having this issue. IIRC, HDCP 2.2 is a 4K exclusive thing.

Still can't explain how a cable could affect say the same screensaver being looped (the same cityscape, or the same earth/space animation) or the way the device literally locks up not responding to the remote, or buffering indefinitely out of nowhere.

 

[2010mini]

Have you tried a hard restart? This will require you to remove the power cable.

 

[nickdalzell1]

That's how I've been 'fixing' all the issues I've got! Pulling the plug and hard-rebooting is the only fix. going into 'settings-->system-->restart' doesn't do a full restart, just a soft boot and it doesn't fix anything. That's if the remote doesn't stop responding and I'm left looking at a frozen screen, which is about 90% the time, either a loading screen that sits there loading indefinitely, or a completely frozen screen saver, or it refuses to respond to the remote or any remote I paired to the thing.

Before it dies completely, it starts getting glitchy, sometimes loads series or movies up slower than normal, (take like 5 minutes) or I'm always in extremely low quality, or screensavers start looping the same video over and over. Or apps boot back to home screen or redraw constantly.

 

[HDFan]

Still can't explain how a cable could affect say the same screensaver being looped (the same cityscape, or the same earth/space animation) or the way the device literally locks up not responding to the remote, or buffering indefinitely out of nowhere.

It may be that you are having multiple issues, with different causes, which makes troubleshooting that much harder. First get the issue in your post #3 fixed, since you can't diagnose the other issues if you can't see the screen. Once you have a stabilized display then start looking at the other issues.

It's obviously running out of RAM,

Never read a single report of the Apple TV running out of RAM.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It's been working fine so far since Monday evening. I've put it through its paces and all, in 4K and in other modes including HDR. The only change I've made is having it go to sleep when I turn my TV off and have it set to auto sleep after 5 hours. I am not sure why but apparently leaving it on (it wasn't getting hot or anything) was causing a multitude of issues. I was leaving it on 24/7, like a cable box. I also re-enabled 'control TVs and Recievers' in Settings. I was able to watch a full episode of The Morning Show also without blanking or buffering.