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New Apple TV 4K Owners Report Siri Remote Connection Issues

I bought a new ATV to replace the previous generation on in our living room and ran into the remote not working problem on our Sonos sound bar. The new remote navigated the ATV just fine, but lost the ability to control the sound. I tried teaching the Sonos, but it refused. I tried teaching the new remote from the old remote in ATV Settings to no avail. The old remote still worked with the volume, but couldn't navigate the new ATV menus.
I found an article online that was the solution for me. Holding the TV button and volume-down button for 5 seconds. If I had to guess, this procedure resets the IR function in the latest remote.
 
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funkyp56 said:
It’s absolutely not a software issue, it’s 100% hardware and has been happening to me since DAY 1 with the latest TV and USB-C remote.
Click to expand...
How would you know it’s not software related? Software issues can happen across multiple OS versions
 
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Happening to me and it’s infuriating. First ATV 4K the remote would lose connection every day and I’d just have to reset it to get it to work again. Then one day the remote just completely didn’t work at all. Dead. Had to use my phone for a few days before my genius appointment.

They swapped out the box and remote and everything was working fine for a couple of days but in the last 2-3 days the box hasn’t been turning on now. There’s no light at all and even my phone’s remote app can’t connect to it. I have to pull the power plug and put it back to get it working again.

Praying Apple fixes this soon. Also have minor audio sync issues but I can’t pinpoint if it’s the TV, the Sonos beam, or the ATV’s fault yet.
 
Not happy with my 4K AppleTV, in addition to remote disconnecting when I do use it, the 4k Dolby Vision doesn't enable like the previous AppleTV using an even better quality HDMI cable and a much shorter distance. I can only get 1080 Dolby Vision and can't even get Dolby Atmos like I was expecting. My 'other' device gets both 4k Dolby Vision and and Dolby Atmos via the same HDMI switch that the AppleTV is connected to.
 
I bought the new Apple TV at launch and this happens to me constantly and it's extremely annoying. I even went to the Apple Store, and they thought I was making it up. The gave me a new remote and the issue still happens, so it's either software issue or something wrong with the Apple TV itself.

It's also extremely annoying if you have other people in the house that are not tech savy, they just expect the remote to work and half of the time it does not.
 
I am one of these people. Monstrously annoying. 16.1 caused rampant WiFi issues which 16.2 fixed, but 16.2 is now causing this.

I love Apple. Like my signature says, I do in fact own an unhealthy amount of Apple products...but man, quality control seems to have gone down considerably in the past year or so.
 
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Bankage said:
I bought a new ATV to replace the previous generation on in our living room and ran into the remote not working problem on our Sonos sound bar. The new remote navigated the ATV just fine, but lost the ability to control the sound. I tried teaching the Sonos, but it refused. I tried teaching the new remote from the old remote in ATV Settings to no avail. The old remote still worked with the volume, but couldn't navigate the new ATV menus.
I found an article online that was the solution for me. Holding the TV button and volume-down button for 5 seconds. If I had to guess, this procedure resets the IR function in the latest remote.
Click to expand...

Had exactly the same issue with the ATV 4K, could be a day or even a few weeks but for no apparent reason the Apple remote will lose the ability to control the TV volume (Philips 50PUS8546) though the remote still works just fine with the Apple TV. Restarting the remote fixes the volume issue immediately everytime.

Apples quality control has absolutely gone to hell in the last few years, especially in the software department.
 
I've had this happen twice on mine. Also, have had multiple instances where the AppleTV would need to be power cycled to come back on. No issues like this with the original 4K units.
 
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mdatwood said:
The old touch AppleTV remote never had to be 'restarted' in the years I used it. The new ATV I recently bought has had to have it restarted twice since buying.
Click to expand...
same, I actually went back to my old 4k, until this gets fixed
 
LazyMonkIE said:
I've had remote connection issues on all the 4k aTv's. Forever seeing the message while watching TV saying "Remote connection lost" and having to click the menu button to restore connection. 3 of them in the house all different versions prior to the silver remote control but all have the same problem dropping the remote connection since I've had them.
Click to expand...
this is more of a problem that a temporary loss of connection fixed by touching the menu button. It actually requires the ATV box to be disconnected from the power so it has a hard restart before the remote connection is restored.
 
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Same problem for me when the ATV was on wifi. Was able to fix it mostly by connecting my ATV via Ethernet. The remote now has a rock solid connection again. Only the remote app crashes from time to time saying that no ATV could be found.
 
Quick fix I have found, rather than power cycling the unit, is to just plug the remote in to charge. So far it’s worked every time, with the remote automatically reconnecting.

Additionally to this frustrating issue, I am also finding the remote battery doesn’t last as long as on my previous gen 4K. May be a dud battery or this connection issue causing excessive battery drain.
 
There was a support thread in German where the op said apple support confirmed it’s a software issue through providing log dumps.
 
I RMA'd my 3rd Gen remote and it's never really worked. Using my phone exclusively now.
 
I upgraded from the HD with the touchpad remote. ATv 4K has been disconnecting constantly with the remote.
 
For Christmas I asked for the new usb-c Apple Remote to pair with my 1st gen 4k Apple TV, it is doing exactly as described with the 1st gen. I thought it was the remote (and probably is) but thought it was isolated to just me and this faulty remote, but seems to be more wide spread.

Only way to fix it is to press the Apple TV button and - volume.
 
I also have issues with the remote from the latest gen ATV. It does disconnect occasionally but the biggest problem is that it appears that the buttons “stick” and the cursor will fly through menus. Annoying.

Another issue is that my Sony DualSense controller is no longer working well, with cars in Asphalt 8 steering by themselves. I’ve gone back to the older model for gaming…
 
The problem is definitely not limited to the USB-C version of the Siri Remote. I bought a 2021 4k Apple TV, with the Lightning port Siri Remote and it's rather frequently losing control of the volume on my receiver, which it controls over infrared rather than HDMI-CEC. Restarting the remote does temporarily solve the problem.
tvOS 16.3 does not update the remote's firmware so I'll be surprised if it has any effect on this.
 
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yanksfan114 said:
Happening to me and it’s infuriating. First ATV 4K the remote would lose connection every day and I’d just have to reset it to get it to work again. Then one day the remote just completely didn’t work at all. Dead. Had to use my phone for a few days before my genius appointment.

They swapped out the box and remote and everything was working fine for a couple of days but in the last 2-3 days the box hasn’t been turning on now. There’s no light at all and even my phone’s remote app can’t connect to it. I have to pull the power plug and put it back to get it working again.

Praying Apple fixes this soon. Also have minor audio sync issues but I can’t pinpoint if it’s the TV, the Sonos beam, or the ATV’s fault yet.
Click to expand...
Very similar to me. Bought two extra remotes, same issue. Been having to use phone to control box.
 
Not sure if this will help those having issues or not but I had similar issues with my ATV4K 1st gen where the remote would become unresponsive and occasionally disconnect.
What I found out was it was caused by interference to the Bluetooth signal while under high bandwidth picture settings being used for the UI which in my case was caused by Chroma 4:4:4.
The fix was to set to 4KSDR with Chroma set to 4:2:0, I’ve never had any issues since and haven’t encountered any issues with the ATV4K 3rd gen either.
I’ve since changed out my HDMI cable and now using 4:4:4 works without issue.
 
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