Playing Music From Mac to Apple TV with Home Sharing Apple TV Shuts Off After 15 Minutes

[jamesmcnee]

Playing Music from my Mac's iTunes (I know "Music" -- the app) library using Home Sharing -- Computers / Music -- everything is fine for about 15 minutes then the ATV shuts off -- turns off, light out, not kicks me out of the song or pops back to the menu.

Doesn't seem to matter what song is playing or what else is going on.

The problem doesn't happen when I am streaming video or listening to Podcasts (which I do all the time for hours at a time).

The problem is new ... nothing has changed in my system or home (except, I guess, for Apple's automatic updates).

My computer is hard wired to my modem. The Apple TV is WiFi -- maybe 5m away without significant construction nor traffic. The WiFi strength is ***** frequency 5 GHz

My Apple TV:

4th gen 1080p 32 GB

tvOS 16.6

Mac Mini:

macOS 12.6.7

Music 1.2.5.7


Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

CEC on? TV shuts itself off after 15 minutes of no video signal? When it shuts off, CEC shuts off the AppleTV? Streaming video and maybe even some vodcast/podcasts may keep the TV on so that it doesn't detect "no video" and thus shuts itself off after 15 minutes? Check the inactivity sleep timer on your television.

 

[jamesmcnee]

Thanks for the suggestion.

It seems the TV stays on. It is the Apple TV box that shuts off. The power light on the unit goes dark. Right up to the power off the Apple TV screen saver is chugging along.

Of course I've rebooted the Apple TV, The whole A/V system, my computer, and my modem.

Strange

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Skip down to "Update": this is a BUG.

Next guess: is this set to 15 minutes?

• AppleTV Settings.
• General.
• Sleep After.

If so, change it to something else and try music play again. Just for an extreme test, you might try "NEVER" and then play music for 20-30 minutes and see what happens.

I just checked my own AppleTV settings and that IS set to 15 minutes for me but I don't recall the auto-shutdown you are describing when playing music from the Computer app. However, it's been a while, as I generally just airplay from Mac to the Receiver to which the AppleTV is connected... so I'm playing music "your way" for the next 20-25 minutes to see if mine will do what yours is doing: Computers app, music playlist with screensaver (and thus TV) on. I'll update this post if mine also sleeps after 15 minutes.

A key difference is I'm using the latest generation AppleTV (Ethernet connected vs. wifi) while you are using a fairly old version of the hardware and wifi. So even if mine doesn't replicate the issue, this isn't a perfect test- mostly just a test of tvOS 16.6 having a potential bug... which could conceptually exist for your AppleTV generation and not the newer generations.

Another guess: Could AppleTV be crashing instead of sleeping? Do you have plenty of free space in that "only" 32GB space or is it near full (of apps)? Perhaps you should get some music playing and then sit down in front of your TV at about 13 minutes and watch what happens. When it quits, does white "on" light go black "off" or is there some blinking signifying a crash and reboot?

Another guess: you reference "whole A/V system" so does the (presumed) Receiver have a sleep option in its menus? You might want to look through that to see if you can find any such setting. An easy test to fully rule in/out a receiver would be to temporarily bypass it: hook AppleTV directly to TV and use the TV speakers for the next 20+ minute music playback test. If that works fine, that would strongly point at something in the Receiver needing tweaked. I'm doubting this one as 15 minutes would be far too short for any default settings on a Receiver. But still, every link in the chain are suspect until ruled out.

Another guess: Anyone else in the house perhaps NOT like your kind of music and using the remote app on their iDevices to turn off your "bad" choice of music?

UPDATE: after exactly 15 minutes my "latest & greatest" AppleTV (with plenty of free storage) shut down (shutting down receiver and TV with it). So you appear to have identified a legit bug that should be reported to Apple.

I'm now trying my own suggestion to see if the Apple "sleep after" setting is driving this. Will update again if changing that dodged the 15-minute shutdown. I've watched LOTS of stuff in other apps on AppleTV as late as this morning without it doing this, so this may be a bug solely associated with the Computers App, music playback. TBD.

UPDATE #2: after changing Apple "sleep after" to (I chose) 5 hours, music playback did not sleep it all after 15 minutes. So it appears at some point, some update to Computers app prioritized "sleep after" over music (only) playback to cause this. While video playback de-prioritizes "Sleep after" to NOT do this, music playback appears to not be set the same way.

The user "fix" is to change the default 15 minutes in "Sleep after" to something longer, up to "never." However, one of the major reasons for "Sleep after" is to help avoid burn in on some kinds of TVs, particularly popular OLED sets. So think carefully about how much time you want to "fix" this problem vs. just automatically going with "never" and potentially causing a "I fell asleep and now there's burn in on my TV screen" scenario. Be sure the screen savers will kick on if you choose a longer time. A key to avoid burn in is to not have the pixels showing the same bright color for extended time, which is easy to do with text or bright color app blocks typical of the UI on screen instead of a screensaver or blank (black) screen.

 

[jamesmcnee]

We Have Liftoff!

Hey Daryl -- thank you so much!

As you suggest somehow my settings were changed to "Sleep After 15 Minutes" but that didn't impact the streaming or the podcasts -- only my music playback.

I've set it to "Never" and made sure the screen saver kicks in after two minutes.

Such an easy solution to an issue that has been driving me nuts for weeks!

Thanks for all your detective work on my behalf.

Best,

James

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Glad I could help.

And I'm about 80% certain that it has not always been this way. Several years ago, I played music "your way" just about every day and never bumped into this. I believe 15 minutes in that setting is the default. So I think that is a relatively new bug: AppleTV appears to be ignoring that music is playing and thus that 15 minute "inactivity" default puts it to sleep.

In the last few years, I've switched to airplaying music direct the attached receiver and not using AppleTV as much for music. So I was quite surprised to see this happening myself.

While the user fix resolves the issue, I do think Apple needs to put things back to how they used to be in respecting that if someone is playing music on AppleTV, it should not go to sleep per that timer. AppleTV is a great music jukebox device (a modern day incarnation of the old CD jukebox hardware with many advantages) and should be just as enjoyable in that mode as it is as a video player.

 

[jamesmcnee]

For sure it didn't used to be that way. For sure I didn't (consciously) change that "sleep after" setting. And for sure it doesn't make sense to sleep Music but not Podcasts or video.

 

[jamesmcnee]

Hey Daryl,

I'm enjoying my music -- thanks to you! -- and did report the bug to Apple.

Showing I'm a glutton for punishment I'm now trying to figure out how the ATV podcast app is slow to refresh feeds. I will make a new post so we don't get confused here. If you have any suggestions ...

Thanks again

 

[dobratzp]

Just experienced this trying to play some Christmas music from the Apple TV box via home sharing. It seems that Apple has killed the Christmas spirit.

We are running the Apple TV 4K 2nd gen (2021) This is definitely a downgrade from the 3rd gen Apple TV.

We use home sharing all the time to watch movies on the Apple TV and it never goes to sleep in the middle of watching a movie. However, when attempting to play back music from home sharing, the screen saver comes on and then the Apple TV box goes to sleep. Looks like the only workaround is to have someone fiddle with the remote at least once every 15 mins to prevent it from going to sleep, or change the sleep timer to 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, or never (depending on how much music you want to listen to). Then when you are done listening to music, change the system sleep setting back to 15 minutes.

The 15 minute sleep timer should really start after the home sharing music is done playing (exactly what it does for movies).

The only way to get your personal music library is through the Computers app through home sharing. If you use the Music app, you can only use parts of it if you subscribe to apple music or only listen to songs you have purchased previously through the iTunes store. I have no idea if the apple TV box also goes to sleep in the middle of a song playback when using the Music app.

 

[bigsnake49]

Yes I have experienced this bug as well, playing music through Computers app on my AppleTV4k. My solution was to play my music through the Music app. Of course then it is streaming it from iCloud which I think is wasteful. I wonder why Apple does not use the Music app for both, letting you select the source (local library or iCloud). Such a common sense solution. The Computers app is really old and needs to be put out to pasture.

I also would like if you're only streaming music to shut of the video so your TV is not wasting 300W projecting album covers. Now I can airplay my library to my soundbar or my amplifier in another room directly so that is my carbon saving method but I would like to do it through the AppleTV.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The Computers app is really old and needs to be put out to pasture.

Hopefully NOT! Computers app lets those with their own content NOT get bombarded with marketing to rent/buy other media, subscriptions, services, etc. Music (& TV) app want to sell, sell, sell. Computers app strips away the overbearing marketing layer and lets those with owned content enjoy their own content.

Computers is the second most used app on the AppleTV in my household (the terrific Channels app is #1). We have a LOT of owned media and do not enjoy trying to get at it through the "library" tab in Music & TV apps... as we don't want all the hassle and promotion.

I used to lean heavily on AppleTV for owned music playback (with TV off). However, the last Receiver I bought has airplay, so I simply choose it as the airplay target from Mac or iDevices and bypass AppleTV for music enjoyment. That also allows a "TV off" solution and no 15-minute sleep nonsense too. Sometimes, the best solution it to cut Apple tech OUT of what you are trying to do. With classic Apple "just works" evolving into "hope it works" in modern Apple (or hope users can find some workaround/hack to make it work as it should), the bypass option can be best option.

However, I know not everyone has a Receiver in play, so hopefully Apple will get around to fixing this bug... which- if they want to support sleep- should notice when music is no longer playing and let the 15 minute auto-sleep counter begin at that point. It seems to be something that only checks for video playback but ignores when a person is using AppleTV as a music jukebox/player. That's too bad because AppleTV was originally billed as "an iPod for your television," so a fundamental of it is a music player.

 

[signde]

I'm glad to have found this thread. Visiting home with multiple Apple TVs on the latest tvOS 17 for the holidays to be told they all quit playing music via the Computers app after about 15 minutes. The end result was screen goes black and music stops without CEC enabled or TV shuts off with CEC enabled.

I first checked the tvOS screen saver timeout which was set to 5 minutes so that was not it. Checked sleep settings on the sharing computer which looked fine. I then thought the Apple TV was crashing, so that's what I was searching for and this thread did not immediately come up.

After reading this thread, set "sleep after" to "never" and now all is well.

This is definitely a regression - this setup had been previously working trouble free for years now.