Very true! I’m in UK now and its my old US account which has mainly all my content.. I wish I could send it to the UK account. The separate profiles makes me nervous in case they don’t like me using US account abroad!
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Questions regarding Apple TV local storage (newbie!)
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Logged into the same Apple ID with home sharing switched on. The iTunes library is attached to an external hard drive. The Apple TV can see all the content but when I click on it, it just gets stuck on the buffering. Other times it can be instant but usually it gets stuck on buffering. I have more or less resigned to it never working for me but I'm open to ideas.
I sometimes wonder if because my iMac is running Big Sur and doesn't play well with the new OS on Apple TV? but then Its been like that when Big sur was the current OS.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Reads like a wifi issue. Have you tried to temporarily eliminate the wifi variable by connecting via ethernet? Not forever- but just to see if it is wifi or something else? I suspect if you tested that one thing, you would quickly discover the issue. There are many millions of AppleTVs out there. If they worked as poorly as you are describing, there would be a massive volume of complaints.
If you try this test and it resolves it, focus your attention on your wifi setup. Aging router? Position of router relative to AppleTV? Too many people eating your wifi bandwidth while you are trying to watch something? Etc.
If ethernet test works well for you, maybe see about routing the connection to make it permanent? Or perhaps update wifi to a mesh network and connect via ethernet to a fast mesh node?
It is not macOS Big Sur. I have some relatives still running Snow Leopard and the latest AppleTV works just fine. They too had some wifi issues though, with no easy way to direct connect with ethernet, so some experiments with ethernet over power lines worked for them. That could be an inexpensive option for you to try too if you need it.
One more thing: AppleTV only gives media a certain amount of time to start streaming. Sometimes that is too fast for the wake speed of a sleeping attached drive. This can yield a message like "This media cannot be played" or similar. The simple solution if that is what you are calling "buffering" is to click menu and then try to play it again. This is basically accumulating the time for the attached drive to wake. When I occasionally see that message even on a true ethernet network connection, that second (immediate) attempt to play works pretty much every time (because my own attached drive is then fully awake and ready to send the stream).
However, if by buffering you mean that it is playing a bit and then stops to stream the next chunk of video to play, that points back to your connection/router/interference/too many people eating bandwidth/etc. A simple Ethernet connection test would verify this guess or rule it out.
If you try this test and it resolves it, focus your attention on your wifi setup. Aging router? Position of router relative to AppleTV? Too many people eating your wifi bandwidth while you are trying to watch something? Etc.
If ethernet test works well for you, maybe see about routing the connection to make it permanent? Or perhaps update wifi to a mesh network and connect via ethernet to a fast mesh node?
It is not macOS Big Sur. I have some relatives still running Snow Leopard and the latest AppleTV works just fine. They too had some wifi issues though, with no easy way to direct connect with ethernet, so some experiments with ethernet over power lines worked for them. That could be an inexpensive option for you to try too if you need it.
One more thing: AppleTV only gives media a certain amount of time to start streaming. Sometimes that is too fast for the wake speed of a sleeping attached drive. This can yield a message like "This media cannot be played" or similar. The simple solution if that is what you are calling "buffering" is to click menu and then try to play it again. This is basically accumulating the time for the attached drive to wake. When I occasionally see that message even on a true ethernet network connection, that second (immediate) attempt to play works pretty much every time (because my own attached drive is then fully awake and ready to send the stream).
However, if by buffering you mean that it is playing a bit and then stops to stream the next chunk of video to play, that points back to your connection/router/interference/too many people eating bandwidth/etc. A simple Ethernet connection test would verify this guess or rule it out.
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That app got me to download a couple of other apps I didn’t even know had free live stream channels.
Most notably discovery+ which gives access to Quest, Quest Red, DMAX, HGTV & Food Network.
Then there’s others such as Mixable via the CBS app.
TalkTV
Yeah very much likely to be Wi-Fi issues by the sound of it. I’ve just had a upgrade to my system so I have the Apple TV on wired but unfortunately I can’t get my iMac wired.
I’ll see if that maybe improves it though. Could any of the 4k hevc videos from my phone be causing the problem as well?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, depending on the format (HEVC can have a variety of compression levels, etc). If you are going from phone to AppleTV via Airplay, that's another variable.
The easy test is to link phone to iMac and import the video (cutting the airplay variable out of the test) and then try to play it on AppleTV from iMac.
The BEST test is to get yourself one or two LONG ethernet cable(s) you can run across the floor from iMac to router to AppleTV to establish a temporary but end to end ethernet connection. Then try playing problematic videos. If they play just fine over ethernet, you KNOW it's the wifi and can work on ways to improve the wifi to make the wireless connection work. Sometimes this is as simple as changing the position of the router or AppleTV, even a few feet.
You can also hybrid it. For example, if you left the long ethernet test cable from iMac to router but then used wifi for router to AppleTV does it work fine? OR, if you went wifi from iMac to router but left the long test cable from router to AppleTV does it work fine? Either would narrow the probable wifi problem down to a particular stretch of space vs. involving all 3 parts.
If you find one of these ethernet tests fully resolves the problem, then you can start working on ways to resolve the wifi version of the same. If there is an essential ethernet connection from one link to the other and there's just no possible way to permanently make that with wifi, look into the ethernet over powerline options:
Depending on how a home is wired, this doesn't always work, but it's easy enough to try and can thoroughly resolve an issue between a device and a router when wifi simply struggles.
Another possibility: if you live in an apartment and have freely shared your wifi password with friends & neighbors living close enough to you to access from their apartments (which can easily happen over periods of time- just one request in one visit for temporary access can lead to permanent taps of your wifi), they may be eating up some of your wifi pie, sometimes without knowing it. There's only so much wifi to go around. Even a few people biting into the wifi might be enough to cause wifi stutters when trying to watch streaming video on AppleTV. If this might be an issue, retest at a very odd hour when it is likely others are asleep OR change your wifi password to basically kick any "freeloaders" off and then retest.
Sometimes a change of wifi channel on the router will fix a problem in an apartment/condo/townhome environment with many competing wifi systems sharing the same space and channel. If you see a number of other wifi systems within your own system's reach in wifi preferences, up to all of them may be trying to use one channel. A different channel may solve your problem. I've visited friends in apartments and it can look like the airport when looking at the wifi list: 10-20 wifi systems within range.
And another: sometimes people gather videos they want to watch from the Internet (sometimes in a "yo ho ho... and a bottle or rum" type of way). These may not be formatted well for AppleTV and will not play at all or will stutter because AppleTV is trying to convert them into a format suitable for AppleTV on the fly. If this is the case, it doesn't matter about ethernet or wifi or potential wifi freeloading: you need a video that is definitely formatted for AppleTV. If you don't have anything purchased from the iTunes Store, purchase ANYTHING and DOWNLOAD it to your iMac (don't stream it from iTunes), drop it in the TV app or iTunes and then attempt to play it on AppleTV. If it plays just fine, videos sourced from other places may be at fault. If so, those need to be converted so that they are a format that AppleTV can handle well.
And lastly: I'm practically convinced that AppleTV and/or key AppleTV apps has some memory leak bug(s) and need a cold restart from time to time. I probably do this roughly monthly with mine... else, I will get some stutters in content I know is formatted for AppleTV. All this takes is unplugging, waiting a minute or two and plugging it back in. If you haven't done that in a long time, you might try that too. The cold restart flushes out all memory so that the whole pool is available for use again. After I do that, whatever was stuttering generally is not stuttering. I suspect many people never cold restart their AppleTVs and- if my guess about the leak is true- bump into some stuttering issues. Since its so easy to try this one, try it.
The easy test is to link phone to iMac and import the video (cutting the airplay variable out of the test) and then try to play it on AppleTV from iMac.
The BEST test is to get yourself one or two LONG ethernet cable(s) you can run across the floor from iMac to router to AppleTV to establish a temporary but end to end ethernet connection. Then try playing problematic videos. If they play just fine over ethernet, you KNOW it's the wifi and can work on ways to improve the wifi to make the wireless connection work. Sometimes this is as simple as changing the position of the router or AppleTV, even a few feet.
You can also hybrid it. For example, if you left the long ethernet test cable from iMac to router but then used wifi for router to AppleTV does it work fine? OR, if you went wifi from iMac to router but left the long test cable from router to AppleTV does it work fine? Either would narrow the probable wifi problem down to a particular stretch of space vs. involving all 3 parts.
If you find one of these ethernet tests fully resolves the problem, then you can start working on ways to resolve the wifi version of the same. If there is an essential ethernet connection from one link to the other and there's just no possible way to permanently make that with wifi, look into the ethernet over powerline options:
- plug an adapter like box into a socket near your router,
- plug a matching box into a socket near your iMac or near your AppleTV,
- plug ethernet cables into each box and your house power lines may be able to also give you a pretty good ethernet connection between each box.
Depending on how a home is wired, this doesn't always work, but it's easy enough to try and can thoroughly resolve an issue between a device and a router when wifi simply struggles.
Another possibility: if you live in an apartment and have freely shared your wifi password with friends & neighbors living close enough to you to access from their apartments (which can easily happen over periods of time- just one request in one visit for temporary access can lead to permanent taps of your wifi), they may be eating up some of your wifi pie, sometimes without knowing it. There's only so much wifi to go around. Even a few people biting into the wifi might be enough to cause wifi stutters when trying to watch streaming video on AppleTV. If this might be an issue, retest at a very odd hour when it is likely others are asleep OR change your wifi password to basically kick any "freeloaders" off and then retest.
Sometimes a change of wifi channel on the router will fix a problem in an apartment/condo/townhome environment with many competing wifi systems sharing the same space and channel. If you see a number of other wifi systems within your own system's reach in wifi preferences, up to all of them may be trying to use one channel. A different channel may solve your problem. I've visited friends in apartments and it can look like the airport when looking at the wifi list: 10-20 wifi systems within range.
And another: sometimes people gather videos they want to watch from the Internet (sometimes in a "yo ho ho... and a bottle or rum" type of way). These may not be formatted well for AppleTV and will not play at all or will stutter because AppleTV is trying to convert them into a format suitable for AppleTV on the fly. If this is the case, it doesn't matter about ethernet or wifi or potential wifi freeloading: you need a video that is definitely formatted for AppleTV. If you don't have anything purchased from the iTunes Store, purchase ANYTHING and DOWNLOAD it to your iMac (don't stream it from iTunes), drop it in the TV app or iTunes and then attempt to play it on AppleTV. If it plays just fine, videos sourced from other places may be at fault. If so, those need to be converted so that they are a format that AppleTV can handle well.
And lastly: I'm practically convinced that AppleTV and/or key AppleTV apps has some memory leak bug(s) and need a cold restart from time to time. I probably do this roughly monthly with mine... else, I will get some stutters in content I know is formatted for AppleTV. All this takes is unplugging, waiting a minute or two and plugging it back in. If you haven't done that in a long time, you might try that too. The cold restart flushes out all memory so that the whole pool is available for use again. After I do that, whatever was stuttering generally is not stuttering. I suspect many people never cold restart their AppleTVs and- if my guess about the leak is true- bump into some stuttering issues. Since its so easy to try this one, try it.
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