Apple TV audio pulsating during playback

slampman · October 23, 2026, 7:52pm

I've been having a strange audio issue with the Apple TV client lately. Every once in a while, maybe one out of every five or six times I turn everything on and start watching a recorded show, the audio starts pulsating. The best way I can describe it is that it sounds like somebody is repeatedly pressing the mute button really fast. The audio never completely cuts out, but the volume keeps going up and down.

The strange thing is that force quitting Channels and reopening it fixes the problem every time.

I'm using a Marantz 5.1 sound system, no HomePods or anything like that. I've experienced this on multiple TVs, and Channels is the only Apple TV app that does it. Everything else works fine.

It happened again today, so I submitted diagnostics from the Apple TV immediately after experiencing the issue. Hopefully there's something in the logs that might help track it down.

Just wanted to bring it to the developers' attention and see if anyone else has run into this.
@tmm1 @maddox @eric

tmm1 · October 23, 2026, 8:26pm

What is the audio format on the video files where this happens?

slampman · October 23, 2026, 8:37pm

the latest one was mp4

maddox · October 23, 2026, 9:03pm

That's a container.

If you could provide what Channels DVR Server reports via it's View Details, it would be more helpful.

slampman · October 28, 2026, 9:06pm

This just happened again with a recording from an m3u source. It started playing and right away the audio was garbled. I went out of episode and then clicked play again and it played just fine. Submitted diags from the ATV right after

cstark27 · October 30, 2026, 2:11am

I believe I just experienced what you’re talking about. To me it sounds like when your PC CPU from 2002 is pegged while trying to play Winamp. Can’t upload the video here but here’s media details pics. Also sent logs from the app.

Could get it to stop by restarting the app or pausing the video for a second.

cstark27 · October 31, 2026, 5:40pm

Happened again on this file. Playing from a playlist. Paused the video for a second then resumed and it was fine.

Edit: happened again. Logs sent.