Just a note on my own setup. I now have three ATV 4Ks, two wired and one wireless. All started out wireless in their current locations. All set to my 5G network. The only time I had an issue was when I was trying to run the wireless ATV and an HDMI wireless extender at the same time. The streaming on both devices basically just stopped dead. As part of my testing I plugged the ATV into ethernet and the HDMI started working. There was no indication on the HDMI extender that it was using anything in that band and no way to change the configuration, it was using what it was using and that was it. Perhaps you have an overlapping device you arenāt aware of.
Thanks @Imageek2 Iām pretty sure I ruled out anything like that being the cause, or a neighbours new WiFi network causing interference by doing the following when the issue first arose:
ATV 4K on 11.2 over WiFi in location A worked perfectly
ATV 4K on 11.3 over WiFi in location A had issues
ATV 4K on 11.2 over WiFi in location B worked perfectly
ATV 4K on 11.3 over WiFi in location B had issues
Any interference or overlapping I would have expected to affect both ATVās but it didnāt which is why this issue is so confusing and frustrating. I should retract my statement in my previous post where I said I canāt see how my WiFi is the problemā¦it quite clearly is but only on ATV 4K with tvOS 11.3 or laterā¦
All that being said I will run further tests tomorrow where I will turn absolutely everything off apart from what is needed to test Channels on one ATV over WiFi to see if that makes a difference and will report back.
The fact that the streaming rate on the HDHR side is fluctuating means that the HDHR thinks the ATV is not receiving data fast enough, and so it stops sending data or has to drop some data randomly. Thatās why it starts stuttering and pixelating during playback, because parts of the video are missing.
Iām curious what kind of wifi router youāre using. Is there just one AP, or some sort mesh/repeater?
It does fluctuate when wired or on iPhone/iPad over wifi and they donāt have issues but no big spikes like when using the ATV on WiFi.
Iām using a mesh set up (BT Whole Home) with 4 APās. Funnily enough I was reading about these last night and there was a firmware update a few days before I first encountered the issues - I found a few reports of WiFi issues with this firmware but still really strange that for me only affects ATV on 11.3+ for Channels/InstaTV (maybe others I havenāt come across). Netflix, Prime Video and iTunes stream 4K perfectly.
Netflix, prime, and iTunes arenāt streaming from a live broadcast. I would only compare them when streaming a recording.
I have now confirmed that whilst my issue may be caused by my WiFi set up it only affects ATV 4K (possibly ATV4 but donāt have one to test) when on tvOS 11.3 or later (which is what I already knew from tests carried out when first encountered but was starting to doubt myselfā¦)
Firstly I factory reset my wifi (mesh type) access points. Set up/turned on only one of them with literally every electrical device turned off except HDHR, router, one ATV 4k and one TV. Still encountered the same issues so certainly no interference coming from inside my home.
A friend had an ATV 4K still on 11.2 which he let me test and sure enough no issues encountered during a 30 min stream. Streaming rate same as quoted in post above (between 3 and 9 Mbps) but no big spikes noticed like on 11.3.
Iāve seen there are a few recent posts where people are saying they are seeing issues that started in the last month or so and so could be 11.3 relatedā¦is there anything that can be done to try and identify the cause?
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I too have an Apple 4k with my Channels DVR server on an iMac with separate HD 500 Gbytes for storage. My Apple TV 4k is connected via wifi to he iMac. I have no pixelation but I do have vey chopped up viewing of recorded material. I erase all of my recordings shortly after recording them and keep the HD empty.
I would recommend plugging the DVR Mac in via Ethernet for best results.
For the last week or more now, the Channels App on all of my Apple TVās just pauses every few minutes. I am running the latests public and beta releases of Channels and tvOS 12.0.
I have five Apple TV 4 and only one is a 4K unit, but the issue is with all models. Only one Apple TV is connected via wifi, all others are connected using Ethernet. None of my other streaming services exhibited any problems streaming, including 4K streams.
My DVR is also on a 1GB Ethernet link and when I watch TV on this same machine via the browser I get not pauses at all.
I also tested the InstaTV app on my 4 K Apple TV with no encoding and it screams perfectly, streamed for more then an hour, plus I was watching another channel via the browser and not a single pause.
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WRT tvOS 12, see:
Sorry, I missed this post and the betas install automatically.
In any case this should be useful feedback to get Channels to work with those new versions. At least now I know why I have this issue and can stop troubleshooting. It is kind of an odd issue, since the InstaTV app does not experience this issue and I never use this app, but I guess I will now until a compatible beta of Channels is available.
Here is some additional feedback, when I start using the Channels app and selected a TV station, instead of playing it starts the current program in pause and I have to click play. Normally a channel play after selecting it.
Do you need me to post a log file?
This was fixed in the latest version. Are you on the latest store release? Lot of people confirmed this as have being fixed.
What is the version number shown on the About tab of the app? And what is the exact tvOS version + build number?
My ATV 4k updated to latest 12.0 version (beta)ā¦although I thought I had auto updates off. Ugh!
What is the version of Channels (beta or production) which works best with this version 12.0 for tvOS. Before posting any problems I would like to ensure that I am using latest suggested Channels version for running on tvOS 12.
If Channels is still in transitionā¦please lmk and I will revert to using another ATV 4 (not 4k), which hasnāt been auto updated.
TIA,
Debbie
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There are no known issues with the latest App Store build of Channels (v3.2) and tvOS 12
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Since I am on the Channels Beta and I update it as updates become available I use the Beta app exclusively.
All my Apple TV apps are updated automatically and the release of Channels is 3.2 and the Beta I use is 6.10.1951.
With 5 Apple TV and different users in my household gathering feedback from all is a challenge. But my testing yesterday does confirm that the public release of Channels does not have those issues. I figured that the Beta release would be slightly ahead of the public release but that does not seem to be the case here?
As itās been suggested in the past, using the beta after an App Store release isnāt a great idea. We donāt keep the betas and releases in sync. We release betas for a certain period to receive feedback until we then release to the App Store. The beta usually ends up behind.