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bladerunner5

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 2, 2014
14
5
As the title mentions, I have come across serious audio issues with the TV OS 14.5 update and Apple TV. I am writing so that hopefully some one else doesn't run into the same issue or can fix it for themselves.

I have several ATV4 HD and ATV4 4k's in my house. Yesterday morning I decided to try out 14.5 on one of the ATV HD (2015) that is plugged in to the TV via HDMI (no soundbar or receiver).

Right away I had audio syncing problems where the image and audio were off by a lot and it would get worse as the video progressed as well as the audio crackling and sounding bad from videos I tried streaming from Home Sharing. These were videos that played fine the day before. The audio from other apps such as Netflix and Sling appeared ok - but not with Home Sharing files.

I wound up spending about 8 hours troubleshooting the issue, from changing audio settings on the ATV, on my TV, changing HDMI cables, switching the ATV to another TV, dozens of restarts, rebooting everything including my router, all the way to a reset, and when that did not work I did a full restore - nothing I did worked to fix the problem. In the mean time the same videos worked fine on the ATV's that were not updated and still running 14.4.

I saw it mentioned on some developer board as well as Reddit where the exact same problems were being discussed with 14.5.

I have been using Apple TV's since the first one and this is the worst issue after an update to ever crop up for me. I am not about the mess with my Home Sharing library - I have way to many files to have to edit/change, if that was even a solution.

This morning I had to go out and buy a USB-C cable and do a restore to the previous .ipsw to bring the ATV back to 14.4 - now the audio is back to normal, no audio syncing issues or crackling.

Hopefully Apple is aware of this issue and can fix it otherwise I am stuck on 14.4 for the long haul on all my ATV's.

Please be careful before updating to the lasted TV OS - good luck.
 
Last edited:

Doga

macrumors regular
Dec 15, 2003
152
7
Near Montréal, Canada
ATV 4k with 2 livingroom Homepods here. Same kind of problem - after the 14.5 update, audio doesn't sync. I reset my ATV as well as the Homepods and recalibrated the sync a number of times and the problem is still there. I ain't happy.
 
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Scutt

macrumors member
Jun 5, 2018
60
14
As the title mentions, I have come across serious audio issues with the TV OS 14.5 update and Apple TV. I am writing so that hopefully some one else doesn't run into the same issue or can fix it for themselves.

I have several ATV4 HD and ATV4 4k's in my house. Yesterday morning I decided to try out 14.5 on one of the ATV HD (2015) that is plugged in to the TV via HDMI (no soundbar or receiver).

Right away I had audio syncing problems where the image and audio were off by a lot and it would get worse as the video progressed as well as the audio crackling and sounding bad from videos I tried streaming from Home Sharing. These were videos that played fine the day before. The audio from other apps such as Netflix and Sling appeared ok - but not with Home Sharing files.

I wound up spending about 8 hours troubleshooting the issue, from changing audio settings on the ATV, on my TV, changing HDMI cables, switching the ATV to another TV, dozens of restarts, rebooting everything including my router, all the way to a reset, and when that did not work I did a full restore - nothing I did worked to fix the problem. In the mean time the same videos worked fine on the ATV's that were not updated and still running 14.4.

I saw it mentioned on some developer board as well as Reddit where the exact same problems were being discussed with 14.5.

I have been using Apple TV's since the first one and this is the worst issue after an update to ever crop up for me. I am not about the mess with my Home Sharing library - I have way to many files to have to edit/change, if that was even a solution.

This morning I had to go out and buy a USB-C cable and do a restore to the previous .ipsw to bring the ATV back to 14.4 - now the audio is back to normal, no audio syncing issues or crackling.

Hopefully Apple is aware of this issue and can fix it otherwise I am stuck on 14.4 for the long haul on all my ATV's.

Please be careful before updating to the lasted TV OS - good luck.
I'm having the same issue with home sharing.

Even playing the same film to an iPad or MacBook Pro through home sharing has the same audio issues. The worst thing I have now found is copying the film directly to the MacBook Pro running Big Sur and the audio issue is still present when playing.

My home sharing library is on a Mac Pro running Mojave and when played back on that there is no issues.
 

Gonzbull

macrumors member
Nov 8, 2015
56
22
I’ve had this problem for awhile now. I just pause and unpause playback and it syncs up fine. Still a pain and was hoping for a fix but it happened again today.
 

Atomic~

macrumors newbie
Apr 21, 2021
8
0
Same issue?:

 

dsaponaro

macrumors member
Jul 18, 2002
99
123
Same audio sync issue here as well. After the 14.5 update wireless audio sync no longer works. I had to disable it as it works marginally ”better” with the calibration off. At least with music playback anyway. Audio playback for video is terrible when playing to any additional Airplay speakers wether calibrated or not.

Really quite a shame as pre 14.5 update the audio sync calibtration worked perfectly while playing to any and all of my 7 homepods as well as the home theatre system at the same time. Perfectly in sync with the picture and no echo whatsoever.

On the plus side I do like how the color balance calibration of 14.5 tweaked the picture Though. That being said I’d prefer my audio to be back to where it was before the update.
 
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sfsetse

macrumors newbie
Aug 30, 2020
10
5
Similar issues with 14.5 here. Many movies play with no audio whatsoever. Infuse works great, and interface sounds too. Resetting the ATV and my Denon has not helped. Dug out my Apple TV 4K running tvOS 12.3 that I use when traveling just so I could watch movies.
 

jdblas69

macrumors 6502
Aug 15, 2012
277
151
Same problem with ATV4 and ATV4K. Just home sharing audio sync issues it appears. Starts off ok but after several minutes the audio becomes out of sync. For now running infuse with no issues. Will continue with infuse until next ATV update that hopefully addresses this issue.
 

dsaponaro

macrumors member
Jul 18, 2002
99
123
Just installed the latest beta that was released Today and while I haven’t done any extensive testing I’m happy to report it looks as though it has been fixed. No delay with the audio when playing to multiple Homepods and all speakers/Homepods are in sync without echo when playing music.

Knock wood.
 
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crzdcolombian

macrumors 6502a
Nov 16, 2010
809
161
Reset the Apple TV and still getting the same issue

nothing has audio. Not the tv because ps5 works and all the lg apps work
 

Jeff5263

macrumors newbie
May 19, 2021
5
1
I updated my ATV 4th Gen and my ATV 4K the same day and BOTH have the sync problem with audio from the TV speakers or my receiver. I took my 3rd Gen ATV out of mothballs and swapped out my 4K. That's progress! Apple doesn't care about problems with apps that don't make them money. I wouldn't be shocked if it came out that they created the problem.
 

-Gonzo-

macrumors 65832
Nov 14, 2015
1,504
851
I updated my ATV 4th Gen and my ATV 4K the same day and BOTH have the sync problem with audio from the TV speakers or my receiver. I took my 3rd Gen ATV out of mothballs and swapped out my 4K. That's progress! Apple doesn't care about problems with apps that don't make them money. I wouldn't be shocked if it came out that they created the problem.
Have you run the wiresless audio sync function to see if that fixes it?
I was always led to believe audio sync issues were down to the difference between the audio going straight to the speakers and how long it takes for the TV to process the image on screen which usually the audio would be a little ahead of the image.
Which is why turning off certain tv processing functions or even putting into Game mode speeds it up somewhat.
 

Jeff5263

macrumors newbie
May 19, 2021
5
1
Have you run the wiresless audio sync function to see if that fixes it?
I was always led to believe audio sync issues were down to the difference between the audio going straight to the speakers and how long it takes for the TV to process the image on screen which usually the audio would be a little ahead of the image.
Which is why turning off certain tv processing functions or even putting into Game mode speeds it up somewhat.
I had not run it but I did now and there's no improvement. I think that would make a difference on audio that has a set amount of delay, such as 340ms but this problem starts out with 0ms delay and after 5 minutes there's 2500ms (+/-) delay. If I skip back 10 seconds it resyncs but it eventually just drops all audio altogether, leaving it muted.
 
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Scutt

macrumors member
Jun 5, 2018
60
14
have tried 14.7 beta 1 this morning and again the crackle is still there
 

2REPOU

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2019
152
68
This is frustrating. I rolled back to TVOS13 and it fixes it on my ATV4. The ATV3 and ATV2 have no issues
 
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