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Apple TV 4K occasionally starting up with wrong audio output

Here's my setup:

Apple TV 4K <-HDMI-> LG C1 TV <-eARC-> Sonos Arc soundbar


I have the Apple TV's default audio output set to "TV speakers" and most of the time this works to send the sound to the soundbar. But, once in a while (I haven't been able to see a pattern) the Apple TV starts up with the audio output set to play by Airplay to one of my other Sonos devices in my house. When this happens it's easy enough to use the Control Center to change the audio output back to the soundbar, and that fixes it for the rest of the viewing session, but its annoying to have to do it. Worse, a few times when this happened the Airplay destination was sent to one of the bedroom sonos speakers (and when there's no sound, the first instinct is to crank the volume up, blasting whoever is sleeping there).

Apple TV 4K, tvOS 15

Posted on Apr 3, 2022 5:41 AM

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Posted on Apr 10, 2022 8:54 AM

I've solved my problem. The issue was that I had a homekit automation set up with one of it's actions being to "resume audio" on one of the sonos (actually ikea symfonisk) speakers. I guess the meaning of "resume audio" is not so straightforward - I had been assuming it was equivalent to pressing the play button on the speaker or in the sonos app, in which case it resumes whatever was playing, whether that be from the sonos library, one of the sonos streaming services or airplay. Instead the homekit "resume audio" seems only to resume airplay streams, and if there is not a paused airplay stream to that speaker then it for some reason changes the apple TV output to airplay to that sonos. Presumably this is related to the fact that the apple TV is my home hub?


Anyway, the intermittent triggering of this automation, combined with the dependency on what was previously being played on the speaker in question, made this tricky to track down. But hopefully I included enough keywords in this answer for anyone in the future having similar problems to find this solution via google.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 10, 2022 8:54 AM in response to lsqb

I've solved my problem. The issue was that I had a homekit automation set up with one of it's actions being to "resume audio" on one of the sonos (actually ikea symfonisk) speakers. I guess the meaning of "resume audio" is not so straightforward - I had been assuming it was equivalent to pressing the play button on the speaker or in the sonos app, in which case it resumes whatever was playing, whether that be from the sonos library, one of the sonos streaming services or airplay. Instead the homekit "resume audio" seems only to resume airplay streams, and if there is not a paused airplay stream to that speaker then it for some reason changes the apple TV output to airplay to that sonos. Presumably this is related to the fact that the apple TV is my home hub?


Anyway, the intermittent triggering of this automation, combined with the dependency on what was previously being played on the speaker in question, made this tricky to track down. But hopefully I included enough keywords in this answer for anyone in the future having similar problems to find this solution via google.

Apr 3, 2022 11:40 AM in response to lsqb

Setting Apple TV to output audio to “TV speakers”, as advised, lets the TV determine the speakers to be used. If the Sonos is not yet powered on, the TV might output to a different speaker set. Verify that the TV is still set to audio passthrough to the Sonos.

Use Control Center on Apple TV to set it back to “TV speakers”, if something else was selected. Selecting the Sonos there would use a wireless connection (AirPlay or Bluetooth) of lesser quality (stereo), instead of the high quality HDMI connection.


Apr 3, 2022 12:23 PM in response to Urquhart1244

Thanks for you reply.


When this problem happens I've checked the TV was still set to output to the Sonos.


Every time this problem came up I've (temporarily) fixed it by using the control center to set Apple TV output back to "TV speakers" instead of the Sonos airplay that was somehow selected each time - the issue is that it doesn't always stay that way forever, and for some reason eventually switches un-commanded to a Sonos speaker via airplay rather than staying on "TV speakers" as intended.

Apr 4, 2022 9:07 AM in response to lsqb

You say this happens "once in a while"... How often do you, or someone else in your household, consciously select alternate (airplay) speakers for the TV to listen to music or whatever?


You see, temporary AirPlay speaker selections will persist after an ATV4K sleep-wake cycle, but not an actual ATV4K reboot. If you or someone "turns off" your home theater system using "power button" on the new Siri Remote, or the TV or Sonos remote, or simply lets the ATV4K sleep after an hour [or whatever] of screen saver activity, the recently-set AirPlay speaker usage will resume.


So, I suspect that these instances are not random AirPlay connections... I've never heard of such a thing, and a few variations of Google searches for unexpected or random AirPlay connections with Apple TV and/or Sonos yield nothing. Perhaps your roommate is messing with you :-) ?


Next time you observe this, try actually restarting the Apple TV (Settings > System > Restart or unplug) and I'll bet you a dollar it starts up with the TV speaker/soundbar selected.

Apr 4, 2022 2:44 PM in response to bgmeek

I'm not sure how often is "once in a while" since I wasn't really tracking it for the first 3 or 4 times, given that it was infrequent I didn't notice the pattern. After I started paying closer attention, I see it happened once today and once yesterday.


I've selected Airplay speakers a couple of times just to play around with that feature when I bought the Apple TV a few weeks ago, but not used it at all since then, because I don't have any actual use case for airplay from the TV. I'm also certain no one else in the house ever uses airplay from the TV on purpose. Although its possible that something they are doing something different from me can trigger the issue - eg, while I always use the Siri remote, my wife sometimes uses the TV remote to turn off the system or change the volume, or uses the iPhone remote app, the kids let it time out and go to sleep, the kids use their bedroom Sonos to listen to their streaming music, sometimes I listen with AirPods Pro... I tried everything I could think of but couldn't replicate the issue other than just by waiting.


I did some google searches also before posting here, and agree that this doesn't seem to be a common problem that anyone else is experiencing.


You're right that I just "turn off" with the power button on the Siri remote, not rebooting the hardware. If it happens again I'll try a reboot and I suspect you're correct that after the reboot it will select the TV audio.


I just updated TvOS to 15.4.1 and rebooted, and so far no recurrence, but its only been a few hours and of course with this kind of intermittent problems it's not clear how long to wait until deciding the problem has gone away.

Apr 10, 2022 12:01 PM in response to lsqb

Thanks for letting us know! Too bad about that behavior when the Apple TV is not involved in the automation at all (apart from its role as hub).


I wonder if Sonos would have the ability as developers to execute a HomeKit “resume” as you expected, or if Apple’s HomeKit automation simply assumes all things media refer to AirPlay operations. Probably the latter, as Apple assumes that “Media Selection” in a Scene only refers to content available in Apple Music (I’ve made a feedback request to open this up to more 3rd-party options).


It might be good to share this with Sonos support and log a feature request to modify their product’s HomeKit behavior if possible given Apple’s SDKs (it would help to defend their market within the Apple ecosystem as more capable successors to HomePod minis are released by Apple :-).

Apple TV 4K occasionally starting up with wrong audio output

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