Apple TV regularly stalls playback and then all videos are unavailable

[Paulo281]

I have a new 2023 Samsung Smart TV and the pre-installed Apple TV sometimes stop playback of programmes.  Often this is just after the intro, or partway through the episode. After that no other Apple TV streams will play, just an error "video unavailable, or video not playable try again".    Bandwidth is fine, and no other stream app on Samsung TV is a problem. All apps and OS are upto date. 

The sort term fix is to reset Smarthub and then create the Samsung log in again and then set up your Apple TV login and Amazon Prime etc.   Once reset is complete the troublesome clips will play as expected.   This has happened 5 or 6 times in a month so clearly something triggers Smarthub to suddenly refuse to play the Apple streams.

Does anyone have a long term fix?

Samsung customer phone help won't acknowledge the problem (even though it is widely reported since 2023) and they will just blame bandwidth.

[Robin999]

Hi,and welcome to the community

As this concerns a 3rd party app, it may be worth posting to the Apple forums in case they can help too.

[Paulo281]

I have reported it and there are similar reports going back years.  If the fix is to reset Smarthub then it is a Samsung issue with their specific implementation of Apple TV.  It is not a problem on Apple TV standalone devices or on LG TVs. 

i expect Samsung to at least acknowledge the bug in Tizen. 

[Robin999]

Are you running TV's latest firmware release?

[Paulo281]

Yes. You can not proceed with samsung diagnostics without being upgraded. 

i suspect a Tizen auto update is to blame, but only Samsung could troubleshoot that. 

[Robin999]

Agreed. Have you fed this issue back to Samsung R&D team?

[Paulo281]

I only got as far as first line tech support. She was uniformed, suggested it was my internet connection and was very unhelpful.  She put the phone down on me when she was lost for credible suggestions.  So I am regretting choosing Samsung products for the first time. 

[Paulo281]

I am in UK, I deleted the iOS Samsung app as it is 99% not wanted functions that "smart control of your life", and it was a pain when all I wanted to enable was voice control (and failed).  I have already used the channel to Tech support and was thwarted.

Frankly if this bug is as old as 3 years and widely reported then it does not say much when tech support are so ignorant of the issue. The "please re-install everything" approach to widely reported bugs is the sign of a company that doesn't really have a handle on their products despite diagnostics data that must tell them the Smarthub is restarted an abnormal number of times.

[Robin999]

Hey. Don't know if you've seen this or even if it was you who posted to it

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254805698#259797727022

I see even some Apple users are saying it's bandwidth?

[Paulo281]

The only people blaming bandwidth are people who aren't Samsung TV owners. It is not bandwidth. If it was then all other apps would stall, and clips that failed one night would resume playing the next night when the bandwidth recovered.  Indeed buffering would occur frequently - and it doesn't.  No, this bug is a freeze failure that then afflicts all Apple streams without warning until the TV is reset.  

Indeed if it was bandwidth then it would occur on standalone AppleTV box, or on my LG Smart TV with Apple app.  It doesn't.  The only common factor is the Tizen OS

I would hazard a guess it is frequent updates to the Tizen OS that then screws playback compatibility - maybe even a Crowdstrike style app running in the background and incompatible with the codecs used by Apple.  A system reset would disable such "protections" until an overnight update.   The only people who would know will be Samsung