AirPlay won't work

rja1966

I have latest iPad & 3rd gen Apple Tv but cannot get AirPlay symbol to appear. Both devices bang up to date with latest software updates and on same network, have even disabled rouert firewall temporarily but issue not resolved. Apple tv plays movie trailers etc fine, iPad works fine also. After much checking of settings I did get it working once, mirroring was working fine, changed nothing since and yet still no symbol to connect again. Any ideas?

Nitouryuu

I have always found with Airplay that some times works and it sometimes doesn't. Whenever i want it to work id doesn't and whenever I'm not bothered for it working it usually works! lol.

Kind of same with Air Sync too.

Nitouryuu

Sometimes i can get it to work by, disconnecting my Mac and all the devices from the internet then resetting the wireless router. Connect all the devices back to the net and sometimes it works.

rja1966

And I thought apple products 'just worked' ! Lol

Gary Hills

If you goto Display Preferences is the "Show Mirroring options when available" tab ticked?

dq50

Had a friend who has similar issue.  He had to upgrade firmware on his DSL router and it worked then.

rja1966

Router software up to date, thanks for the idea though

dairyboy

As people are suggesting its probably something to do with your router. I don't have apple TV so haven't tried airplay, but with my iTunes library 'home sharing' using my old router would sometimes act as you describe. When I got a new router all these issues went away.

Its often hard to tell when your router is playing up. Things seem to operate normally, but 'features' can drop off, like the odd ethernet port, or QOS, or the web-admin pages fail to load/take forever to load.

Do you run QOS on your router? This can often strain the resources of the relatively simple processors in home routers.

I would suggest first trying to turn QOS on/off. Then maybe downgrade your router firmware to an older version. And finally, try another router.

MrMattB

If you have any other wifi hotspots, turn them off. 

Turn the ipad,router and apple tv for a couple of seconds then switch it back on, hopefully that will do the trick.

rja1966

Not sure what QOS is but I'll have a look. Have tried turning all units off, sadly no change.

Onyx25

rja1966 said:

And I thought apple products 'just worked' ! Lol

full of win

dairyboy

rja1966 said:

Not sure what QOS is but I'll have a look. Have tried turning all units off, sadly no change.

QOS stands for "quality of service". It is about certain ip traffic having priority over others. For example it is used to help make sure time sensitive data like VOIP phone/skype calls are not interrupted by someone loading a webpage. The webpage's data is de-prioritized while the skype call is made because it is not as time-sensitive. Sometimes people play with it to optimise their online games for low latency.

Sometimes routers support of this feature is quite half-baked, and buggy. Often the extra overhead created by doing this work actually makes the connection worse, dropping packets etc. If its done properly then it can improve your connection. "Your mileage may vary"

Try logging into your routers web based administration page (usually something like 192.168.0.1 in your address bar), and see if there is a QOS setting you can try.

brytedog2

I don't know what I did but I got it working! I have a Netflix app on my 4s. I had my Apple TV on Netflix at the time I opened the app on my phone; it asked me to sign in to Netflix. Before I signed in, I checked and the symbol came back for AirPlay . Typical troubleshooting right? Maybe Apple should try some of it. Bd

brytedog2

I left a comment earlier. I should mention that the Airplay WAS working over at my girlfriend's place...every time I was there over the past month or so but not at home. Who knows...

Glenn

I had the same problem. In addition I could not get FaceTime or iMessages to work. I changed the DNS settings on my router and everything works perfectly now. I

rja1966

I changed my router a few days ago for the cheap freebie supplied by my ISP (only paid £5.99 p+p) basically to see if it would make any difference & it has, it's brilliant. AirPlay worked first time and so did many of the free media sharing apps that I have downloaded but have never worked. It's faster too (being an 'N') and not one disconnection yet (was getting that 2 or 3 times a day). The Belkin has been demoted to being the spare unit now & I won't touch their products again, plus my faith in apple products has been restored !

trevorkdennis

I know this isn't a great answer, and I really do believe there is a solution to your problem that these fine people can help you figure out. However, if you're not using an Apple router, I recommend it in the future. You may already be using one, and this is just a weird glitch, but I have found that Apple products 'just work' on Apple networks with an incredibly high success rate when compared to other brands of routers. I don't know why this would technically be so, except for the fact that they design all these things to work together, but it is worth mentioning for future reference; you may be in the market for a router again sometime soon, who knows.

rja1966

Yes, thanks Trevor. I do agree that having all Apple products that have been designed to work together is the best way to go. I have already been looking at the AirPort Extreme although they are a little on the expensive side, but probably worth it, annoying though that a separate modem is required, which then begs the question which modem?