Disabling IPv6 fixes Netflix and AirPlay issues on Apple TV

by Jeff Guilfoyle on April 29, 2015


apple-tv-Problem-Netflix-unavailable

I’ve been having a lot of issues lately with Netflix on my Apple TV and other iOS devices from home. On Apple TV, the most common outcome of launching Netflix was the dreaded “Netflix is currently unavailable” screen. It has gotten so bad that my kids keep asking to just watch Netflix on Roku!

Obviously if Netflix was running on Roku and computers, the problem wasn’t with Netflix themselves, and today I decided to break out Wireshark to see exactly what was happening when the Apple TV tried to load Netflix. I’ve written previously about how Apple TV handles ‘applications’, so this was halfway between trying to fix a problem and hopefully learning something new.

I configured port mirroring on my Ethernet switch so I could see traffic heading to and from the Apple TV (I keep my Apple TV’s wired if at all possible, saving wireless bandwidth for other devices). As my Airport Extreme, my Ethernet switch, and Apple TV devices are all in the same cabinet, this was fairly simple to accommodate.

atv1

The first thing I noticed is when I attempted to launch the Netflix app, the Apple TV would immediately do a DNS lookup for a netflix.com hostname, but did nothing from there for basically 50 seconds until the “currently unavailable” screen popped up. Very strange…

After doing some more digging, I discovered that this was NOT actually the case – the Apple TV was just switching to IPv6, which I had filtered out of my Wireshark view. I changed the filter to the MAC of the Apple TV, and could now see that something was happening after the DNS lookup, but that whatever was happening didn’t appear to be working very well. There were duplicate packets, and it appears the SSL connection never really got much past the TCP connection establishment before ending the connection.

atv2

So, now the question was, is this related to IPv6, or is something else broken with Netflix/Apple TV? I disabled IPv6 connection sharing on the Airport Extreme and tried again.

Success!

Netflix quickly loaded as if nothing had ever been wrong. Wireshark showed the difference – SSL connection is successfully negotiated without a problem.

atv3

I haven’t done a capture from the external side of the Airport as of yet to see what the ‘IPv6 Connection Sharing’ was breaking in the SSL stream, but there is obviously a bug somewhere. At this point, I’m content having things work again, and while troubleshooting SSL is a great Friday activity over beers, I think I’ll just binge watch some X-Files instead.

To disable IPv6 on your Airport, launch Airport Utility and go to Edit —> Internet —> Internet Options and uncheck the “Enable IPv6 Connection Sharing” box.

atv4

I have also had intermittent, and frustrating, issues with AirPlay either not connecting, taking a very long time to connect, or not working at all. Since making this change, I have had no AirPlay issues at all.

AirServer

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on TwitterFacebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

  • jayhawkmd

    Thank you so much for this blog!! I have had no end of Netflix issues over the past month and this appears to have fixed them all. All of my apple devices – Macs, Apple TV, and iPhone/iPad would not connect while a Roku I use in my basement consistently kept working. This fix was a godsend.

  • bachyutt .

    Sorry but i am not very good at this. I’m having all the problems you mentioned but I installed airport on my ipad and it says “no airport base stations have been found”.

  • IPv6 Expert

    You have the expertise to do such analises, but telling people to turn off IPv6 is a bad idea. The IPv4 addresses have ended and there is no other alternative other than using IPv6. Turning of IPv6 may cause a lot of problems to users as all their traffic may go to a single point of failure, a CGN in the Internet Service provider. Report the bug to Apple, and if you want turn off IPv6 at your systems, but do not teach people to things that they can’t understand the consequences.

  • jayhawkmd

    To which I reply that in the real world I don’t really care. Apple needs to fix the bug for certain, but in the meantime I want my Netflix to work.

  • BB

    I can’t change the settings for IPv6 in airport utility. The option is greyed out.

  • Frank Lazar

    Who actually has IPV6 at home? Verizon hasn’t implemented it yet.

  • Saleh Abdel Motaal

    Another potential way, you can just use Google’s Public DNS in your connection settings on your Apple TV by setting the DNS manually to 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4… I tried this with my router set to use Google’s Public DNS for both IPv4 and IPv6 and it finally worked. On the iPhone I just removed the IPv6 DNS entry from the connection settings and this way all fixes are local and does not affect other members of the network at all.

  • Amanda

    Thank you! I actually don’t have an airport router so needed a work around. this seems to help so far.

  • Same problem experienced myself with Apple TV & recently now on iPhone 6 with iOS 8 & iOS 9 upgrades. I previously had this problem on Mac & Windows laptops, but it was resolved after removing IPv6 on the client side. The client can’t be disabled on iPhone.

    After many support calls to ATT (my wireline & wireless provider), I discovered that ATT LTE uses IPv4 & everything works fine, ATT UVerse is on IPv6 & everything breaks to certain domains.

    Root cause is that ATT has massive network issues with parts of its IPv6 network, but has no operational tools up discover they are dropping IPv6 traffic. Switching off IPv6 at the UVerse router was the only option to fix it, as ATT refuses to acknowledge they have any issues (as they only check IPv4 network performance tools!!!). Using LTE is basically the same as disabling IPv6, as ATT doesn’t have dual stack working on mobile yet.

    So the quick way to determine if it’s an ISP issue is to disable v6 at your home router. Then you can use v4 only wifi on iOS devices. Now I can stream Netflix in HD again, access Google quickly & have a decent internet experience. My “broken” iPad now works 100%.

    Would be great if we could have speed test tools setup around the net where we could select IPv6.

  • benh

    Thanks for the post, mate. Took me a heckuva lot of troubleshooting my Internet settings before finally stumbling upon your post. I ended up changing my IPv6 settings to Local-Link only and it worked. Never would have thought that the Netflix issues were IPv6 related.

  • QuarterSwede

    I started having an issue where Netflix wouldn’t even load (just got the spinner) and it also wouldn’t update to the latest firmware just saying it couldn’t be downloaded at this time. Turning off IPv6 sharing on my AirPort Extreme ac did the trick immediately. THANK YOU!!

    Note: for the airport iOS app (who needs a Mac?) it’s located at: [your router name] > Edit > Advanced > IPv6 > Share IPv6 Connection (turn off)

  • Jared Houle

    & Today I can confirm that Cox has now integrated to all IPV6 – which as been a major headache for our Airport. Dropping about 5-7 times a day and having to reboot.

    I’m assuming if I check that “IPV6” box off on the airport it won’t work because that’s the only signal transimitted?

  • Frank Lazar

    You’re in a better place to answer that question than I am right now.

  • Greg Yurecsko

    Same issue here with IPV6/Airport Express, Cox was immediately aware of the problem and suggested I contact Apple. The rep said that Apple could disable IPV6 and that my internet should work fine. The CSR mentioned that Apple Engineers were working on a fix. Regardless, I disabled it and it seems to working fine so far.

  • TallBearNC

    Something is wrong with you IPv6 config.

    I have Twc in Charlotte Nc, 350×50 , on an Asus rt-87u

    IPv6 is set to native , DCHP-pd on, I can use stateless or statefull (doesn’t matter), dchpv6 enabled, router advertisement enabled. Full hardware acceleration on; CTF+AF. Firewall for v4 and v6 on.

    Everything gets an IPv6 , all 3 iPhones (6S+)in my house, all 5 iPads (2 Pros, 2 Air2, 1 Air1) all on iOS 9.x. 3 ATVs (2 gen 3, 1 gen 2). All work fine with Netflix and AirPlay even if I shut off v4 and go pure v6 or v4 and v6

    Most Apple mobile devices won’t show an IPv6 address, but if u see an IPv6 dns server in settings, u have a v4 and v6 addresses. iOS 9 defaults to v6 and fall backs to v4

    Only ONLY ihome wifi AirPlay speaker has issues. It will crash when Netflix tries to use it but that’s ONLY after the update to make it fully iPad pro was done. Plus this speaker is IPv4 only.

    I’ve had ZERO AirPlay issues be it from iTunes to ATV or IPad. Or AirPlay from iPhone/iPad to ATV. The ATVs seem to love v6, especially when streaming from the Internet

    So I’m guessing iOS devices may be picky when using a non native v6 router setting. I do know they HATE IPv4 to 6 tunnel or 4in6 or 6in4..they like a REAL native IPv6 connection which any ISPs should be capable of by now. At least in USA/can.

  • Cee Gee

    I started having this issue today. My ISP (Cox) instructed me to call Apple. Their fix? Turn off IPv6…

  • Cee Gee

    I have Cox as well and started having this issue. They told me to call Apple to troubleshoot it and tell them I was a Cox customer. Their fix was to turn off IPv6.

  • Sarah Noyes

    I’m pretty sure I turned mine off, yet somehow I managed to get kicked off the net again. Looks like I’ll have to call Apple after all.

  • TallBearNC

    Turning off IP6 only helps if you are not getting true I P6 addresses from your ISP. if you are not getting a NATIVE IPv6 connection then Netflix has issues or if u set up a private IPv6. Netflix it’s self does use the IP6 protocol, if you have it set up properly, and once it is set up properly Netflix performs 10 times better using IP6 versus ip4 for Internet streaming, streaming from iTunes, or streaming something from an iOS device to the ATV. Granted an Apple TV version two, three, four is required – version one of Apple TV does not support IP6

    I’m talking about a mixed IP4 for an IP6 environment in my house. Every device gets a private IP version for address which has to use NAT translation, and every device also gets a public IP6 address and NO NAT translation is not needed..so you don’t have to configure any special ports or any special port forwarding and uPNP isn’t even needed.

    I’ve also tested Netflix by completely disabling IP for in my home network and only girl I P6. Streaming, airplay, everything works for streaming video on any device – however 60% of the websites out there do not support IP6 and will not work in IP6 only environment period so I highly recommend running both side-by-side period but if you ISP does something funky like six and four, four and six, tunnelling to get IP6… All that stuff will cause massive issues with Netflix and other programs. You must have needed the IP6 support – preferably with DHCP – PD

  • TallBearNC

    Turning off IP6 only helps if you are not getting true I P6 addresses from your ISP. if you are not getting a NATIVE IPv6 connection then Netflix has issues or if u set up a private IPv6. Netflix it’s self does use the IP6 protocol, if you have it set up properly, and once it is set up properly Netflix performs 10 times better using IP6 versus ip4 for Internet streaming, streaming from iTunes, or streaming something from an iOS device to the ATV. Granted an Apple TV version two, three, four is required – version one of Apple TV does not support IP6

    I’m talking about a mixed IP4 for an IP6 environment in my house. Every device gets a private IP version for address which has to use NAT translation, and every device also gets a public IP6 address and NO NAT translation is not needed..so you don’t have to configure any special ports or any special port forwarding and uPNP isn’t even needed.

    I’ve also tested Netflix by completely disabling IP for in my home network and only girl I P6. Streaming, airplay, everything works for streaming video on any device – however 60% of the websites out there do not support IP6 and will not work in IP6 only environment period so I highly recommend running both side-by-side period but if you ISP does something funky like six and four, four and six, tunnelling to get IP6… All that stuff will cause massive issues with Netflix and other programs. You must have needed the IP6 support – preferably with DHCP – PD….

  • TallBearNC

    http://ipv6-test.com

    site to see if your IPv6 is configured properly period you should get at least 18/20. anything les you will have problems with IPV6. 18/20 usually means your browser defaults to IP4 and then falls back to IP6. to get 19/20 your browser needs to default to IP6 and fall back to IP 4 within a few milliseconds

    20 out of 20 is nearly impossible as most ISPs have not set up reverse DNS entries for any of your IP6 addresses, but this is really not needed

  • Danielle

    Well, this seems to have worked for me. After much resetting and restoring to no avail, THIS solved my Netflix problem. Thank you so much!

  • TallBearNC

    Should no longer be a problem with Apple TVs generation two through four as they now run iOS nine or modified version of it. I OS 9 fully supports IPv6 where previous versions may have supported it, the applications may not an IPv6 has caused problems. Apple now requires that all new application submitted to the App store now fully support IP six both on the client side and server-side if it’s a game or app with the server, and if the creator or developers do not have an IP six Internet connection then they must at least support some form of IP 6 to 4 translation process is so an IP six only connection can’t connect to it

    Netflix also fully supports IPv6 now as well. It had several bugs with IP six until recently, and now Netflix fully functions on IP V6 on iPads, iPhones, Apple TVs, PlayStation’s, and Xbox ( providing it’s an Xbox One and PS 4)

    The problem most people have had in the past and some people still may have today is that Sam ISPs will offer connectivity to the IP6 network but they failed to offer an IP6DNS server – normally this would not cause a problem if you rand IP4 an IP6 concurrently…because if you only got an IP6address then the device would only use IPV for

    Also the main problem with IP6 enabled when your ISP does it fully support it or doesn’t support it all is that your router will tell your network that IP6 is enabled, but it will only generate local addresses and iTunes on Apple TV is have had problems with this because they will attempt to use that local Ip6 addy to access the Internet and it has no route to the IP6 Internet

    If you really want IP6 to work flawlessly with Netflix and any other streaming services, the Apple TV downloading and streaming from Apple using IPv6 To Netflix, as well as the Apple TV streaming data from your iTunes computer – be it windows or OSX, you really need to have your router set up properly and your ISP set up properly to handle it and if they don’t there are some steps you can take

    Best possible way is to have need of support for IP6 – no decent I SP should be running ISP to their clients via IP tunnel. 6 into 4. 4 into 6 etc…of those methods maybe is I designed to work, they are not very reliable or stable. you really need a native connection… And on top of having a native connection you really need to have your ISP support DHCP – PD …. This way your ISP hands your router, after it does router advertisement which is something you need to enable as well, and your router prefix and you can use any amount of addresses in the prefix they give you which is usually about 16 million…from Time Warner cable my prefix 2606:a000:121d:405f::/64. And I have one of two choices – either statefull or state less mode. In stateless mode no DHCP server is really needed..with the router advertising the prefix, every device in your network automatically configures itself and generates IP6 address, from the pool, and is not being used on your network… DNS information is typically supplied by the router and use the DNS system of your router itself – Other router brands will supply your clients with the DNS of your ISP ( usually you can always override this ) – with Time Warner I highly suggest not using their DNS servers because they are not IP6 compatible…by 2017, they will be..they will accept IPV6 traffic but will only return and IPV4 address..this only becomes a problem if you are running your IP6 and not IP4 for whatsoever..router is still going to get an IP4 for address no matter what, but some people choose to disable it DHCP server in order to run IP6

    You can also run in state full mode, but this requires that enable DHCPv6n on your router, and if it does not support that, then you must run one yourself under Windows or Linux or OS X, or one of those operating systems in a virtual environment on your computer…in this mode you tell your router exactly what pool of addresses you want used… So if I were to run in that mode I could pick something like start 2606:a000:121d:405f::1000 end:2606:a000:121d:405f::2000… And believe me that is not 1000 IP address…The two ::’s in between the prefix and the very last set of 4 numbers is simply an abbreviation and it means that two more sets of four numbers belong there period so when you say I’m limiting my addresses from:: 1000 to 2000, you’re actually saying you are limiting it to a great deal of IP address a start/stop…. Even if I used ….. 405f::1 to 405f:2, I’d have more IPs than I’d know that to do with

    If IPv6 is set up PROPERLY , as of 2016, it works FLAWLESSLY with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, anything that support IPv6. iOS devices to Apple TV AirPlay or from iTunes or Internet. Same with droid devices

    In summary : IF IPV6 IS CAUSING U ISSUES IN 2016+, EITHER: 1) your isp doesn’t fully support it, they have it configured wrong, 2) u have an older router or older firmware that doesn’t work with it properly, 3) user error. Someone sets up IPv6 wrong….1 is the main issue with 3 almost the same. Rarely is it a router issue as IPv6 is 1000x easier to route as there is NO NAT. all you IP v6 devices are on exposed, open, public ip addresses (which is why your router NEEDS an IPv6 firewall. And it would be separate from the IPv4 one)..no more port forwarding or uPNP needed.

  • Scott Gregory (Scootter224)

    I would really like to try this on my Time Capsule in order to get Netflix working properly. However when I go to the Connection sharing checkbox I find it is greyed out and cannot be disabled. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Previous post:

Next post: