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Apple acknowledges AirPlay Mirroring issue with new Mac Pros & MacBook Pros

AirPlay Display

Update: The document originally recommended disabling Bluetooth, but it appears updating to the latest version of OS X is Apple’s recommended fix. Much better.

In a support document issued today, Apple addressed a known issue with AirPlay Mirroring performance freezing or dropping out. MacBook Pro and Mac Pro users with last year’s models may see the issue when using an 802.11 b/g network…

Apple’s solution? Disable Bluetooth. For Mac Pro users, that means breaking out the wired mouse and keyboard as it has no integrated input and turning off Bluetooth means disconnecting the signal from a Magic Mouse and Apple Wireless Keyboard.

Since the issue seems to be constrained to 802.11 b/g networks, upgrading your network base station might be a better solution.

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Comments

  1. Roni Btesh - 10 years ago

    Have the same issue on Mac Mini.

  2. who streams via airplay and uses a b/g network? if you can afford the latest macbook you can afford a new router!!

    • Luis Lopes - 10 years ago

      Sorry but people buy this things hoping things will work as advertised. Its not a subject if people can or not solve the problem. Its Apple`s responsability! Apple has the best costumer service in the world (by their own words) so the only clean way of dealing with this is simple: Solve the problem!

  3. My late 2013 Macbook Pro has been having 802.11 b/g issues in general and not just with Airplay. I noticed through Speedtest.net that my wifi speed was halving with each Bluetooth device I connected. I hope a patch is in the works. I can confirm that turning off Bluetooth or only connecting to 802.11n wifi are workarounds that avoid this issue.

    • Edgar Rios - 10 years ago

      I also have WiFi issues after waking up from sleep on my late 2013 MBPr. It gets quite annoying after a while, hope they acknowledge this soon considering these are $2K+ machines.

    • Oflife - 10 years ago

      Me too on my late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15″. In fact, just today, I was forced to go buy an Ethernet cable and use up one of my two (already used by monitor/LaCie Thunderbolt Time Machine drive) Thunderbolt ports as an Ethernet port to connect to our router. Right away, I was blown away by the speed. Been having WiFi issues for ages, and never realised it was Bluetooth (thought it was something next door interfering!) until I read all these articles. Apple need to sort this, because it’s more and an inconvenience. A colleague says it may be caused by an all-in-one WiFi/Bluetooth chip that Apple may have used to save money. This could be catastrophic if it cannot be sorted by a firmware update.

  4. Rob Smithson - 10 years ago

    ahhhh AirPlay….”it just works”….when it does…which is not a lot, and not consistently.

    • Scott (@ScooterComputer) - 10 years ago

      Sounds like much of Apple’s stuff over the past year…

      • Luis Lopes - 10 years ago

        Something is wrong inside this company. Wether is the leadership, or the working team, products are coming with the same “quality”.

        Back on 2011 i never thought i would go back to Windows and Android. Right now, only OSX seems to be outrunning the competition.

  5. Brett Huhn - 10 years ago

    IM having the same issue with my MacBook Air Mid-2013

  6. The problem I’ve been seeing seems to happen consistently in conference room mode. Basically you get disconnected after a few minutes of inactivity, regardless of screen saver settings, etc..

  7. ikir - 10 years ago

    B/G network? LOOOL and this is news?

  8. oomu (@oomu) - 10 years ago

    it’s not surprising to have issues with at same time wifi B/G and bluetooth.

    and there were no needs to wait Apple to inform us or to even own a mac to know that. Both technos can, at time, makes conflict.


    Airplay mirroring is of course very intensive for wifi G, no need to waste radio frequencies for extra noise with bluetooth.

    BT and Wifi N 5ghz don’t use same frequencies at all, of course it works way better.

  9. Luis Lopes - 10 years ago

    This is the decade of “issues” for apple.

    Issues everywhere. Maps, ios7, Mavericks, Airplay, Mail…. I guess this guys wont stop doing mistakes until the day Apple Stocks reach 400$. What are you doing guys?!?! Replicating success used to be IBM`s way of doing things! :/

  10. Sean Shamus McCabe - 10 years ago

    I have a 2012 Mac Book Pro and the Air Play mirroring was working just fine on Mountain Lion. Once I upgraded to Mavericks the Mirroring didn’t seem to be as smooth as it used to be and extended desktop at the moment is a joke.

  11. How about acknowledging the speaker issue with iPad mini retina???????????

    ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

  12. I have the same issue on my MacBook Pro Mid 2012, my router is an Airport Express and set to 2.5GHz configured on N channel only.

    • NQZ (@surgesoda) - 10 years ago

      Same here…I think the part about it only being limited to A/B/G is totally wrong. I’m on 802.11N exclusively (I’ve disabled all of the other bands on my access points) and the issue still happens when I airplay mirror to my Apple TV.

  13. Paul Nielsen - 10 years ago

    MBPr late 2013 – airplay works perfectly, always to my AppleTV. I’m using a Buffalo 802.11 A network. So using a newer wifi router may be the trick.

  14. NQZ (@surgesoda) - 10 years ago

    This doesn’t sound right…I only use 802.11N and I have the issue…disabling bluetooth DOES help, but I don’t think this is just limited to a/b/g WiFi…..

  15. Kevin Almond - 10 years ago

    I have a 2014 smart tv with wifi (802.11n) and €2500 Mac Pro. I just bought Apple TV for airplay mirroring but it does not work (delayed and very choppy). I had to plug both my Mac and ATV to ethernet for rather smooth mirroring experience. I feel so fooled. I could do Miracast to use my smart tv as mirror or extended display If I had a Windows 8,1 laptop without needing any additional box. Apple pushes us to buy its products by doing dirty vendor-locking. We pay more, get the stuff but it does not work! Moreover, ATV is a boring platform designed solely to sell us digital content. I would never buy it if I could do mirroring with other boxes like Roku 3 since they offer much better value. I will install Windows 8.1 on my Mac Pro and sell ATV. Apple is doing so bad recently and losing its customer base. I would accept being trapped with Apple products, even if I dislike it, as long as they work but that is not the case anymore so it is time to break the chains.

  16. Rebecca Rosier - 10 years ago

    Is there a fix for this yet..?

  17. Martin George Reed - 10 years ago

    I Have 2011 macbook pro, airplay was working fine until the icon went missing after an upgrade i have tried everything to turn it back on, i used to use it to play Sky Go to my Apple tv maybe its an agreement Apple have done with Sky. Airplay works on my ipad and iphone but you cant stream Sky Go from them either

  18. Mary-Jane Jean-Marain - 9 years ago

    ok i work for apple…. i have a mac book pro retina 2014 and my girlfriend has a macbook air 2014 (stereotypical huh) anyhow… steaming youtube to apple tv from my phone, iPad, and macbook retina all works fine….. streaming from hers doesn’t work its all glitchy and shit… i just got it to work….. unplugged the apple tv which was previously connected via ethernet and connected everything to 5ghz network. i turned on the firewall on the macbook air.. don’t know if this made any difference tho.
    desktop is mirrored and matched to built in display.
    After i changed all the setting i restarted everything… except the router.

    works perfectly.

    i think it was NOT running apple tv from the ethernet that helped … which is weird because that would actually create less interference…. if it was interference that was causing the glitches.

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.