Uh oh: Apple TV purchases and rentals have no sound — what to do

Uh oh: Apple TV purchases and rentals have no sound — what to do

Apple TV, the successor to the iTunes store for movies and TV shows, may have a really nasty problem. Or at least that's what Twitter users are currently reporting.

For example, tweeter @AlouyMartinez posted online that he was renting "F9: The Fast Saga" (a new addition to the video-on-demand service) on his Apple TV, but the sound was not working at all. Music producer @shaunbless also pointed out that "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard" also has no sound and blasted it.

We also tried to replicate this issue on Apple TV/iTunes, and in our tests the sound worked in all applications.

The issue, reported yesterday (August 1) by 9to5Mac, has apparently been occurring since mid-July and affects Apple TV as well as Roku devices. User @Dolla_DP vented about the problem he experienced, noting in his post that "they wonder why we bootleg." User @kb1854 claims that the problem is not muting the movie previews.

The issue is being addressed by Ben Meighan-Carey, who tweeted, "Netflix and Prime video don't play sound either, Apple TV is useless, only YouTube works now."

He claims that if AirPods are connected, audio is on. Apparently, apps such as Youtube and ITV Hub, which do not play audio in the standard Apple way, do not have this problem.

Tom's Guide has reached out to Apple for comment.

There appears to be a workaround, at least on Apple TV devices. Nevertheless, some people may not want to use this answer if they have a fancy audio setup. They may want to try another online retailer, such as Amazon Prime Video.

Meighan-Carey now has sound when the setting is switched to stereo. Directions to that menu are as follows.

Of course, simply downgrading the audio output (perhaps from 5.1 channel) to stereo is not ideal. We speculate that users might want to forgo this all together and rent a movie on another app. Since our devices do not have this issue, we were unable to replicate this fix.

You may just want to go directly through Apple Support for your fix, but 9to5Mac reports that "not everyone is getting a refund" at this time.

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