It’s annoying. You sit down, open Netflix or a video you shot on your iPhone, hit the AirPlay icon, and... nothing but a black screen and sound. Or maybe you see the thumbnail of the video frozen on your TV while the audio continues to play perfectly through your soundbar. You’ve probably toggled Wi-Fi on and off five times by now. Honestly, when AirPlay only plays audio, it usually isn’t a broken chip or a dead TV. It’s almost always a handshake issue between software protocols or a specific digital rights management (DRM) restriction that’s acting like a gatekeeper.
Apple’s ecosystem is supposed to "just work," but the handoff between a handheld device and a receiver like a Roku, LG WebOS, or even an Apple TV 4K is surprisingly complex.
The DRM Wall and Why Your Screen Stays Black
The most common reason for this headache involves Digital Rights Management. Apps like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video are incredibly picky about how their data is transmitted. They use something called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). If your HDMI cable is old—specifically if it isn’t HDCP 2.2 compliant—the video stream will simply refuse to "hop" from your phone to the TV. The audio travels fine because it’s less protected, but the video stays locked behind a digital wall.
I’ve seen this happen a lot with older "smart" TVs that received an AirPlay 2 update but don't have the hardware guts to handle the latest encryption. If you're trying to play a 4K HDR movie and your cable or port is 1.4, you're going to get sound and a blank screen every single time. It's a security feature, not a bug, though it feels like a bug when you're just trying to watch a movie.
Sometimes, it’s even simpler. You might be trying to AirPlay a video from a browser like Safari or Chrome rather than the dedicated app. Browsers often struggle to pass the video metadata correctly to the AirPlay receiver. If you're on a website trying to stream a "bootleg" or non-native video player, the TV might not recognize the video format at all, falling back to a basic AAC audio stream.
Check Your Network (It’s Not Just About Being "On")
People always say "check your Wi-Fi," which is vague and unhelpful. Here is the specific thing: AirPlay 2 requires a massive amount of bandwidth compared to a Spotify stream. If your iPhone is on the 5GHz band of your router but your Sony TV is stuck on the 2.4GHz band, they might see each other, but the data packet loss will be high enough that the video stream drops out.
The audio stays. Audio is light. Video is heavy.
If your router has "Smart Connect" (where it combines 2.4 and 5GHz into one name), the TV might be hopping between them, causing the video to lag out while the audio buffer keeps things moving. I’ve found that manually assigning your TV to the 5GHz band—or better yet, plugging it in via Ethernet—solves 40% of these "audio only" glitches.
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Also, distance matters. If you're sitting on a couch twenty feet from the router and the TV is another ten feet away, you're asking the signal to travel from the router to the phone, then back to the router, then to the TV. That's a lot of airtime.
Bluetooth Interference Is Real
Here is a weird one: Bluetooth. AirPlay uses Bluetooth for the initial "discovery" (the part where your phone sees the TV in the list), but it uses Wi-Fi for the actual data. Occasionally, the Bluetooth signal interferes with the handoff. I’ve seen cases where turning off Bluetooth on the iPhone after the connection is established actually forces the video to pop up. It sounds like voodoo, but in crowded apartment complexes with sixty different signals flying around, it's a legitimate troubleshooting step.
Software Version Mismatch
We all hate updates. But Apple is notorious for changing how the AirPlay protocol handles "Screen Mirroring" versus "In-App AirPlay."
Screen Mirroring (where your whole phone screen shows up) uses a different compression than when you hit the AirPlay button inside the YouTube app. If your iPhone is running iOS 17 or 18, but your Samsung TV hasn't had a firmware update since 2022, the "handshake" for video might fail. The TV says, "I don't know how to decompress this video stream," so it just plays the audio stream it does understand.
The "Restart Everything" Hierarchy
Don't just turn the TV off with the remote. Most modern TVs go into a "sleep" mode rather than actually shutting down. To truly reset the AirPlay receiver inside the TV:
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- Unplug the TV from the wall.
- Wait 60 full seconds.
- While it's unplugged, restart your iPhone.
- Plug the TV back in.
This forces the TV’s OS (whether it's Tizen, WebOS, or Roku) to reload the AirPlay stack from scratch. It's the "it works" solution for a reason.
Mirroring vs. Streaming: The Subtle Difference
There’s a huge distinction between clicking "Screen Mirroring" in the Control Center and clicking the "AirPlay" icon inside a video player. If you use Screen Mirroring, your phone has to work twice as hard. It’s encoding your entire screen into a video file and sending it. This often leads to the AirPlay only plays audio issue because the phone's processor gets throttled or the app blocks mirroring for copyright reasons.
Always try to use the icon within the app first. If you’re in the Photos app, don't mirror your screen to show a video. Use the "Share" button and select "AirPlay." This tells the TV to go grab the file itself or receive the raw stream, which is much more stable than "capturing" your screen in real-time.
Format Incompatibility and 4K Issues
If you shot a video in "High Efficiency" (HEVC) on your iPhone 15 Pro, and you’re trying to AirPlay it to a 2018-era TV, the TV might literally be unable to decode the video. It sees the file, recognizes the audio track (which is usually a standard AAC or ALAC), but the video frames are a total mystery to the TV's processor.
In your iPhone settings under Camera > Formats, switching to "Most Compatible" can prevent this for future videos, though it doesn't help with the ones you've already shot. For existing videos, sometimes sending them through an app like VLC and then AirPlaying from there can bypass the native player's limitations.
Actionable Steps to Fix AirPlay Now
If you are staring at a black screen right now, do these things in this exact order. Don't skip the "dumb" steps; they are usually the ones that work.
- Check the Input: Ensure your TV isn't expecting a different signal. Some TVs require you to be on the "Home" screen or a specific "AirPlay" input for video to trigger correctly, though this is rare on newer models.
- Toggle Wi-Fi Off and On: On both the TV (if possible) and the iPhone. This clears the DNS cache and forces a new local IP assignment.
- Update the TV Firmware: Go into the settings of your LG, Sony, or Samsung TV. Look for "Software Update." Manufacturers release patches specifically for AirPlay 2 compatibility constantly.
- The HDMI Swap: If you are using an Apple TV box connected to a television, swap the HDMI cable. If the cable doesn't support the bandwidth required for the video's resolution, the TV will "handshake" at an audio-only level to keep the stream alive.
- Check Screen Time Restrictions: Go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. Sometimes, "Content Restrictions" can inadvertently block video broadcasting while leaving audio untouched. It’s a niche fix, but it happens.
- Reset Network Settings: On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. You’ll have to type in your Wi-Fi passwords again, but this kills any lingering "ghost" connections that prevent video handshakes.
If none of that works, the issue is likely a hardware limitation of the receiver. Some cheaper "AirPlay compatible" soundbars or speakers will show up in your video list even though they have no screen. If you accidentally selected your Sonos or Bose speaker instead of the TV, you’ll get great sound and no picture for obvious reasons. Double-check that the name of the device in the AirPlay list has a "TV" icon next to it, not just a speaker icon.