14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s newly-released OS X 10.9.2 continues to wreak havoc for a small number of users. This time around, customers are taking to the Apple Support Communities forum to report issues with AirPlay mirroring.
It was recently reported that the 10.9.2 update, despite being designed to address issues with Mail.app, actually causes the app to crash when used with Gmail accounts. There are some workarounds, but nothing too satisfactory. It seems the ball is still in Apple’s court.
A second problem is now being reported on Apple Support Communities, the official forum for all matters related to Macs, iPhones, iPads, iOS and OS X, and everything in between.
A thread titled “Airplay mirroring broke in 10.9.2” starts with user casein2006 reporting, “I just updated to 10.9.2 and now when i try and airplay mirror to my Apple TV, it sends the audio but just shows a black screen and i can't drag anything to it. It doesn't show any of the options for external displays in the displays section of System Preferences.”
One user replied, “I have the same problem too, but can't get AirParrot working. It freezes after a few seconds...” Another then chimed in to report an identical scenario and went on to recommend a workaround.
“I have the same problem, to fix it I'm using AirParrot temporary until Airplay recover. It is shareware (about $8) but it works great,” this person said.
While others continued to confirm the widespread nature of the flaw, thread starter casein2006 came back with an update. After having spoken with a “senior adviser” at Apple’s tech support, he allegedly “ended up doing a full reinstall fresh from Mavericks and testing airplay mirroring (worked) then went up to 10.9.2 and tested it (worked).”
He clarifies that none of his data was on the computer at the time he was able to get AirPlay back up and running on his 10.9.2 installation. However, as soon as he migrated his data back from a Time Machine backup, “boom, not working again,” he writes.
User casein2006 concludes that the issue might have something to do with his data, but this is pure speculation on his behalf. It could also have something to do with Time Machine backups.
AppleInsider went the extra mile to try and reproduce the issue with a mid-2011 MacBook Air and third-generation Apple TV running OS X 10.9.2 and Apple TV Software Update 6.0.2, respectively.
“We experienced scaling issues on both the Mac and Apple TV, low frame rates, sporadic mouse freezing and video failures,” the site says.
Then, after performing a new test using newer hardware – a late-2013 MacBook Pro and third-generation Apple TV – the site found that all AirPlay functions worked fine, thus suggesting that the issue may be inherent to older hardware.