Q: Apple TV keeps crashing NON-STOP!!!

I have an ATV2 with a similar problem: the Netflix app frequently crashes while streaming video. As reported by others here, the stream will often stutter a few seconds before the app crashes and the white LED on the ATV starts flashing.   I don't have Hulu, so have no experience with that app. Our primary use of the ATV is watching Netflix content, and the occasional ITMS movie rental.

My ATV2 is connected using ethernet (wired) to a GigE switch, and thence to a 60 Mbps fiber circuit. It has iOS 6.2.1 firmware. TV resolution is set to 720p @ 60Hz.

I've read through the 5 pages of postings on this thread, and found reports of similar problem with Netflix/Hulu elsewhere. From what I've read, I suspect the issue is that the ATV2 is running out of RAM, and crashing due to buffer overflow or some other side effect of memory exhaust. This hypothesis is consistent with various 'fixes' described on this thread:

• Momosi and others reported that reducing the Netflix bitrate from High to Medium mitigates the issue.  With reduced incoming bit rate, the ATV won't need as much RAM to store frames of digitized video prior to decoding. The lower bitrate will thus reduce memory pressure.
• Someone indicated that cycling the power before streaming fixed the problem, at least for a while. When the ATV does a cold-reboot (as opposed to a Restart) various caches in RAM are cleared. So it would boot up with more free RAM, available to be used by the Netflix app. 
• Someone reported that they changed the screensaver, and that seemed to help.  It's plausible that some of the fancy screensavers consume more RAM.
• Someone reported that they swapped the ATV2 with a used ATV3. All else stayed the same (network connection, Netflix settings, etc).  The frequent Netflix crashes stopped.  The ATV3 has 512 MB of RAM, vs 256 MB in ATV2. If there's a bug in memory management code (in the Netflix app and/or the 6.2.1 firmware), it's logical that the larger memory in the ATV3 would alleviate the spontaneous crashes of Netflix and Hulu apps.

Prior to finding this thread, I had tried all the usual fixes (restart, restore, etc) to no avail. It then occurred to me that my Netflix issues started a few months ago. That's about the time that my brother shared a couple of Photo albums with me (via iCloud Photo Sharing) and placed over 600 old family photos in the shared albums. My ATV2 has iCloud Photo Sharing enabled so the family photos can be viewed on our HDTV.  I don't understand how Apple manages the photo sharing data, but it's clear that shared photos get downloaded on demand and are cached in the ATV2's RAM. Similarly, new photos in My Photo Stream get magically synced to the ATV2, no doubt consuming RAM. 

That led to my 'fix' for the problem. I logged out of my iCloud account on the ATV, which disabled the photo sharing features. Since doing so, the Netflix app has been stable. No more crashes. I surmise that by disabling photo sharing, any RAM used to cache shared and photostream photos was freed up, thus leaving more RAM for Netflix buffering.

Same exact issue with the AppleTV2. I can't tell if it's the streaming companies issue with not updating their software to be compatible or if it's Apple's fault for making a **** product that can't handle software updates. Or planned obsolescence?

@valli,

Which version of ATV?  2nd-gen? 3rd-gen? Siri-Gen?

Since logging out of iCloud on my ATV2 (which deleted all the shared photos that had been synced), my Netflix viewing experience has been crash-free. I suspect the Netflix app is running out of RAM. As suggested by momosi, try reducing your Netflix bandwidth setting from High (or Auto) to Medium, and see if that helps.

Hello vallifromhamilton,

If you have the latest ATV 4th generation, be sure you have the latest tvOS 9.2.1, and that the Netflix app is updated. Remember, the iOS app is not the same as the tvOS app. Force quitting the app from time to time may help. You might also check the Netflix forums for Apple TV issues.

When you say ATV automatically resets, do you mean the screen goes blank and the light flashes while it reloads the software, or do you mean it returns to the home screen?

After reading the post about ram further above, I started looking for things in my settings and I saw that I was logged into icloud even though I don't use it. I logged out and changed my screensaver from using flickr photos to just a generic one. So far I've watched 1 and a half shows on Netflix and not a flicker of a problem. So I suspect that it WAS a problem with ram. I am grateful for this forum and I posted earlier today and with the suggestions found here I think I have fixed it. So thank you! :-)

Thank you for your response Diana but I believe I may have fixed it. Like a couple of posters suggested I looked for things that may be eating up RAM and saw that I was logged into icloud. I logged out and changed my screen saver to a simpler one and so far so good. I'll give it a couple of days before I decide it's really fixed though. Thanks for your help! :-)

@valli,

Glad hear that your Netflix is working better.  Could you let us know (a) which model of ATV you have (2nd-gen, 3rd-gen) and (b) what bandwidth setting your Netflix account is using (auto, medium, high...).    Evidence suggests that the Netflix & Hulu crashes are correlated with reduced memory in the ATV2 (256 MB) and higher bitrate used by Netflix HD.  Since there's no way to examine memory utilization in real-time, we have to guess what's going on inside.

Thanks.

We have owned and used Apple TV since the first generation was introduced. We have two generation 3's and one generation 4.

We have to restart all of our Apple TV devices first then choose what we want to watch otherwise Apple TV does not respond.

Netflix and Hulu work fine on our IPads and computers. Everything works fine on the mobile devices.

We have 60 download and 15 upload. We have the latest firmware and software on all of the units.

We have unplugged, restarted, Apple TV and we have unplugged and restarted our router as well.

We even changed providers and upgraded because the situation was so bad.

We finally purchased Roku three months ago for programming that at the time wasn't on Apple TV.

It works flawlessly and we have become more and more dependent on it because it just works and it works all of the time. Even Hulu and Netflix work flawlessly as does Amazon.

Of course this is on the same system as Apple TV with the same internet connection.

I am a big fan of Apple since I am a photographer and very reliant on Apple. I have quite a few computers, iPads, and phones and have never experienced anything close to the problems we have every day with Apple TV.

Are you using a photos screensaver on the ATV 3s? If so, you might try switching to one of the defaults.

Do you leave several apps running on the ATV 4? Could you try force quitting them and just starting the ones you want to use?

Where and what has apple been doing since October 2015, thats how far back this forum goes and still no answer.  I’ve got [4 app. tv 3] and the remotes of 2 of them have a worn out right click button from the endless fast forwarding I constantly have to do.  Come on Apple, wake up and fix it PLEASE⁉️

Hi, you can send your wakeup message to Apple here https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html. They won't hear you on this forum. If you have a problem, you could try some of the suggestions in this thread. If none of them work, you could describe the problem specifically and see if anyone can help you.

Yup logging out of iCloud photo stream worked!

Same issue here with a ATV2 can hardly watch anything on Netflix because it constantly crashes, very frustrating just about to cancel my Netflix. don't think I'm logged in to Icloud but will check that

I have had this issue with various apps--namely Showtime, Netflix, and Hulu primarily.  For the most part, a system restart fixes it. I know you have tried that though.

General troubleshooting that has worked for me.

• Check for updates
• Reboot system
• Unplug
• Change network
• In extreme cases I have deleted and reloaded the app

I believe it is the app developer and not AppleTV that has the issue--so when something breaks, I assume the developers haven't caught up with a system update or something. Sometimes you can get insight looking on the company's support boards, i.e. Showtime, etc.