Infinite loop of reseting after factory restore?

Unfortunately, neither NullMind's nor crhendo1's solutions worked for me.

For NullMind's instructions, as soon as I connect the Ethernet cable, even with the wireless network disabled and no other devices connected to the network, I get the endless loop.

For crhendo1's instructions, the problem is that when you unplug the Ethernet cable, you can't configure the IP Ethernet network settings -- only the wireless network settings. So when I connect the Ethernet cable, I'm back to DHCP. But eventually, after many restarts, one "took" and I was able to set up Ethernet to use a manually-assigned IP address.

What eventually did work for me was...well, I'm not sure 😉 My main Mac was indeed connected to the router at the time, although I had the wireless network disabled, so that was the only thing connected.

I'm glad you got it working.

The reason I suggested that you turn off your wireless network was to stop the ATV from finding any network. If that happens then you will be able to enter a manual IP address and plug the cable back in. Also, I'm a Vista guy, but I believe you should have closed that Mac down before you started.

Still, it's working so who cares? 🙂

I turned my apple TV (which is running 2.0) (Original Apple TV) today for the first time since the iTunes 9.0 update and I have that exact loop you show in the video except mine is showing the menu screen - apple - menu screen - apple

This also caused my iTunes window on my mac not to display the Apple TV (which it was right after the 9.0 upgrade) so I turned on my powerbook and same thing...

Very frustrating to watch it just loop like that.

Message was edited by: VWgal

... and now it's the same loop as the video - if I watch on my mac end - it appeared once on the left side panel of my itunes and now I am just trapped.

Apple - new sync numbers - Apple - new different sync numbers - Apple

Again again and again. It's official I am caught in the loop!

Hi all,

After trying a few of these the simplest way is to just (I am an Airport Extreme/Time Capsule owner) input the static IP normally served by the DHCP function of the APX. I chose IP 10.0.1.50, Sub255.255.250 - Router10.0.1.1 as an example. You do need to unplug the cable before you input the static IP, and then during the input IMPORTANT plug the cable back in. Once you do so go directly to the update software function ONLY. Unplugging Macs, iTunes and all that is not required (at least for me it wasn't) My best guess is that the number of firmware updates to the APX/Time Capsule and/or firmware upgrade to the ATV has caused this issue with DHCP.

iCrescendo, thanks for your feedback.

Some questions, are you a Mac user or a windows user? Do you have any Windows PC's running ANY Apple products in your network? I ask this because, with the help of a network sniffer, I see "odd" traffic (for me at least) coming out of any Windows PC with any Apple products installed (even boring old Apple Update!). I have tried your method on my network and it didn't appear to work.

I know I should drop this because it is a classic time waster AND I do have a solution for my own needs BUT I remain interested. Pathetic isn't it 🙂

I'm experiencing this as well and Network connection problems error -3 and error -6. I did the Apple TV a good smack and for a while it settled down and I was able to sync it to my mac but then when I tried to update the OS, it failed to do so because it could not see the internet!! This all happened after the new iTunes update and QT update.

Is there some trick to getting the static IP input before the reboots occur again? You HAVE to have the Ethernet cable plugged in, in order to get to the Ethernet IP Configuration page on the Apple TV. But, if the cable IS plugged in, I can't even get past "Configure Ethernet..." before the reboots start. We're talking milliseconds here!

Am I missing something? The Apple TV is just so fast to reset itself, I can't get to the point where I can configure it. So, effectively, my Apple TV is bricked now, since it's useless. This is a bad, bad bug. Is there any way to replace the load on the restore partition, so that it installs a 2.x load at factory restore? That seems to be the root cause here -- an old load in the restore partition.

So frustrating, as I've spent several hours messing with this now. All I wanted to do was watch something. Ugh.

sharp-man,

Have you tried pulling the ethernet cable out when the loop starts. The instant you remove the cable it should stop looping and allow you to get to the page that allows you to enter the IP. Are all the other PC's in your network disconnected or closed down?

Everybody's issue seems to be slightly different. Hopefully we will find a generic solution.

Yes, I have tried pulling the Ethernet cable out when the loop starts; however, this removes the IP address configuration option (for a wired connection). All that is left is the wireless configuration and TCP/IP configuration (for wireless). I can sometimes get into the wired IP configuration before I pull the plug (maybe once in 5 tries). I can run through the configuration screens; however, when I plug the Ethernet cable back in after configuration, it just starts the loop again. This even happens when I finish the IP configuration and click Done first.

All PCs and Macs are turned off while attempting this. I finally gave up tonight; this is just frustrating and a very bad oversight on the part of Apple. This should have been in their regression testing schedule before releasing the latest 2.x loads.

I think my next step will be trying to go down the ATV hacking route, to see if they have an answer to restoring the restore partition with a later load on a USB stick or something. I don't see any other option at this point, since I can't connect to the network to update the Apple TV.

Same issue for me, i use the Time Capsule and have tried to enter iCrescendo's settings but not effect, and if i plug the network cable back in while entering them as he says it just starts the loop again.
Interestingly, the reason why I was trying to reset my Apple TV was because it could no longer see the internet to get iTunes store information.
I can connect to my wifi networks if my mac isnt connected, but it wont see the internet to get the update still.

I tried all the solutions discussed in this thread but nothing worked.

It dawned on me to share my internet connection from my macbook to the AppleTV via ethernet. I'm happy to report this worked and I was able to update to 2.4 and the issue has gone and my AppleTV is hooked back up to my time capsule.

Hopefully this will work for others.

Hi, got mine working again.
Yanked the wire out the back, then put it back in again. Then very quickly dashed to the update button before it got in a loop and hit update, once in the update mode it doesnt seem to get in the loop!

PS Rang Apple support about this, apparently you lot on the boards cant be trusted and there is no fault with Apple TV's it was just mine!

I think we all agree now that the "ATV Loop" is some sort of Network problem. The thing that confuses me, however, is why can I run through my process (as mentioned above) and fix the problem and yet many of you can't. Well, I have another theory. I now believe that Apple is using another port on our routers whenever iTunes 9 (or any other background process like Bonjour etc)loads and this is confusing the ATV. To this end I would like to change my instructions to those of you who still can't make it work and I would be keen if one of you could give it a try. I have tried this on my cousins's ATV and it seems to do the trick.

1. You need to close down (or disconnect from the router) every device on your network. The only thing that should now be connected to the router (via an ethernet cable)is the affected ATV which is in a factory reset state (ie no IP has been allocated) and is turned off.
2. Switch off wireless on your router (or access point).
3. Turn off your router at the power supply, wait a few seconds and then turn it on again.
4. Before you start the ATV determine which address range on your router is NOT used by DHCP and write down one of those addresses to be used later.
5. Start the ATV (with the router still in DHCP mode) and let the ATV run all the way through to the main menu (ie bypass the "paring screen" buy pushing the menu key.
6. For some networks (inluding mine) that I have tested on, the loop does not happen any more and it is just a matter of making your way to the software update page and apply the update
7. For all of you others out there, when the loop starts, pull the network plug out of the back of the ATV. After a few more loops, the looping should stop. At this point go to the network screen, select the DHCP mode (which is under the Configure Wireless option) and change it to manual. Enter in the IP address you wrote down above, the subnet mask (usually 255.255.255.0), the router address and the DNS address (which is usually the router address).
8. Plug the network cable back in and HOPEFULLY the looping won't start again so you can update the software for the ATV.

If it does start looping then I really have no idea why and simply can't afford to put any more time into it.

I wish you all luck AND I hope Apple does something about this sooner rather than later.