Cannot turn on home sharing on 3rd gen Apple TV. It won't accept verification code.

Yup. Similar thing for me. It was set up and working from forever ago. I got a new PC recently, and I wasn't seeing the library on the Apple TV. I transferred everything over to the new PC, set up the firewall with the same exceptions as the old PC, and no matter what, couldn't see the library on the Apple TV. So I decided to try turning home sharing off and back on with the Apple TV, and that's when I hit this error. Apple must have released a software update since I had initially set up the Apple TV to try to implement two factor authentication. They obviously screwed something up, and have no interest in supporting the Apple TV gen3 at this point. Which I get. Everything has an end of life for support. But if that means they just weren't going to add in code at all for two factor, that's fine. But don't add in code that breaks it. Either add in working code for two factor, or leave it out. That's just poor service on their part.

Just tried that, didn't work. It just fails on the PW check. I tried re-entering the PW twice, just in case I had a typo in trying to punch in the 19 digit PW (including hyphens). I didn't try it w/o the hyphens, and admittedly, don't have the patience for Apple's BS to mess with it any more at the moment.

Yeah, I don't get this one at all. You took it in, connected it to the network in the store, and logged into iCloud and the iTunes (you said App Store)? Then when you went home, you went to connect to Home Sharing, and it just connected w/o prompting you to log into Home Sharing? Or you logged into Home Sharing at the Apple Store, and it somehow worked there, and then when you took it home you just left it all logged in? What gets me is, I can log into iTunes and iCloud just fine on my Apple TV. It just fails with the home sharing login. So barring Apple having some garbage code that validates the network you're on (and it treats non-Apple networks as untrusted), it shouldn't make any difference. That, or they have bad coding to where they're using an internal IP for passcode verification on Home Sharing, so that the PW check fails when you're not on Apple's internal network. Which again, would be ****-poor coding and QA on their part.

I mean...if by whatever combination of logging out/in they got you working, cheers. For me personally, the closest Apple Store is 80 miles away. I know I won't be taking the device down there just to get Home Sharing working, if that's the only way to do it. I have other options to stream my content to my TVs w/o all that. My Apple TV is a little more convenient, but not so much so that I'm driving over an hour each way to get it working.

Well, in fairness, home sharing should still let you log in at the store. I agree....it won't work and stream any content, because it's not going to see the home library content. But you're not authenticating to the actual PC at home....you're still authenticating your Apple ID to the Apple servers. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not your PC that's popping the two factor authentication code to your phone.

Everybody else on the thread can log into iTunes and iCloud just fine, too. Barring some horseshit coding on Apple's part, it shouldn't be granting some special authentication token to the device just because you initially logged into those items from within one of their stores. Regardless....for whatever reason it worked for you....enjoy. If that's what it takes to get the device to accept a simple two factor login, then mine will just go in the trash and I'll avoid Apple's devices going forward.

Agree. I tried it this morning, and it just worked. None of the password failures and retyping anything. Turned on home sharing, it went right to the two factor login (since I was otherwise logged into iTunes and iCloud), and it took the code on the first try. Apple must have fixed something on their end.