Apple TV screensaver tvOS13

You first have to create this type of screen saver, by making a photo selection. Photo Library Screen saver requires photos in your iCloud Photos library.

Go into you Photos app on Apple TV, select an iCloud Photos album, then click Set as Screen saver.

Then the screen saver will know what to show, when called upon.

Note that for very large albums, the screen saver selection will be a subset.

Note that the screen saver consists of cached copies (thus no live updates of additions/edits).

Hi to ALL those Suffering the Same Symptoms!

Here is what I did and it definitely Works for Me -- tested it over by selecting a new Album and its Worked for two days no problems 🙏🏻

1. Although my Apple TV Gen 4 has "Automatic Updates ON" I found that it simply Will Not do This. I have the first Gen 4 and was told that it sometimes has a glitch SO Here Goes REALLY HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE get their Photos back!

1. Went to Settings and Update Software -- selected and let it do its thing --- Version 13.3.1 latest at of today. Sat Feb 01.
2. Pulled both connections out of the back of the Apple TV -- then reconnected them. [I know you can go to Restart in the Settings but I find it works for me to just pull the USB and Power Connections out]
3. TV started up as normal after connecting to Wireless Signal.
4. Went to my iMac
5. Settings and Sharing Folder [Blue and Yellow]
6. EVEN though Home Sharing was all blue and ticked I unselected it and reselected it.
7. Requires you to Enter Your Apple ID password - no problem.
8. Selected which Albums I wanted to Share from PHOTOS
9. Out to the Apple TV and to Settings
10. General - Screensaver - Type - Selected Home Sharing
11. Selected my "Water Scapes" and Yes to Screensaver [Naturally]
12. Selected a 2 Minute Start
13. Selected Ken Burns as I still love this format for the Screen with a Fade to Black Transition 📺
14. Went back to the Apple TV Screen and waited for the two minutes and BINGO all up and running.

i experienced the same thing after the update and upgrade to Catalina. My failure was not going to Setting/Sharing on the Mac. When I selected File Sharing and then turned on Home Sharing, I was able to select Photos then Albums. It took several(approx 25) minutes for my albums to appear in the selection window. Once they appeared I checked the ones wanted.

Then on Apple TV signed out of all accounts, waited a few minutes then signed in again... now My Home Sharing albums showed and were selectable.

I have 3 AT 4K HD units, did same on all and it worked.

The issue now is, as ides described, all 3 revert to Aerial after being asleep.

Has to be a bug!

After the 13.3 update, all apps working properly on all 3 units I’m running ... still drops my screensaver selection ... the last thing I did that made my photos populate and not just a circling black screen was to:

1. Logout of all accounts(iCloud, etc).... including on your computer
2. Unplug Apple TV,
3. Wait at least 10 minutes for iCloud cache to clear
4. Make sure the selection on your computer is correct for using photos
5. Restart Apple TV
6. Sign in to all accounts on your devices

Just to be clear, these were the steps to get My Photos showing for selection as a screen saver ... Apple TV still forgets my screensaver choice if it restarts

Ok, so I found a possible solution for this problem. Mine wouldn't show ANY screen saver except for the Ariel one. This is after YEARS of having a 1100 image folder on my PC that it played from. If I tried any other screen saver, even the built in Apple ones, all i would get is a black screen.

After doing as much research as I could find, one solution suggested uninstalling any new apps. So all I did was uninstall the only App I installed in the last 6 month or more, that being Amazon Video. I rebooted the device and suddenly my Home Sharing screen saver worked perfectly as it has for the last 3 years.

I have no idea why this worked, but it did. This has been the most frustrating thing beyond the thing always forgetting how to connect to my PC for videos, etc... So give that a try and see if it works for you.

I have this same issue. Terrible bug which has persisted despite multiple updates. Homesharing and using photos off homesharing used to work like a dream and were our family's favorite feature and it got completely f*!@#$ed.

Only workaround I have found:

1) go to settings -> screensaver -> apple photos -> animals

2) go back and preview for a second or two

3) then go back to settings - > screensaver -> homesharing -> photos

4) sit ok ok ok etc

5) it should work

If you reset (as opposed to sleep) the apple tv, it will revert and you have to go through the whole thing again.

I tried the same test with Photos. And had the same negative results.

I got a work around, but it was labor intensive.

• I opened Safari, went to iCloud.com, logged in and went to Photos.
• In Photos I went to My Albums. I created a new Album named screensaver.
• Then I manually uploaded 300+ photos to the Album screensaver.

I say manually because if I did more that 30 or so at a time, it would error. Errors were either there is a duplicate Photo or this image is not a JPG (hint: they were all JPG and I did not upload duplicate, since I went row by row).

Then on the Apple TV device, I was finally able to see the Screen Saver Album in the Photos app.

I chalk all this up to progress. Apple is trying to educate me on a new process of how to view my photos on my TV while streaming radio. Of course this progress means there is a new and better way to do this. Which probably includes costing more money and giving up more of my privacy. That or I am no bright enough to figure it out.

Either way seeing posts on the community board of the same issue is a hopeful reminder we do not have to suffer alone.

(for non native english readers, the above two paragraphs are my attempt at sarcasm ;-) )

I just updated to 13.4 and the problem is fixed!! Thank you Apple!!

Upgrading to TVOS 13.2 seems to have solved the problem. I've tried a few times to "force" my ATV into sleep and my photos from my Mac thru Home Sharing was still intact. However if I turned power off and the back on, the screen saver had reverted back to arial photos. So partly solved, I guess.

The screen saver using your photos from iCloud has been an utter mess for years.

Sometimes Screen Saver Settings doesn't even see the photos or folders; sometimes it allows you to set what you want but it won't work under the preview and then doesn't work as a screen saver, and when this happens sometimes the screen saver never turns on, sometimes it goes black, sometimes it's black with a spinning icon, sometimes it reverts to Aerial; and on the rare occasion when it does work, I often end up seeing just the same a few photos repeated over and over and over and over again. I've seen all this on my Apple TV 4, but since changing to a 4K the other day, all I see is near exactly the behavior the original poster described - despite my setting it to My Photos, using Preview just shows a black screen with a never-ending circular status indicator, and when left to drop into Screen Saver on its own... there's Aerial, showing the same short clip of downtown LA for the hundredth time.

I've tried myriad options to make it work, and make it stable, and it's just this ongoing mess... now continuing for me over 3 generations of Apple TV devices from Apple TV 3 to Apple TV4K . I keep expecting Apple to sort it out (and maybe, just maybe, add new features or flexibility), but instead they amazingly just make it worse.

I've got around 70,000 photos in iCloud Photos; seeing them rotating on the Apple TV while music plays is my #1 use of the Apple TV, by far. So this fail in the most basic functionality of the product is extremely disappointing and frustrating.

Had similar symptoms. Home Sharing on Apple TV would not show any photos (for Apple TV > Settings > General > Screen Saver > Type > Home Sharing > Photos), no matter which way sharing was configured on Mac (System Preferences > Sharing > Media Sharing > Home Sharing > Share Photos with Apple TV > Share Photos from [Photos > Album | Choose Folder ... > Finder folder of photos]). Music can be streamed from Mac to AppleTV4K, so all those other prerequisites were demonstrated to be already in place.

AppleCare showed me this workaround: (for Mac OS X 10.15.2 / Catalina, TVos 13.3)

[1] Check: Apple TV > Settings > Users and Accounts > iCloud > Shared Albums is ON. Open Apple TV app Photos, check that Shared is an option in menu bar at top.

[2] From Mac Photos App, *share* an album (or some set of photos) to be used as screensaver to "Shared Albums".

[3] On Apple TV > Settings > General > Screen Saver > Type > My Photos > <shared_album>.

~~~

Screensaver now runs the selected screensaver using the Shared Album (when screensaver was activated by going to top level menu on ATV and pressing Menu button one more time).

Waiting now to see if the settings all 'stick' and persist through on/off/sleep cycles of the ATV ... see if the workaround is a useable one.

I turned on home sharing and am now using the computer's photos. Not ideal, but it works.

Spoke with Apple Support today, and they admit it's a known problem that they're working on. Look for a fix in future updates... just not sure when. Given how long this has been a problem, doesn't sound like it's being given much priority.

So, after the latest update, go to General>Sleep>set to 10hrs... that seems to solve the problem....

Convoluted workaround: While music is playing, go to settings, general, screensaver, preview. Music will continue to play and screensaver will show continuously.