Apple TV App Library has disappeared on my Mac

Hi Fred. I have had this very same problem since the middle of last year. While I have not found a solution to restoring library so titles can be browsed like before, I have found that purchased items can still be found and watched by manually searching them with the magnifying glass. I have also noticed that, while this issue is affecting both my iPad and iPhone, my library is still (thankfully) completely normal and updating regularly on my Apple TV device. I hope this gives you at least a little peace of mind that your purchases are still accessible. I only wish Apple itself cared enough to fix the problem already.

FREDZILLA213 wrote:

Hello! That’s pure madness 3 years! How large is your library if you don’t mind me asking? Do you still purchase movies and TV through Apple? I slowed down my buying when everything went on my iMac, but since it all came back in mid February,I started buying again. It obviously seems apple is aware of the problem, but act floored when you say what’s happening to you.

This now has occurred with me (again) on a 5th gen iPad Mini - signed out of my media account in an attempt to flush the artwork cache (a lot of purchased movies lost their widescreen artwork, not downloaded so artwork not retained), but after several days my cloud library has yet to reappear. Probably somewhere in the ballpark of about 700 purchased video titles (movies and TV shows).

Even a restore from a backup doesn't alleviate - not worried about an iPad restore here, my iPhone has the bulk of my media.

Tried hiding and unhiding several titles, but it hasn't triggered the Media Services connection yet to rebuild the cloud library. Right now I'm on a wait-and-see approach for the next week, to see whether something on the server end is triggered.

This became more prevalent under iOS 15, I'd observed. I don't recall major library connectivity issues occurring under iOS 14.

This last happened to me back in March, when my iPhone was returned to me for a battery service. Could not get the library to repopulate after signing in/out, it was caught in the endless "Loading your library" loop.

At the time, the one tech I was able to speak to (without getting disconnected) alluded to some "server bug" that was affecting different services, including cloud media services. Don't have any more information than that - but given that little information at the time, it could also be that this is the case now... difficult to say.

On a side note, I found out that within the TV app on iOS, if your library isn't established, the download buttons from search results (within TV) is disabled. The only way to get purchased titles back on the device is either to 1) download from the macOS TV app and transfer manually, or 2) download from within the iTunes Store app.

FREDZILLA213 wrote:

My library on my iMac has been updating pretty regularly now about once a week. I just got a new iPhone SE and there seems to be no issue with the library there. The biggest mystery now is why my tv libraries on my 6 Apple TVs stopped updating new purchases about 18 months ago.

My story gets even better, since I last commented...

When the iOS/iPadOS 15.6 update rolled out the other day, I figured that maybe this issue would be fixed at some low-level within the firmware. Updated to 15.6 - didn't do anything.

Went out on a limb and signed up for the iOS 16 public beta program with that iPad mini of mine... didn't do anything.

So I went to the local Apple Store around here, and plunked down over $700 for the new iPad Mini 6... notwithstanding the fact that it's faster than my mini 5, I was taking the gamble that perhaps this whole thing was hardware related.

Brand new device, not restored from any backup...... signed in with my Apple ID/password. Guess what.... the same issue.

I spent about 2.5 hours on the phone the other night with a Senior Tech Support agent. She claimed that by pushing out all of my media purchases on Apple's end should have taken care of it. (I warned her that my purchases go back about 20 years...)

That didn't work either. (and now I have the additional task of hiding the duplicate purchases, undesired titles, etc. once again) So now it's in the hands of Engineering - I was supposed to have received a call back last night, but that didn't happen.

(good thing too - since I nodded off for the night while waiting for the call...)

So I am starting to suspect that this issue may have something to do with any of the following:

1) Accounts having large media libraries (I have about 600 purchased movies alone, give or take some in that library count as being imported manually) exceeding some range (according to Monterey's TV app, my cloud movies alone exceed 2 TB)

2) Unknown issue during the login process to Apple Media Services (possibly in conjunction with Option 1)

3) Unknown account issue with Apple ID

I would have been led to believe that this was a device-specific or an iOS issue at first. But the fact that a brand new out-of-the-box device started to exhibit this same issue when using my same Apple ID login credentials tells me that the common denominator is something with the account.

(mind you, my iPhone has NOT logged out of Media Services - so everything is performing as per usual in Music, TV, Books)

I noticed that the time to login to Media Services (via Settings) seems rather quick, like around 1 - 1.5 seconds. In the past, I noticed this to be at least 3 to 4 seconds before the connection was made. Sometimes faster isn't necessarily better, as this could be indicative of some access denial occurring. (although the device has it appearing that the user is signed into Media Services) But without (easily accessible) logs, it's hard to make that determination as to what network activity is (or is not) occurring.

(note - this was tried on a few different networks, including an LTE hotspot. So it's not an issue with my home network or any firewall)

According to the iCloud specialist I initially spoke with, there were no flags or blocks on my account. She pointed out some of my most recent purchases (my legitimate purchases made from my iPhone), so all of the account information is intact.

And nobody at Apple to whom I've mentioned this issue occurring has heard of this...