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AppleTV Repeatedly Asking to Verify Unknown Email

Every time I turn on my AppleTV, I am asked to enter the Apple ID password for an email I have no association to and have never seen before. If I haven’t turned it on in a few days, I have to clear the message several times before I can use it. I googled the email address, and it is associated to a catering service for a Chinese restaurant in Potomac, nearly a thousand miles away. The AppleTV is 3 years old, bought new, and it’s been doing this now for months.

Posted on Mar 22, 2022 7:58 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 22, 2022 8:10 PM

Someone with physical access to your Apple TV box must have entered that account at some moment in the past, and installed an app, and later removed the account. (It can’t be done remotely.)

Now that app wants to auto-update, but it is still linked to that old account for App Store services.

To fix this, remove the app from the device. You may re-install it using your own account, if needed. If the message doesn’t mention an app name, then you may have to replace multiple apps, until you find the offending one.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 22, 2022 8:10 PM in response to BisBeautiful

Someone with physical access to your Apple TV box must have entered that account at some moment in the past, and installed an app, and later removed the account. (It can’t be done remotely.)

Now that app wants to auto-update, but it is still linked to that old account for App Store services.

To fix this, remove the app from the device. You may re-install it using your own account, if needed. If the message doesn’t mention an app name, then you may have to replace multiple apps, until you find the offending one.

AppleTV Repeatedly Asking to Verify Unknown Email

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