Apple TV Won't play purchased movies, Keeps asking to Authorize

In combination with iTunes Store movies (or music or books), “Authorize” is used for computer playback (Mac or PC), not the Apple TV box per se (unless Home Sharing or AirPlay, but that isn’t needed, as the Apple TV box can play this content without using Home Sharing or AirPlay).

Authorize or deauthorize your computer for iTunes Store purchases - Apple Support

Authorizing links the device uniquely to an Apple ID account. Users should de-authorize computers that are no longer in use by you, as there is a limit of 5 computers per account. You can try de-authorizing all your devices, then re-authorize devices when needed, to make sure it is not about a forgotten device or the limit.

Aside from unintentional setting resets, updating macOS wouldn’t affect this. Most users have been playing iTunes Store content with every version macOS without this error. The version macOS itself is not the cause.

Try playback on the computer without Apple TV box involved. Is that any different?

Figured it out!! Unauthorize computer and restart. Start Apple TV app on Mac or iTunes on windows. Authorize computer again and restart. Start Apple TV app on Mac or iTunes again and check Apple TV for connection. Worked for me. I tried everything in comments below and nothing worked till now. Hope it helps.

Apple TV 4 will not play purchased movies in my App TV / iTunes library. After all manner of reinstalls and reboots and reauthorizations I finally reset the Apple TV to factory settings and VIOLA!!!! I went through the Apple TV settings and picked one home screen for all devices and it reestablished all of the apps in the previous group folders. The only thing that did not restore was the Movie/tv show playlists. No big deal. At least I now have my Apple TV back and it will play all of my movies and tv shows.

I will never automatically update Apple TV. Apple product development and QA have REALLY dropped the ball on the latest SW update. Apple has finally grown so large, with our financial support, that they don't give a **** about the community of Apple users that prop up their profit margins. They may need to investigate changing their logo to a Square divided into four equal squares a la Microsoft....with all of those "undocumented features".

I don't think it's Catalina updates, I think it's TVOS 15.5.1. I tried restarting everything and de/re-authorizing my Mac and home share and it still wouldn't work. I tried plugging in my Windows PC and get the same error, so it's not a Mac problem but a TVOS problem. Apple needs to fix this. I can play them through the AppleTV app on the box, just not through the Computer one. But all the media I have ripped from DVD plays just fun, so Apple broke the DRM side of it in TVOS.

home share purchased media

I see. Let Apple know about your expectations to have this functionality included (again). I can replicate this issue now. Using Home Sharing on other devices (iPhone, iPad) also doesn’t work, although the error message is different. So the issue may not be about Apple TV/tvOS (alone).

Please give feedback to Apple directly about this, then the appropriate team can evaluate this, and take action if unintentional. Pick a best match category from: Product Feedback - Apple. Be sure to mention Home Sharing in the comments.

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple this morning and they appended my complaint to one the engineers are already working on, so this is a known issue, but no resolution so far. Interesting about it not working on the older TVOS. I honestly don't normally pay attention to when they update, but I just saw end of May 15.5.1 was released. Maybe someone messed with security settings on their end somewhere for authentication and this can be quickly resolved without waiting for an update. I should see if the last AppleTV that hasn't been used in a while updated or not. And confirmed the one on 15.1.1 also gives the same error, so someone jacked up settings on Apple's side.

This situation captured my attention and then it bit me in the ***. I have been fighting this ****** "undocumented feature" for over 2 months now. I finally see that the situation cleared up for a lot of people like magic. Funny how it went away when a great number of people started calling Apple the new Microsoft and started crying for their money back. <RANT MODE OFF>

I went into system preferences and turned off file sharing and left media sharing turned on for all media folders. Ta Da!!!! It now works just like it used to. I thought that I had discovered the "secret" and now I see that EVERYONE is getting their functionality back.

Seems like its less me finding a secret and more likely that apple "PUSHED" an update out to everyone that reversed the bad joke they played on us.

I said...

Apple...Be Better...

I did not say...be sneakier...

Admit that you the Apple TV and that you fixed it....transparency breeds trust. this just smacks of you becoming more like those at Microsoft.

Now I'm going to watch one of those 913 purchased movies over my own network.

thanks

[Edited by Moderator]

I have the same problem. It appears to me as a Apple Backend problem; the backend of Apple TV, DRM and purchased movies. I can plan all my library movies on my MACs. Just not on iPhone, iPad or any of my 3 Apple TV devices. The open case I have with Apple support is now being ignored. They have not called me back when “they” set the date and time. The backend of support is having problems.

My problem occurred with the apple tv firmware update yesterday. Same thing. I have an older mac mini, and High Sierra is as high as I can go.

After the update, I can’t access any DRM content. Am told to “Authorize my computer”. My computer is authorized to play drm. I can watch it fine on my computer. But for some reason, my apple tv no longer recognizes it as an authorized computer.

Spent 8 hours today on the phone. Tried everything that tech support could think of. No joy.

so it seems that my computer may be too old to “play nicely” with the latest apple tv update. My question to apple - why is that my problem? I had no choice in the update. No information that it may not be compatible with my computer hardware. I was quite happy with everything. I had no need for an update, especially one that cut off half of my appletv watching.

Home videos, podcasts, books, music…. No problem. But DRM content? Out of luck.

Waiting to see if apple has a fix for me. Or if they just say “Too bad, so sad.” Buy a new computer.

I just went back to Apple and told them to google this thread, so they can see that it is not just an issue with a single individual, it is relatively widespread. And sudden on-set. May 31st it worked. June 1st there was a firmware update in the afternoon (it was also working fine in the morning!!) to the Apple TV, and that evening homesharing started the "authorization required" pop-up on any movies or TV shows. Now I can directly stream purchased movies just fine, but it eats my data and the resolution suffers (I'm on ADSL so I have to lower the resolution to 720p or it buffers constantly).

I haven't tried to homeshare to my iPad or my phone - I don't want to watch movies on my phone so that has never been in my list of things to try. And I can't home share on my iPad when I'm not home, and since if I'm home, I don't homeshare to my iPad, I watch my TV, that also has never been top of my list to try. But I will try them now, the iPad at least - the less I muck about with my iPhone settings, the happier I am.

I told them I am away for a week, but when I get back, I will check. If it still isn't working, I will be calling. I will become a thorn in their side every day. I can afford to waste a half hour in the morning.... I'm retired, so I have lots of time first thing in the morning. Case in point... I'm here again. So if you haven't contacted apple support about this, do it. If the wheel doesn't squeak, no one will oil it.

Can't be Catalina - I'm on High Sierra (old mini and that's as high as I can go). It happened with the apple TV update. Same day. That evening, couldn't play anything with DRM on my apple TV - seems I can't access it n my iPad or iPhone either (though haven't really tried - i don't care about those)

I totally agree with you. I even bought a MacBook to make streaming to my AppleTVs easier (iTunes for Windows is prone to locking up and just glitching). I can AirPlay from my MacBook to an AppleTV, but not helpful if more than one person wants to watch something because you can only stream video to one AppleTV at a time. Still hoping for a resolution to what Apple says is a known problem. Keeping calling to report it. The more people complain to Apple, hopefully the higher up the resolution tree it will get. I'm thinking they are still treating it as a 'we'll get to it when we get to it' problem rather than 'this is really upsetting a significant number of people' problem.