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User profile for user: berdahl
berdahl Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

Cannot sign into Apple TV+ on my new TV (Sony Bravia)

We recently upgraded our TV, now owning a Sony Bravia x90j with Google TV. Setting up the new TV has worked like a charm with the singular exception of the Apple TV+ app. We have utterly failed to sign into our Apple TV+ account on the new TV. The app gives us two choices, go to the tv.apple.com web site or enter credentials using the remote. Neither works.


When we go to a browser (on phone, on tablet, on laptop) and log into tv.apple.com… nothing happens. The app on the TV does not sign in and I see nothing in the web page that tells me to authenticate a new device (or how to authenticate a new device).


We we try to sign in on the TV directly, we enter our credentials, the app thinks for a few seconds, and the app then tells us that there is an error and asks us to try again later. We've been trying for three days now with no luck.


Apple, can you give us a hint for how to sign into the app on the new TV? TIA

Posted on Jul 15, 2023 4:19 PM

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User profile for user: berdahl
berdahl Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

Posted on Jul 15, 2023 10:02 PM

Unfortunately, that article was not helpful. I had found that article previously and thought it might be useful, but I had already enabled the privacy settings as recommended in the article and still had no luck signing into the app.


Searching around elsewhere on the web, I found another user who suggested a hack that did happen to work. Here's what I did:

  • Open a video into Quicktime Player on my MacBook Pro
  • Try to AirPlay the video from Quicktime Player onto my TV
  • Once the TV is successfully playing the video from my MacBook, go into the Apple TV+ app on the TV once again

Having done this, the Apple TV+ app showed me a completely new and different sign in workflow, one that included a QR code I could scan and/or advised me to go to activate.apple.com and enter a code the app gave me on my TV.

I followed the activate.apple.com workflow on my laptop and gave the web site the code from the TV. The web site then allowed me to log into my Apple TV account in the browser, which then informed me that the TV was activated and would refresh soon. It did. And now I can use Apple TV+ on my new TV.

I have no idea what I would have done if I had not had a Mac laptop -- I don't have iOS devices. Could I have tried to AirPlay from a Windows laptop? Seems odd that one would need to own a piece of Apple hardware in order to purchase a service that is intentional multi-platform.

In any case, I now appear to be working, albeit having gone through an odd maze of a workflow.

Thanks for the attention!

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User profile for user: berdahl
berdahl Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

Jul 15, 2023 10:02 PM in response to Urquhart1244

Unfortunately, that article was not helpful. I had found that article previously and thought it might be useful, but I had already enabled the privacy settings as recommended in the article and still had no luck signing into the app.


Searching around elsewhere on the web, I found another user who suggested a hack that did happen to work. Here's what I did:

  • Open a video into Quicktime Player on my MacBook Pro
  • Try to AirPlay the video from Quicktime Player onto my TV
  • Once the TV is successfully playing the video from my MacBook, go into the Apple TV+ app on the TV once again

Having done this, the Apple TV+ app showed me a completely new and different sign in workflow, one that included a QR code I could scan and/or advised me to go to activate.apple.com and enter a code the app gave me on my TV.

I followed the activate.apple.com workflow on my laptop and gave the web site the code from the TV. The web site then allowed me to log into my Apple TV account in the browser, which then informed me that the TV was activated and would refresh soon. It did. And now I can use Apple TV+ on my new TV.

I have no idea what I would have done if I had not had a Mac laptop -- I don't have iOS devices. Could I have tried to AirPlay from a Windows laptop? Seems odd that one would need to own a piece of Apple hardware in order to purchase a service that is intentional multi-platform.

In any case, I now appear to be working, albeit having gone through an odd maze of a workflow.

Thanks for the attention!

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Cannot sign into Apple TV+ on my new TV (Sony Bravia)

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