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Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen — Boot Loop (SOLVED: It was the remote!)

Hi,


This is not a request for help — just a tiny bit of information gleaned from two hour’s work.


Background: I was having trouble with an app missing episodes. Rather predictably, the steps included reinstalling the app. To make sure everything was gone, I took the extra step of “remove app”, “force reboot Apple TV”. That’s where my troubles began — the device went into boot loop — front display flash, then off, then flash, etc.. just long enough for the Apple boot logo to appear on the screen each loop.


I worked through the usual diagnostic steps, disconnect power, reconnect, disconnect HDMI, etc. Nothing worked. I also found it odd that it didn’t drop into a restore boot after a few tries (and power disconnects).


Then I hit on something — a chance article commented on similar behavior when someone’s child had a little too much fun with candy and their remote control which caused the buttons to stick.


Know that this ATV (and remote) are only a few months old and we’re not candy and sugared drink aficionados, I still wondered if the remote might be the problem. So, it was either put the remote out of Bluetooth range or pop it into a Faraday cage — so into the microwave it went (off of course!).


I plugged back in the ATV and lo — it completed it's boot.


Going back to the remote, I removed it from the microwave and brought it back in range — and the boot behavior started again. Now I had a culprit. I took the remote and performed a reset (e.g. TV button + Volume Down) to restart it. The Apple TV came back from the loop and is now fine - remote included


This may well have been the edgiest of edge-cases — but I wanted to drop this into the forum in case someone else encounters it.


HW Info:


ATV Model: A2843 (128 GB)

tvOS: 17.1 (21K69)

Remote FW: 0x33

TV: Samsung QN85c

Sound: Samsung Q990c


-JD


HomePod mini, 17

Posted on Dec 4, 2023 6:32 PM

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Posted on Dec 28, 2023 11:01 AM

Have the same problem, my son had the remote in his hands pressing all the buttons for a while. Then my Apple TV reboot and stuck in a boot loop. It shows the Apple logo and then reboot over and over again.


I put the remote out of range and tried different hdmi cable, nothing works. 😩


Someone any idea what I can do?


Apple TV 4K gen 2 (2021)

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36 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 28, 2023 11:01 AM in response to JD2002

Have the same problem, my son had the remote in his hands pressing all the buttons for a while. Then my Apple TV reboot and stuck in a boot loop. It shows the Apple logo and then reboot over and over again.


I put the remote out of range and tried different hdmi cable, nothing works. 😩


Someone any idea what I can do?


Apple TV 4K gen 2 (2021)

Dec 7, 2023 8:58 AM in response to JD2002

You saved my day!


I have the same ATV model, tvOS 17.1 (21K69) as well and same remote firmware. My wife sat on the remote without realizing for about 30 seconds, and the show my daughter was watching suddenly lost video and the Apple TV showed the Apple logo while still playing the show's audio. A few seconds after that, the Apple TV went into a boot loop.


I placed the remote out of range and the Apple TV was able to fully boot up. As soon as I brought the remote back within range, the Apple TV went into a boot loop. I reset the remote with TV button + Volume Down and everything went back to normal.


I agree this may be an edge case, but fortunately it has a solution.


Thanks!


Dec 23, 2023 9:41 AM in response to JD2002

I just ran into this bug by accident after putting the Apple Remote in my pocket, laying on it and then taking it out. I have a bunch of Apple TV devices around house so I grabbed a few and every one of them resulted in this boot loop behavior. By chance my kids had taken all the remotes out of the room while playing. The Apple TV started working fine and then my wife told kids to put the remotes back and as soon as my daughter walked in the room the Apple TV immediately started boot looping again. This is when I realized it must be a remote and went through process of bringing each remote into room until I figured out which one was causing reboot loop. This affected 1st gen and 2nd gen Apple TV 4K devices.


tvOS version: 17.2

remote fw shows: 0x83

Dec 16, 2023 8:56 PM in response to JD2002

Whoa this is a crazy bug. I accidentally sat on the remote for some time today. I didnt think anything about it but noticed my apple TV 4k 2nd gen would reboot and try to recover it self constantly. I thought it was just bricked. I went to the store to buy another one and crazy thing is it caused that one to fail as well!! I was baffled. I also saw my tv remote was having some odd issues where to would not turn my tv off or on. I thought maybe the remote i sat on is spamming out commands causing issues. So I tossed it in the garage sure enough TV remote was working normally and all of a sudden the new Apple tv booted fine. I brought the remote back in just to make sure I wasn’t crazy and once in range it brought back the boot issues. That remote currently has the power to brick apple TV’s. Crazy. My 2nd gen is done for. It tried to recover to many times its fully corrupt cause of that remote.

Dec 22, 2023 6:44 PM in response to JD2002

This has got to be one of the most obscure issues I’ve come across with my ATV. About a month ago, after having some audio/visual issues with our primary ATV, it went into the boot loop. I tried most of the troubleshooting advise I could find and realized I was about a month away from warranty so immediately scheduled a genius appointment and stopped searching for a solution. The Apple Genius couldn’t do much diagnosing and initiated a replacement quickly. Hooked the new unit up, and all seemed good, until today. For some reason the tv volume continued to turn up to max intermittently. At first I actually thought maybe my neighbor had bought a new tv (a cause of a long ago issue), but quickly ruled it out as I could see the IR receiver going nuts on the TV. I quickly forced a reboot and of course, I’m back in the loop. I’m lucky this seem to be the first result to my search this time and it seems to have all worked itself out once I did a remote reboot 💁🏼‍♂️. Thank you for the help!

Feb 8, 2024 9:43 PM in response to JD2002

Thank you so, so much! This just happened out-of-the blue for me (no remote trauma that I’m aware of). Same generation 4k Apple TV.


I’d turned it on for the first time this day and was selecting an app when mine started the boot loops. Next time it came up I waited a few minutes, tried selecting an app again and boom - another partial reboot. After the third tIme I grabbed my phone and found that the phone remote app worked just fine with no more boots. Will definitely try the the remote procedure in the morning. What an odd bug!

Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen — Boot Loop (SOLVED: It was the remote!)

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