Apple TV (2nd Gen) screensaver photo shuffle

Bump. Why isn't Apple addressing this issue? My ATV has received several updates in the last 6 months and the problem still exists. Are people just accepting this now?

Yep, I've been painting my house all weekend, listening to tunes on the AppleTV. The same couple hundred photos have been repeating all weekend. Wish they'd fix this. I know the AppleTV is limited to 8GB, but they could pull down batches of photos at a time and throw out the oldest ones along the way.

My guess is that they're waiting for iCloud. The AppleTV will simply stream the entire library down from iCloud. Anyway, that's my guess as to why is isn't fixed yet.

This whole issue is annoying at best. As some have said iCloud will likely fixes this but from what I have heard is that iCloud will be limited to 1000 photos? Anyway, a current workaround is to go into Photos under Computer on the ATV, make sure you lick on "Photos" selected and then click "Slideshow" in top left. I have been doing this for a while and it seems to be all the photos (I have 20,000+) and will shuffle them if you select "Shuffle" under Slideshow settings and set "Repeat Photos" to off. One problem with this option is that if you want to change an Internet radio station you need to exit and then go back and restart the slideshow. But it works for when the grandparents are here.

I bought mine about a week ago for the sole purpose of viewing my iPhotos library automatically (screensaver) I wish I have read this discussion before buying, but I thought shuffling the photos is a very basic functionality. Apple would never missed this unless there is a technical difficulties, I am not giving them excuses, quite contrary, I am really upset.

The second time I turned the ATV on I immediately noticed that the same pictures from the first round are appearing, I have a huge photos library (50,000+), and I keep seeing 100-200 same photos again and again, that's really shameful.

Apple, please fix this, we want the screensaver option on our beloved ATV to shuffle, meaning getting new photos everytime it runs.

Thank you.

Any update on this ? has the latest ios 5 beta for apple tv fixed this ? getting fed up of the same 100 photo's and not random like my first apple tv was.

please .....anyone......apple ??? ? ?

Can anyone advise if iOS 5 now released has fixed this issue ?

Thanks.

Mine is the same, with the most up to date firmware. This product is so lacking in functionality and setting choices. Clearly this product is dead to Apple. Pity, it could have been good. All style and no substance. Absolutely typical.

I too have the same problem. Great feature if it would rotate through all the pictures and not just a few of the same ones over and over.

I noticed that Apple TV was not randomzing the pictures of my iphoto library (it tended to repeat the same few pictures over and over). This was solved when I went to Computers>My library>Photos>Photos>Slideshow Settings, then set Shuffle Photos ON. Voila! 🙂

Samertab's suggestion seems to work for me. I've set up a folder in iPhoto for my ATV2 screensaver. If I add new photos to the folder, I have the ATV resync to the folder and it picks up the extra photos. However, it's not until I go in and hit reshuffle again (through the ATV homeshare) that it actually starts showing the additional photos. I don't know if that makes sense.

Right now, my folder only has 300 photos so I don't know how well it will work when I add more. Somehow, I've been living under a rock and just discovered this feature. We had been staring at animals and flowers for the last year...sheesh.

It seems to store these photos on the ATV itself, right? I have all my photos on an external drive, and it doesn't seem to have to be plugged in to set into motion. It's not like the homeshare with the music where I have to have iTunes going on my laptop...of course, it's quite possible that there's a resolution for that and I've just missed it...again, I think I've been living under a rock lately...

THANKS!!!!!

I am having the same issue, with over 10,000 photos in my library, about half of the phots that cycle through seem to be truly random and the other half repeat with a high level of frequency. This should be a very easy fix for Apple, and with so many comments on this thread, I am mystified as to why they have not added to the most recent ATV update.

You would think that with this problem going on for over two years and over forty thousand hits and eighty Severn replies that Apple could come up with a fix.

So what does this tell us about Apple?

Come on, Apple! It's so hard to explain to my non-geek parents that the screensaver only pulls ~100 photos.

please fix this issue, apple.