Apple TV 2 Waiting for network services, unable to sign in to iTunes store

Yep I have the same problem... Extremely annoying and quite honestly makes me hate the 2nd gen apple tv right now. Spent 2 plus hours with apple support and worthless help. Their response that it is my network is beyond insulting. While I had the support rep on the phone I bought items from iTunes on my iPad and iMac while logging in just fine.

How can Apple make a product that I can't even log into!! I am at my wits end with AT2.

I have the 1st gen Apple TV and its been great... AT2 has been an utter failure for me. If anyone finds a solution, I would love to know. - Thanks

Message was edited by: Wolverine007

Same problem. I haven't contacted Apple about it yet. I will in the morning.

Got Apple TV Friday. I was able to preview shows, but started to download and it gave me an error message. So I spent $3.99 for a movie rental and didn't get the movie (got an error message for that). And tonight, we cannot connect to iTunes.

It isn't the "network" because every other Apple device we have is working just fine.

I forgot to mention the Home Sharing isn't working either.

Are you all running v10.0.1 of iTunes?

Yep, absolutely running v10.0.0.1 of iTunes. In another post it sounds like possibly all of thisis connected to that fact that ATV2 needs port 123 open and my router may not have it open. Pretty lame considering ATV1 didn't need this, especially considering the headaches..in essence my ATV2 is sitting here useless until Apple (or a gracious user) can help figure out how to fix with instructions.

I had the exact same problem when I received my apple tv on Friday. I gave up because I was going away for the weekend. I rebooted the apple tv and left it at the "waiting for network services" stage. When I got home this afternoon everything was working find. I could enter my id and password, netflix login works and youtube is great. I don't know why as I didn't open any ports or do anything but let it sit waiting for the weekend. Maybe just be patient and let it get through initiating the network.

I ordered two Apple TVs and experienced this issue on both. The first unit was left powered on overnight and I was able to login to both my Apple ID and Netflix account the next morning. While configuring the second unit, I performed a network packet capture and discovered that its "network services" are not considered functional until the unit is able to perform DNS queries, initiate outbound connections on TCP 80 and 443, and synchronize its time with time.apple.com. The time synchronization is crucial. Even with full internet connectivity which allowed me to stream movie trailers, it would not log into any service until it successfully downloaded the current date and time. If you have a firewall, make sure it allows outbound UDP 123 (internet time service). Unfortunately, there is no way to initiate the time synchronization or to check it on the Apple TV.

Hello all.

Im in the UK and i have the exact problem in that im unable to log into itunes or home sharing. I have opened all outbound and inbound ports on my router with no success.

Has anyone worked this out yet.?

Regards
Iain Smith

I received my Apple TV yesterday.
I am running cable internet with 10Mbps constant.

So I connected it up and proceeded to issue after issue. I could not log into my Apple account. It was stating that my name or password was incorrect.
When I would start the unit it would stay at the waiting for network connections screen for several minutes!

I did all the tricks of turning the apple of and back on, NO FIX.
I tried to update the software, and I recieved a message that stated I have the most updated software, so....NO FIX
I did a full restore. The Apple TV downloaded the newest software and rebooted after about 7 minutes, NO FIX
I logged into my router and opened all ports, added ports 80 and 123, NO FIX
I also disabled my entire firewall on my router and turned off the WEP security feature...and what would you guess.....NO F I X!!

So I logged back into my router and reset all my original settings...still NO FIX.

SO here is the good part...Apparently the system has to connect to time.apple.com and get updated...it's sort of like a verification of the system.

So after it updated everything worked great! No unable to sign into my account. NO waiting on network connections anymore.

So the biggest advice I can give, especially after my 3 hours of gradually wasting my time until I almost threw the unit out my bedroom window, is connect it to your WIFI system and let it sit by itself for a few hours and let it connect to the Apple server.

Hope this helps everyone that, at some point, has shared my pain and frustration.

Hi All,
had exactly the same issue (wired and wifi). Could not find Apple ID etc...
Went to settings menu and did a RESET. Second time around everything worked ok, I did nothing differently...
Hope this helps.

-wejedge.

I had the same problems: when first turned on it would spin on "waiting to connect to networks" and i apparently would bypass this by hitting a button on the remote but it never did connect to the networks (which i think are the itunes, netflix, etc networks and not the "network" as in the internet because I could see tv, movie previews which are obviously web data - i just couldnt log into anything).

I logged into my router (usually 192.168.1.1 or similar - search your router on the web, it'll tell you how to get into it)and changed the firewall settings there from the highest setting to a lower and when I re-powered the ATV2 it didnt hesitate to "connect to the networks". All is well now, Im able to access my homesharing itunes and netflix.

Just hook it up. Sign into your network and let it run its course. It took mine 10 minutes with the network connection thing and then finally it worked.

I am in Canada and just received my AppleTV a few days ago. As with everyone else here I am not able to login using my Apple ID. My symptoms are the same.

In one of the comments Apple told one of the users experiencing the problem that it was their home network or their ISP. That is crap. My ISP does not block any data (I have root access to the entire ISP as I support them). Same with my home network.

Waiting for the smart apple people to fix like everyone else.