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gbcecanada Author

Level 1

0 points

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

Received my Apple TV yesterday.

It is connected to my network (I have tried wired and wireless).

I can view movie previews and Podcasts.

I cannot sign in to the iTunes Store (therefore cant rent movies), cannot view Youtube videos (No content available), cannot use Netflix (Waiting for network services when I try).

I spoke to Apple support, they couldn't help. They say the problem is with my network or my ISP.

I have a Linksys WRT160N router, on which I have tried disabling the firewall.

My ISP is Telus, I am on their Fibre Optic network in BC. I wonder if Telus are blocking Apple TV?

Anyone else experiencing this?

Message was edited by: gbcecanada

Message was edited by: gbcecanada

Posted on Oct 2, 2010 1:35 PM

37 replies

Jan 20, 2011 9:54 AM in response to gbcecanada

I have an Imac and an apple TV and an Ipod Touch 4th Gen. I use a Toshiba LCD TV. I have a Motorola Surfboard Wireless Gateway Modem SGB900. After 6 hours of trying to setup my device I schedules an Express Lane call for this am. The Apple Tech recommended turning off my modem's firewall and to reconfigure my ports. I hardwired my computer to the modem via ethernet cable, pointed to the modem's ip address http://192.168.100.1 and logged in with the default admin and pw motorola. Under the Firewall policy tab I selected custom and went to advanced settings. I then discovered that some of my ports did not accept inbound traffic. I wrote down the existing info carefully eg port name NTP, number 443:443 and protocol (TCP/UDP). I then deleted the port, and added it back with the same information, but this time checking the box allowing inbound traffic. you need to reset the DNS port, the Http port, Https port, NTP port (network time protocol)and DAAP (Itunes). I saved the settings, did a reset on the ATV and voila! It signed me in and I could connect to Itunes, Netflix etc. This method works for Motorola only, As that is the brand of modem I have, I surmise you might be able to use the same strategy if you are able to log into your router via IP address (same method when setting up a passkey for your hoe network. Sorry for such a long post. Im a newbie, and feel free to edit or redact as necessary. Thanks! see the following Apple articles for port settings: Six network ports are used by Apple TV for communications on your network.

TCP port 123 is used to communicate with a network time server.
TCP port 3689 is used to communicate with iTunes while using the iTunes Library Sharing feature.
UDP port 5353 is used by Apple TV for automatically finding computers with iTunes on your network using Bonjour.
TCP port 80 is used for communicating with podcast servers.
TCP port 80 and 443 are used for basic and secure communications with the iTunes Store via the Internet.
TCP port 53 is used for regular DNS.
Note: These ports may also used by other services like MobileMe, You Tube, and Flickr.

These are well-known ports used by Apple products, like iTunes. If you can use all the features of iTunes, these ports are likely already open on your firewall or NAT router.

For a list of well known Apple ports go to this article on the discussions forum:

Well known TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products
Last Modified: December 07, 2010
Article: TS1629

Hope this helps!

mutaco

Level 1

0 points

Feb 16, 2011 8:55 PM in response to rkma

rkma, just curious, I have an exact same set up, less Airport extreme. Any luck so far? I have had it working without problem from December till about 5 days ago, when all of the sudden, in midstream from iTunes, it stopped. Since, I have been getting the same symptoms as everyone is describing, and have contacted phone support, then to the Genius Bar. They have replaced it w/ promise that it will work fine. Same exact message....

Any input would be appreciated.

Feb 17, 2011 4:23 PM in response to gbcecanada

Hi, Have you tried

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1453, Troubleshooting Apple TV not recognized in iTunes

and

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2463, Apple TV: TCP and UDP ports and protocols used

This many come in handy, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1657, iTunes Store: Movie rental frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Sounds to me like a network issue because you are not able to even watch YouTube videos so also refer to http://support.apple.com/kb/ht155, Apple TV: Basic troubleshooting and scroll down to the Network troubleshooting section.

Also see, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2822, Apple TV: Switching between wired and wireless networks.

Try to reset your AppleTV, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3180

If you tried a wired connection is your router distributing IP addresses? Has the router the latest firmware? Have you tried the AppleTV on another wired or wireless network to rule out the Linksys device as the root cause, visit a friend with your AppleTV to confirm.

Regards

Mar 23, 2011 10:13 AM in response to AustenGreen

@AustenGreen or others, did you manage to get your Cisco SRP527W to work with Apple TV?

I cannot get mine to work together.

Really looking for a successful case study to help me out...

djc2004

Level 1

0 points

Mar 30, 2011 6:40 AM in response to rkma

Has anyone managed a fix for this? Just got my new Apple TV (Gen2) and I'm having the same issues.

It's connected to the internet, I can browse Flikr and the previews of movies and shows. But when I try to log-in to anything (Youtube, Home Share, iTunes account, and MLB.TV) it says my password and user name aren't valid. However, when I use these same accounts on my Macbook, they log-in fine and work.

I know it sounds like my ISP but what I need to know is a) are there any fixes I can do without having to deal with them b) if I do have to deal with them, I'd like to know what I can say specifically without confusing them to fix the problem.

Thanks so much!

May 18, 2011 6:40 AM in response to gbcecanada

PROBLEM SOLVED, after many hours looking into this problem, I got a public IP and it didn´t work. YOUR ISP definetely blocks ports 1020 and under!!!!! I used my iPhone4 with its Persona HotSpot feature, did a reset on the appletv2 and magically it worked, it went through the setting time and date easily, then I connected it to my cable ISP provider and never gave me any problems. I tried everything and read all forums. Please pass this along. I am enjoying netflix a lot.

Jun 12, 2011 6:14 AM in response to gbcecanada

Hello, I had a similar problem when I bought my Apple TV yesterday. The unit connected to my home network and was clearly able to access the Internet as it downloaded and installed an update but it was stuck at the screen for setting the date and time. If I skipped this, I was unable to enable home-sharing or log into the iTunes store. Trawling through the web I found a post to one of the support forums that said the initial HTTPS encryption used for sending apple IDs for confirmation relied on the time and date being set correctly by using time.apple.com. That should be fine as my iMac uses NTP to set its date and time from Apple's time servers, I've never experienced a problem with that. I have an old D-Link ADSL router that has been rock-solid over the years and never caused any issues with any network protocols. Using tcpdump on my iMac confirmed NTP packets being received by it. As far as I know, my ISP does not filter any protocols upstream - my ADSL feed allows everything. So, I switched off firewalling and I port-forwarded inbound NTP from the Internet on my router to my Apple TV box internal IP and it all started working, I was able to enable home-sharing and log into the iTunes store. This does slightly confuse me and raises some questions:

why can you not set date and time manually ?

why does the Apple TV box not respond to NTP unless I force traffic to it ?

is it a peculiarity of the NAT on my D-Link router - if so, why does my iMac sync quite happily to external time servers ?

is there something else in the NTP packet payload that Apple are being 'clever' with ?

It does seem to me to be a design flaw to rely on an unrelated protocol to allow you to use iTunes etc. And it seems it's not an uncommon problem either.

Ah well, it's working now, so I am slightly unwilling to break it to get back to the original non-working config and then pop the resultant NTP packets into Wireshark for further analysis - I just want to use the thing.

So, I post this to outline how I solved my problem and hope it will be useful to someone else who experiences a similar one.

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