Q: Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

Add me to your list of problem with my iTV4 ... similarly, all worked well until yesterday when I wanted to watch a rented movie ... the spinning wheel just kept on and on ... even had comment that it would take 9 hours and minutes to access my newly purchased movie.  Also noted that with my attempts to make it work, a few of those times when I hit the movie to play, after some wheel-of-misfortune time, the movie would start ... but it played only for a few seconds before it froze and never would continue to play - Wheels kept on turning ... also, noted same problem when I attempted to test things out by way of accessing a new movie and hit the Preview button.. I did same thing, played for a few seconds before freezing ... I Reset and unplugged for some time ... after some wasted time reentering my Apple ID, etc, nothing different ... in fact, as noted by others, it really got  to the point that where there should have been movie posters, etc ...  it was blank, blank, blank ... just the tittles.  Anyway, ended my frustration by reverting to using an older iTV and all is fine now ... Apple Movies, Netflix, etc ... it works.    I am tempted to go ahead and do a RESTORE .... in fact, I did try it, but screen said it would take approximately 3 hours, plus doing so ...frustrating ... and certainly don’t want to waste more time given that apparently others here have even tried a Restore operation with no success to fixing it ... so, I may give Apple a quick jingle ...  meanwhile, I am hoping they read this support page’s many complaints and fix the issue, if indeed it is a problem from their end ...or whatever...  It’s not server issue in that the switch to older iTV3 works fine.  So, let me join others who tend to think it is an iTV4 issue from Apple’s end.

Same problem...ready to play in 7 hours and 53 minutes! So lots of posts on the problem, any solutions?

I am having this same problem on my Apple TV 4th Generation. I really don't know what else to try because I've done everything since doing a restart, signing out and signing in.

Please let me know if you jave something that can help me

I also had this problem. I fixed it by resetting the AppleTV using the remote. With the Siri remote, you hold the Menu and Home buttons until the LED blinks (but I never saw any blinking so I just held it for like 15 Seconds) and then you release the buttons. It does a different kind of restart than the regular restart.

Once it restarted, the video worked fine.

I Restarted my Apple TV by pressing the down arrow and the menu button for six seconds and then after I played it it said authorizing after a few seconds and it played. So basicallay, just restart your apple tv

Restart is useless. Just did a restart and it's still 40 min away on 720p and 1 hour and 20 on 1080p. Netflix has no such issues.

What me and my GF found out however was that if you made the apple tv forgot the wifi connection, the connet again, that fixed it.