How to restore content purchased on AppleTV (1st gen.) and lost in syncing?

Question

Level 1

8 points

How to restore content purchased on AppleTV (1st gen.) and lost in syncing?

I am an Apple TV (first generation) user who lost all my content purchased directly to the Apple TV when I finally was able to get iTunes on my PC to recognize the Apple TV and then synced it. I did not know or understand about the "reverse sync" that I first read about in these support pages. When I first got the Apple TV, I had a very bad router and just could not get the PC and the Apple TV to talk, so I proceeded to purchase a number of TV series and movies directly onto the Apple TV. I have the receipts. Do you know of any way to get them back or re-download them? There must be a way. I'm talking about several seasons of TV shows and favorite movies for my kids, so it's a big loss.

Sony Vaio, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV

Posted on Nov 12, 2010 8:30 PM

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Answer 1

pcx99

Level 1

33 points

Nov 12, 2010 10:42 PM in response to FSO1

Open itunes and go to store->My Account->Purchase History -> Find all the receipt numbers for your missing content, copy and paste them into a text editor. Next find one of your purchases and click "report a problem". Explain that you purchased itunes content on your atv1 and it didn't sync back to itunes properly, paste the receipt numbers.

Apple is under absolutely no obligation at all to do so, however their unofficial policy is to reflag these purchases for download (at least once, don't count on being so lucky a second time so make sure you have a good backup strategy this time). Note that a lot of ISPs with "unlimited data plans" actually have hidden caps starting around 60-100gigs. If your atv was near to full you might be hitting those caps when you redownload all the content in one fell swoop.

G'luck.

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2010 9:48 PM in response to FSO1

Well you can try to contact Apple but IMO you may be out of luck. It is not Apple's fault you did not do the sync correctly.

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