I've had my Apple tv for about 2 months now, and suddenly it has stopped responding to the remote....sort of. The apple tv will turn on when I push the play/pause button, but once it boots up to the main options page the remote no longer works. The cursor stays in the same place on the main options menu. The strange thing is that the apple tv blinks (white light) at me when I push buttons, as it usually does when it is functioning normally.
I've tried unpairing and repairing the remote, and while the apple tv flashes quite a bit after holding the buttons down, nothing happens on the screen! I've also tried the basics of unplugging the entire system and letting it reboot. Has anyone ever dealt with this situation?
Omg, you won't believe this. Thought I was faced with buying new Apple TV after I did the reset & update because would not pair with any device. I read about holding the Menu and Back Button but I don't have a back button. I experimented with the holding the Menu button and other buttons with no luck until I got to the + button. Holding it with the Menu button and the dang Setup option appeared on the screen. Whew, thought I was in a mess. Took me hours to find this and ultimately "guess" at the right button combination. Wonder why that "fix" isn't prominently displayed by Apple in their documentation for "trouble shooting".
The unpairing worked for me too. When ever I pushed a button on the remote the Apple TV would not respond, the front light would blink but it would not make a confirmation sound. After holding the Menu and Back button on the remote the Apple TV has started responding to the remote. It scared me at first I thought I was going to have to buy a new apple tv or something.
just to be sure you are using the correct un-pair procedure.. hold down the menu + back arrow simultaneously for 10 secs.. there is no reason to pair it unless you'll point to another Mac or other appleTV when controlling this one..
Thank you.
Through some kind of magic, I was able to type three words into a box…
Remote Blinking Light
And in milliseconds, this answer came up.
Thank you.
(I knew it was one of these freakin' two, three, four button gesture combinations).
🙂
Hi! So how did u end up fixing it?? I have the exact same problem. Thing worked fine for months then I come home one day and it's doing what yours did.
Hey! Finally a real, functional fix for an Apple product in less than 10 hours! Thanks! The "back/Menu" ten-second hold-downdid the trick. Mmmmm. Love it.
Add me to the list of satisfied customers. The unpairing procedure of menu back button fixed my problem. My remote stopped working soon after applying the latest Apple TV update. Glad to see the problem wasn't the update itself.
Another satisfied customer. Tried for a few hours, last night, to bring my frozen apple tv2 back to life. Even iTunes would not recognise this being even being connected, so like other thought the little black box was destined for the bin. Another quick search this morning and hey preto this worked.
Thank you for posting this fix! I'm glad to know I was not the only one with this issue. I, too, thought my AppleTV was done for until I read this topic & tried unpairing the remote!