Setting date and time

However, I might add that in my case the Apple TV unit is connected directly via Ethernet cable -- no wireless or wireless password. What's more, I get the long "Setting date and time" message at startup, even when my MacBookPro is not turned on, so it isn't a matter of connecting to the Mac to see what movies are on it. But as I mentioned above, I seem to be able to get around the problem by simply pressing Menu on the Apple TV remote when the "Setting date and time" message appears.

I'm having the same problem as all the above, time and date not setting and then after going into the about menu getting the message "network time skipped (reachable). Unfortunately none of the steps mentioned have helped.Have reset, turned off home share etc.

I've ruled out a connection problem because ATV is connecting to my wireless network fine and as I can play the internet radio channels through ATV. So I don't think the network connection is the problem.

Two other machines (macbook and PC) are home sharing ok so have ruled out any wireless security issues.

I thought that it might be because I'm trying to access my uk registered account from another country (Indonesia).

However as I can rent movies through my itunes account on my Macbook and PC I'm not convinced. Could it be a conflict between the itunes store loction in ATV and the time zone in ATV??

Where is apple support in this conversation. Come on Apple give us a clue the suspense is killing me.

Hello – I've just taken my ATV back to the store and got my money back. It was not the product I wanted. I live on campus at a university in the UAE and so major streaming and torrents weren't going to be possible anyway. What I wanted was an easy-to-use digital media server for content that is already on my computer. ATV wasn't it. The iTunes and credit card thing weren't a problem. Setting the time was. I noticed that my computers can't even find the time zone using the apple time servers so it's probably a port 123 problem but, since my ISP is effectively the university, there wasn't any chance of changing that. In any case, when Home Sharing was switched on in iTunes, I was reminded that Home Sharing enables the sharing of content in iTunes AND that was purchased from applestore. I didn't like the sound of that so, I'm sorry, apple doesn't get my money for this one.

(I exchanged it for a Boxee and will see how that goes.)

good luck everyone

I, too, am having ongoing difficulties with my apple tv2. Same problems as everyone in this thread. I am stunned that there are so many apple consumers openly struggling and not one word from an apple employee. It is remarkable that everyone in this thread isn't cursing. I'm sure they are, like me, doing so at home.

I think apple ought to step in and shine a light on the problem so we can all stop guessing.

Hey guys. Just wanted to update you on my progress.

For the last few weeks, my Apple TV 2 just disconnects in the middle of watching a show or a movie. I can't figure out if this is my computer, AT2 or my router. Out of nowhere, it just says "unable to.. blah blah" and goes back to the home screen. It then takes awhile to find the internet connection again.

I think that it may be my router but can't be sure, because my internet flows fine through my laptop.

Everytime it happens, I have to go back through my steps (mentioned above on another post) and it works. But it is just a hassle!

*** A trick I figured out is to press "menu" and "play/pause" buttons at the same time and hold them down when you want to restart the system. This saved me from having to get up and unplug the AT2 last night and it worked great. It didn't RESET the system, it just RESTARTED it. This is different then when you turn it off by holding down the enter key (circle in the middle). Pretty sure the turning off is really just "putting to sleep" which is why the menu and play/pause button worked to RESTART it.

Good luck everyone! I really do with Apple would hop in and address anything here soon. I guess iphone 5 is taking the energy.

andrew

I was getting this error message but not after the update. It just randomly disconnected from my network and when I power cycle the apple tv it goes setting date and time. I know it worked before so definitely its not the network ports. So I decided to just change the the channel of my network. Maybe the Apple TV is just getting wireless interference. Once I change the channel and power cycle the apple tv again, everything just worked fine.

Hope this works.

Thise is definately the worst Apple product I've ever purchased. I've had these problems for over a month now ...done all the discussed fixes and none of them works. Basically I turn on my ATV, and cross my fingers and hope itv works. I'd say 30% of the time it does...the rest of the time I'm SOL.

What makes matters worse is I subscribed to MLB.TV and can't watch the service I paid for.

Where is APPLE? How come theres been no response in this forum or the MANY others....just search Apple TV Date and Time" Come on APPLE how about some help?

Yeah, this STILL doesn't work for me! My ATV is connected via ethernet, so its not a problem there. It loads up movie trailers and youtube etc so it's definitely connecting, my iPhone/iPad home share perfectly, so I have no idea why this is happening! The timezone is set to Auto and I've reset/restarted/restored it countless times, as well as turning on and off home sharing! It just stays on the date/time screen. I've left it on that screen for 4 days at a time and nothing has happened! Grrr!! It worked fine at my parents house! Apple really need to address this. Hopefully iOS 5 will bring an update that ends this. In the mean time I'm going to go slowly insane....

Could it have something to do with me being in university halls?

Had the same problem. Disabled airplay, disconnected power supply and restarted. It took then less than10 seconds to pass the problem screen and everything seems to be ok.

I had the same problem this evening. I got the all to familiar Netflix connection failure message. So I restarted the Apple TV 2 (holding menu and play on the remote until the light started blinking). After restarting, the ATV2 got stuck trying to set the date and time. I tried several restarts and then visited the discussions list. I tried several tips listed in the discussion lists regarding date and time issues.. I finally decided to restart my Airport Extreme. After the airport reset, the ATV2 needed another restart and when complete the problem was solved.

Tonight I battled through this problem once again (I'm one of the first commenters in this thread; see page 1).

I think part of this remains a network issue: I completely resolved my problem this time by opening all ports to the Apple TV on my router.

I think rebooting and otherwise resetting might work for other people because either (1) the ATV has a fallback that it uses after a while that works over some other protocol or (2) rebooting is causing the ATV to obtain a new IP from the router, and the router is configured to let the right ports in for the new IP but not the old.

Posible Solution Here:

This problem of endless loop of "setting date & time" happened to me today. I powered everything off and on and reset router and all kinds of stuff.

Then I simply grabbed the Apple Remote and reset by holding down MENU and the PLAY/PAUSE key for a few seconds, letting go and letting the Apple TV to restart - this is not resetting - it simply restarts and this worked for me. I was immediately able to get back on, test my network and everything worked fine.

Hope this helps some of you.

Same problem here. Apple TV will freeze, especially on Netflix, which is often simply unusable. I've tried resetting, restoring, reacquiring the wireless connection. I get the endless "Setting Date & Time". The ATV sits in another room but only about 30 feet from my Apple Airport Extreme and it still can't set the time. This thing should be called the Apple POS (figure it out).

did you reset it from the remote as I mentioned?