My AppleTV turns on and off by itself.

Question

My AppleTV turns on and off by itself.

My AppleTV (2) turns on and off by itself. I will walk into the room and the AppleTV is on and a few minutes later it turns itself off. It does this repeatedly during the day and night. I've gone in and turned it off manually, but later it will begin again.. I unplugged it for a few days and when I turned it back on, it started doing the same thing. Any idea why it would be doing this? My wife has a MacBook, but it does it when she is not using the MacBook. Thanks for any feedback.

Posted on Jan 14, 2012 2:49 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 14, 2012 5:12 PM in response to Roger Walters1

Are you sure it'actually turning itself on and not simply detecting network activity.

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Answer 2

Jan 14, 2012 6:31 PM in response to Winston Churchill

The light on the front comes on, or is on when I walk in the room. If I watch the light for awhile, I see the light go out by itself. I sort of assumed the light on the front only comes on when I choose to use the AppleTV. When I am done watching something using the AppleTV, I shut it off. When I'm not using the AppleTV, I'm watching TV using a different source such as cable TV or the DVD player.

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Answer 3

Jan 15, 2012 5:46 AM in response to Roger Walters1

Yes the light can indicate network activity, it doesn't always mean that the Apple TV is transmitting a picture.

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Answer 4

Jan 20, 2012 7:59 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Thank you for your responses. I've been monitoring it for a few days. I also found a few other threads with the same subject. I was wondering what you meant when you were referring to network activity. This morning when I got up and walked into the living room the light was on. About thirty seconds later it shut off. Nobody was using the internet, so I would take it to mean there was no network activity. Also, the TV was off. For the last few days it has come on and turned off within about a minute. I'm not really concerned anymore, but just curious. Again, thanks for your interest.

Roger in NC, USA

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Answer 5

ImolaZHP

Level 1

10 points

Feb 20, 2012 2:06 AM in response to Roger Walters1

Mine in the bedroom is doing this and it's driving me crazy! I am a light sleeper, sleep in a pitch black room with a white noise machine. I haven't had the light wake me up, but if I'm trying to go to sleep and it comes on, it catches my attention.

Please do something about this on the next update!!

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Answer 6

BDubs

Level 1

0 points

Mar 5, 2012 1:10 PM in response to Roger Walters1

When I walk by it interrupts the show that I am watching and sometimes I have to reset the whole device.

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Answer 7

Mar 5, 2012 1:14 PM in response to Roger Walters1

Nobody needs to be using the Internet, your router Wiiliamson talk to all your devices from time to time, renew the connection or just check a device is still there.

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Answer 8

Mar 5, 2012 4:12 PM in response to Roger Walters1

Mine does the same. As someone else said it's not transmitting a signal to your tv, at least not to mine. I have to manually wake it by the remote for that. I've had the Apple TV 2 since it came out and it did not do this originally. It was actually after the last couple of updates that the light goes on and off intermittently through the day. I've never noticed any pattern to it so I just ignore it.

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Answer 9

Mar 5, 2012 5:41 PM in response to Pappasbike

The manual says when the light is on, the AppleTV is on. When the light is off, the AppleTV is either off or in standby mode.Nowhere does it say anything about network activity affecting the light so I don't know where that theory comes from. Much like you, I've learned to ignore it. Maybe on March 7th Apple will update the firmware and fix the problem.

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Answer 10

kla80t

Level 1

4 points

May 2, 2012 7:01 PM in response to Roger Walters1

Has anyone found a solution for this yet? Mine is doing exactly the same thing. The only difference to mine is it doesn't turn off. I turn off the atv the usual way and a few hours later it will turn on by itself and I waited for a few hours for it to turn off by itself but it kept on. I opened the tv to check if it is transmitting a display signal and yes it does. Its annoying knowing that most of the time my atv is on all night, all day when I'm not using it. Is this a bug that needs to be fixed?

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Answer 11

May 3, 2012 9:49 AM in response to kla80t

I haven't heard of any solution short of plugging the Apple TV into an extension cord with a switch so you can shut it off manually. The down side to that is when it comes time to use it, you have a fairly long wait time before it finishes booting so you can use it. Mine is still turning on and off randomly which is kind of irritating. We live on a very busy road and my wife suggested that possibly cell phone signals coming from passing cars might be activating the AppleTV and after no actual usage, it turns itself off. In your case (kla80t) is it possible there is a device in your home that is running causing the AppleTV to stay on? This is all pure conjecture, of course, but we have nothing to go on. BTW, I have an AppleTV2 and I did a firmware update when the AppleTV3 came out. I highly recommend doing that because that makes the home screen look just like the AppleTV3.

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Answer 12

kla80t

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2012 3:33 PM in response to Roger Walters1

Thanks Roger, my home is wifi active due to a lot of installed wifi enabled gadgets this is maybe why my ATV is on all the time despite of me turning it off after use. It is quite annoying when I know it's on when I'm not using it. I have updated to the new version firmware for my ATV2 as soon it came out. So at this point, the only solution is to turn off all the wifi and all other signals that can activate the ATV or just unplug the ATV from the wall socket... oh well, at least we know we are not the only one experiencing this... At first I thought I was crazy! Anyway, thanks a lot fo replying to my post. Cheers mate!

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Answer 13

mnwfin

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2012 5:13 AM in response to Roger Walters1

For what it's worth I have the HD Apple TV(3) and am seeing the same sort of thing.

The difference is that sometimes the light comes on and then rapidly goes off (as here) but mostly it just stays on. It's then shows no signal (!) when I turn the TV to the right HDMI channel but when I then click the remote it's usually set to Settings / Sleep Now so a second click on the remote turns it off. However even if I left the Apple TV when at Settings / Sleep Now, it isn't always set to that so a blind click+ click on the remote won't always switch it off. When it doesn't and I need to look on th TV anyway it seems to be always set to Store so I guess random clicks on the remote intending to turn it off could prove costly.

The fact remains that thi has clearly been a problem for years so you wonder why it is still there.

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