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Apple TV television shows out of order?

I've just upgraded to IOS 5.0 on one of my apple tv's 2nd generation and now my tv shows are out of order. I generally keep it on "Unwatched" and the seasons for the shows stay together in alphabetical order, making it easier to find the shows I want to watch. Since the upgrade though, the seasons are still together but out of order alphabetically.


Is anyone else experiencing this? Most of my shows are ripped or recorded and I add tags with iVL.

Posted on Mar 7, 2012 9:04 PM

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152 replies

Mar 8, 2012 8:47 AM in response to Sean Piggott

Just as an update, I deleted and re-added my files earlier and it took about an hour to do my library of around 500 series, and that was with some fiddling around to deal with leading "The's" and "A's", as well as some particular sorting issues we have (i.e. my Sons shows at the top of the list).


If you aren't as worried about that and just want it in some sort of order then it just takes minutes.


The biggest problem is that you lose things like watched status, but if you don't mind that then I think it is certainly worth doing. A solution from Apple could take weeks.

Mar 8, 2012 5:03 PM in response to jessedholm

I too am having the same issue. I just got off of the phone with apple support and was told that I am the 1st person to call and complain about this problem. Tech couldnt fix the problem, but he did take a trouble report and said that he would report my complaint to the next level. UGH. Maybe if more people take the few minutes to call Apple Support and complain, we could get this fixed more quickly???

Mar 8, 2012 5:27 PM in response to Louis Melledy

No, it doesn't work.


That is to do with how they are sorted in the TV Shows section on the main screen (i.e. ones you can get from the store). What we are talking about is your TV shows that are streamed from local computers , under the computers section.


I do wonder whether this is a confusion that the programmers had, which may have caused the problem though.

Mar 8, 2012 6:05 PM in response to Phoenixhiker

I too have a Library with 3000+ TV Shows and 500+ Films and would of loved to of seen hirachial menus for Show Seasons on ATV come in in version 5.0.


ie. To scroll down through Smallville's 10 Seasons and Stargate's 10 Seasons is 20 Headings! and takes far longer than just the Show Name and then after selecting that into the season listings for that show only.


The Show selections lists end up 5-10 times longer than they need to be.



Does anyone know how to jump back to 4.4.4 after upgrading to 5.0?


I really do not like this latest cosmetic update, it's clunky, tacky and several steps back from the previous incarnation... My home menu is now full of oversized Icons that don't fit on the screen and that I'll never use (US Sports & News etc.) and the ones I do such as Radio are pushed to the bottom...


There really ought to be the option of hiding unwanted icons.

Mar 8, 2012 6:28 PM in response to Phoenixhiker

I called Apple Tech Support last night (Australian time) and the agent replicated the problem at their end. He wasn't sure what was causing it. I have called again today to see if they have come any closer to a solution, they didn't even have notes on the first call. Absolutely hopeless really. I've lodged a complaint again. Hopefully this gets sorted. It's made my Apple TV absolutely hopeless. I can't even search through the list.

In the meantime, I may just try to AirPlay from my mac to my AppleTV instead.

Mar 8, 2012 7:06 PM in response to Louis Melledy

Louis Melledy


I turned on my appletv, noticed this problem, went to settings, saw an update, applied, went to settings, iTunes store, sort favorites, set to alphabetically. and now my problem is gone. Good luck.





I missed that setting on the apple tv, but that did not fix the original problem. It appears to apply to iTunes store favorites which I do not know what that is.

Mar 9, 2012 3:28 AM in response to Phoenixhiker

That is odd that it only worked for me, but it did work. Shows were out of order, I changed that one setting and then my shows were back in order. I have about 1100 tv episodes, maybe about 5 of those are from the apple store, and about 150 movies, none from the apple store. Once I changed that one setting, all tv tv shows were ordered correctly. I think they made it by default so that serialized shows are ordered for when purchased/released. It's inconvenient, but they might of been trying to get networks on board for something else.

Mar 9, 2012 4:26 AM in response to Louis Melledy

Louis Melledy wrote:


I turned on my appletv, noticed this problem, went to settings, saw an update, applied, went to settings, iTunes store, sort favorites, set to alphabetically. and now my problem is gone. Good luck.

Nope, doesn't work for me either. I found the setting that you've indicated, but it had no effect on sort order in my TV shows (all mine, no iTunes-purchased content).

Mar 9, 2012 4:32 AM in response to Phoenixhiker

I can confirm this is an iTunes 10.6 problem. I had updated the AppleTV on Wednesday night and everything was still fine. Updated iTunes the next day and the sorting problem occurred.


This cannot be intentional. They already have a sort by date option at the top. It's a bug.


It's compounded by the fact that the sort is chronological-- meaning you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the new show you're probably trying to watch. I have hundreds of shows and this is majorly annoying.


Apple, please FIX!

Apple TV television shows out of order?

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