authorization is required

I have the same issue. I purchased a move 2 days ago, played fine on my ATV 2nd gen. I try to play it tonight, it sees the movie and gives the option to continue, but runs into some sort of authorization issue. I ran through similar steps as jnordby above to no avail. I CAN play purchased movies from the cloud, so the ATV is authorized. I can play the movie on my computer, and can Airplay the movie from my computer to the ATV. Seems like this issue was also circulating in Oct 2011.

This worked the first time.

I just ran into this well known issue last evening after the purchase of Hugo. I went into settings (within Apple

T.V)/general/reset/restore. You will have to select your network, enter passwords for both the network as

well as iTunes, but Hugo played right away.

Give that a shot.

mm

I had this with a movie bundle - AppleTV2 and 3 claimed iTunes not authorised when it was.

Solution for me - unplug AppleTV from power for 30 secs and restart.

power cycle the router.

Cycling Apple TV power worked for me as well.

Power cycling worked for me as well. Thanks!!

Alley_Cat wrote:

I had this with a movie bundle - AppleTV2 and 3 claimed iTunes not authorised when it was.

Solution for me - unplug AppleTV from power for 30 secs and restart.

Power cycling ATV2 works for me 100% of time. The problem is, I have to do this at least 5 times a week, becuase the Authorization prompt comes up over and over and over again!!!

Power cycling is not a fix. Just a mere BandAid. I wonder what is actually causing this?

I've had this issue with Snow Leopard, Lion and now even in Mountain Lion, with the latest version of ATV OS and iTunes.

Everything plays just fine on my Macs or iPod. ONly ATV is having this issue, so that makes me wonder whether this has been a long term bug. I started seeing this after upgrading ATV software last year.

So annoying...

Moreover, every time I power cycle ATV2, it forces me to turn off and turn on home sharing in iTunes.

Just to add to the aggravation...

I've used my AppleTV 2/3s less in recent months but I am now absolutely convinced that the latest (official) software is borked in several ways.

They are manifesting great instability I've not seen for a long long time.

AC

Jiri Krecek wrote:

Power cycling is not a fix. Just a mere BandAid. I wonder what is actually causing this?

AppleTVs have ALWAYS been bad at re-establishing lost network connectiosn to iTunes.

I've assumed there was a software flag which once set to reflect 'no itunes available', 'iTunes connection lost' or similar that it never bothered to refresh and always assumed this was the case until a reboot.

For me these problems had been rare with AppleTV2/3 until the latest update (5.01)

Jiri Krecek wrote:

......even in Mountain Lion, with the latest version of ATV OS and iTunes.

Beware the NDA.

Good point.

Will keep in mind.

Alley_Cat wrote:

Jiri Krecek wrote:

Power cycling is not a fix. Just a mere BandAid. I wonder what is actually causing this?

AppleTVs have ALWAYS been bad at re-establishing lost network connectiosn to iTunes.

I've assumed there was a software flag which once set to reflect 'no itunes available', 'iTunes connection lost' or similar that it never bothered to refresh and always assumed this was the case until a reboot.

For me these problems had been rare with AppleTV2/3 until the latest update (5.01)

Interesting.

I've had the Authorization problems way before 5.X.

Not as frequent, but they'd show up once in a week or two.

But I agree, the latest build of ATV OS has gotten bad in this regard.

Not once did I have an issue playing a movie or show via direct iTunes stream, but as soon as I play from my own library, it's a whole different ball game.

I wouldn't mind streaming all day long, if Comcast wasn't capping me off @ 250 GB each month.

I've converted hundreds of my own DVDs to iTunes format and those require no authorization, but in all honesty, who is supposed to remember whcih movies were bought and which were ripped from one's own DVD?

As I love Apple TV, their organizational structure of navigation makes me shake my head. Your home made iMovies being mixed with Hollywood movies being the worst of the worst nuissances for me.

@ jnordby

Let me ask..

When you attempt to play the purchased movie, where do you play it from:

• Main Menu >> Movies >> Purchased and then you stream it from the store?
• Computers >> Your Computer >> Movies and then you play it from your local copy of the film?

I've never gotten an Authorization prompt from the streaming approach. It only gives me hard time when playing a local copy of a purchased movie from my own iTunes library, so when I get this error I just go to the Purchased section of ITunes store on ATV and stream the movie from there. It is faster than rebooting the ATV and reauthorizing iTunes and recreating the home share, which ATV forces me to do after any event ATV is shut off or there is a power outage.

Just curious....

jnordby wrote:

whenever I try to play purchased movies on Apple TV, I get Authorization is required. I have played these movies many times for months. Nothing changed in the setup to cause the error.

apple TV home sharing is on (turned off and back on)

home sharing is on on the Mac (turned off and back on)

computer is authorized (when I authorize, it says already authorized)

computer deauthorized and reauthorized - then home sharing turned back on

it shows the movie partially played and gives the option to continue, so it knows it has been played before

Yet no purchased movies will play on Apple TV.

Updated software on Apple TV and upgraded to latest version of Itunes. same thing.

Infuriating!!!!!!

Why does Apple TV or iTunes think that the computer is not authorized - or something else is wrong, triggering this message? HELP!

Did I waste a lot of money buying movies that I can't watch on the system bought with other wasted money?