Apple TV Death after update?

Did the latest up date also now Apple TV just blinks !!! Pretty good trick by apple to get us to buy more of there stuff . Funny how they haven't responded to this matter , Apple no longer the stand up company they used to be .

There needs to be an option to "hide" an update so we're not being constantly pestered to update our Apple TVs when we all know the current software is riddled with bugs and unstable. My old LG BD590 bluray player has this capability (to hide a software update request to not be constantly pestered by it), and I would assume Apple would have the same ability if not more given the size of their software development group?

I'm still running an old ATV software version (afraid to update). Waiting for a stable version to be confirmed by the user community, and Apple.

Well after enduring this issue for a while, I did a dumb thing...i turned off the providers wifi and attached a new Airport Extreme. Everything is working perfectly. Don't know if this is cheap provider equipment issue..since it worked fine before Apple update and rolling back continued to work fine..but using the airport extreme resolved all my dropping connectivity issues and actually boosted performance considerably.

The 5.1.1 update actually killed my Apple TV ... like completely dead - no light at all! So there was no chance of a recovery backdate.

Fortunately I had just bought it before Christmas so was able to take it into the Apple store for a retail swap. But a couple of techs there indicated that they had several customers come with dead ATVs directly resulting from the 5.1.1 update so hadn't done the update themselves. They indicated they wouldn't untll at least 5.1.2 or some pressing need to update.

I would caution anyone from doing this update until there is a known fix.

Perhaps RoyB in Cupertino can confirm reports that the 5.1.1 update is actually turning the Apple TV into black bricks - he was looking for information about the 5.1 update back in September - this would be a more serious problem in my mind since there is no ability to restore the previous software after the hardware is apparently damaged.

The instructions for doing a Restore came with my ATV 2nd gen manual. It made no mention of pluging in the power cord. Only the micro USB connection. The restore still did not fix the problem. I only got to the "Please Select A Language". English was already highlighted so I pressed the select on the remote, but nothing happened. I could navagate to other areas, but could not select them. I had previously taken the ATV to the apple store and the guy did a restore at the store, but when I got home ATV could not see my wireless. Since I can't click on "Settings" on the ATV, I can't do anything to have ATV look for my wireless. This has been, and still is, a pain in the rear.

I'm so relieved to have found this thread. I thought I was going crazy.

I tried to update ATV last night after putting it off for ages, and I got the same problem: the update stalled and after an hour I just unplugged it. I tried the update again tonight because ATV came up on the screen but it wouldn't let me select my library under COMPUTERS (I just got the "Loading Library" message).

Tonight the update worked properly: it finished, it installed, it rebooted and returned me to my usual ATV home screen. But when I went to COMPUTERS to load up my library, I got the "Loading Library" message again, which hangs in there for a good 2 minutes, before the unit just shuts itself down.

My ATV3 is officially bricked.

Kirby

Like most here, I have tried most of the suggestions with no success. I have 3 AppleTVs and only one had this problem. I booked an appointment at the Genius bar to have a look at the problem unit. He was able to locate this issue in Apple's internal knowledge base with the main symptom being listed as missing content on Wifi or ethernet. Although this isn't completely the issue all are experiencing, he allowed me to read Apple's notes and noticed that this is indeed the issue.

The notes indicates he was to attempt a restore to the latest version and if not, install the older version that is known to work. It further stated he wasn't to do an exchange as the issue was known and to be fixed in a coming release. Fortunately the Genius staff was able to restore my unit to the latest version and get everything working. Although the note said no exchanges, he said Genius staff had discretion to exchange if the update did not take as it was understandably frustrating to have to use an old software release on these new units.

I encourage all with this issue to book a Genius appointment.

After a very lengthily conversation with an Apple Senior Advisor we were able to determine that it was a firmware update on my Dlink router. Yup, a firmware update on the router. It seems that the web interface for the router was lying to me when it stated that I had the most recent update to the firmware. Good fun! I'll see how it goes over the next few days, but it seems that the wireless is working now as it should be.

FYI: Apple contacted me directly using the information in my profile (email and telephone) and we were able to schedule a phone call that worked well for my schedule. So, yes, someone at Apple does read these forums.

I just tried a hard restore by hooking up the ATV3 to my iTunes, and no luck: it did restore properly, but when I connect it to the TV & the WiFi, it hangs up on "Loading Kirby's Library" and just keeps loading... never connects.

Kirby

You know what, it worked: after updating to the most recent version of iTunes, ATV3 finally connected to my library. It took a minute but it did kick in. I'm surprised that that was necessary tho... I was using the most-recent version of iTunes that came before the recent issue of 11.

So the fix for me with ATV 3 was:

- hard reset by attaching it to my Mac and doing a "restore" from inside of iTunes

- updating to iTunes 11

Thanks everyone!

The update bricked my ATV2. after the update, I plug in power apple logo show up then disappeared then only black screen. can't even go to select langage screen. only black screen after the apple logo. I tried restoring back to 5.0.2 still no help. please help.

My ATV can now find my wireless network. After uplugging the ATV, my comcast modem, and my Apple Airport. It seems that the select button takes two clicks to get it to select. In Pandora, If i only click once on the channel I want to hear, it gives me a selection to make it a favorite. It I click twice, I can skip that part.

like a lot of folks, after updating my ATV2 to 5.1 i had the dead apple tv with the blinking light and a usb connect graphic on screen.

followed the procedures above and attempted downgrade to 5.0.x as well as upgrade to 5.1.1

in both cases, itunes spends a while "preparing apple tv for restore" but then ends up with error message:

apple tv could not be restored, an unknown error occurred (1611)...

thinking it was a problem with micro-usb cable, went and bot a new one (checking for data transfer ability) for 15 bucks. no difference...

anybody else experience this? any solution?

that stupid ATV2 has been sitting like a brick for the last 3 months, almost ready to chuck in the garbage and get a roku or something...

Yes I had this exact problem. I was using a macbook to try to restore to previous version and it WOULD NOT go past the "preparing apple tv for restore". What I ended up doing was running iTunes on a windows laptop and the restore worked perfectly.