apple tv itunes is currently unavailable. try again later

Like clockwork every Friday evening - all the TV series and movies I've purchased aren't available because... "iTunes is currently unavailable. try again later."

go into Settings > General > Restart

after rebooting it should work again. does here, anyway...

I'm having this same issue, restarting helps a little bit but then the problem comes right back!!!

I'm trying to wach TV shows I purchased, its very frustrating!

Same deal. It started like 4 hours ago. Trying to watch TV shows. It stops and gives this error every like 20 minutes or less. Did a restart 3 times. Didn't help. Switched to Ethernet. No dice. Let me know.

Happening for me too this evening. Plays a few seconds of a music video then comes up with the error. Restarted twice but it just happens again eventually.

Same problem here, Apple is starting to really disappoint. Not bad enough yet that I'd leave for Windows, but I've stopped using Safari in favor of Chrome, I deleted Aperture in favor of Lightroom, uninstalled Pages, and I'm about to return my Apple TV and find another option. They've lost their focus. Instead of being really good at two or three things, they've become half-baked at dozens.

I had this happen tonight 5 times while watching a single show! Twice even after the progress bar showed the file fully downloaded. Each time I backed out to main menu and restarted playback from where I left off. Why do I need authorization to watch a file that is already downloaded and playing?

Seriously apple we've all seen majorly kraptakular performance from ATv lately. Shape up or we'll dump you fast!

Having this problem as well. Having canceled my cable in favor of buying shows on iTunes and combining that with Netflix and Hulu, I feel a little disappointed that this is even an issue. Restarting seems to have helped, but I got the error 6 times within one episode of Mad Men!

This has been happening to me on and off for weeks now. Today though is extremely bad and honestly makes me pretty mad. This is obviously an issue yet I see no response from apple about it. What is going on Apple?! At this point you're making Microsoft look mighty good right now for steaming media.

This is the reason I back everything up to my external drive. If iTunes is down or the internet is down I can always just stream directly from my computer.

There are several threads on this issue dating from January 2012. Eg

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3674094?start=0&tstart=0

there was an allegation that adjusting Dolby output had fixed it

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3676672?answerId=17413266022#17413266022

but reading on, it appears that the problem was on Apple's end with their servers - and they fixed it back in Jan 2012. It appears to re-occur at various times, various places (eg Australia) - presumably we just have to wait for Apple to fix this again now in April 2013.

Why would this keep happening? It is a long standing and well known problem.

Happening to me, too. This has happend a few times but usually fixes itself. Was watching Southland and I had to keep restarting the episode after it logged out with the "iTunes is currently unavailable. try again later." Tried to watch a downloaded show tonight and it won't even start. Really unhappy. Apple please fix.

My ATV2 fails to load with the same error about 90% of the time. Sometimes if I start to download the tv episode on my iPad and then it will work on my ATV. Maybe a little over half the time this works. Very frustrating.

Its happening to me with increasing frequency. I'm switching to use Amazon a lot more.

The restart suggestion worked for me. Thanks!