Hello There
You do not know know me, but my name is Matthew Berry and I have an apple TV ( i believe it is the 3rd generation). and I am really enjoying it. I have been able to sync my photos, music I tried to do a software update for the apple TV with no success, and it even showed a picture of the iTunes icon and the apple TV icon. It meant that I had to connect the Apple TV to the iTunes app on my mac, which meant I had to get a micro usb cable to do it. I found one at Walmart for about $ 20.00 ( I know that Walmart should be the last place to shop, but when I tried the apple store , they told me they did not have any). I was able to successfully restore the Apple TV using the micro usb cable and the power input cable that came with the device, and then everything was fine. to you and anybody else who has had or is experiencing this same problem. Here are the steps to successfully restore your apple TV
1) Open up iTunes on your mac
2) plug the micro usb cable into the micro usb socket at the back of the apple TV and then into the usb port on your mac
3) pug in the power input cable that came with the device into a power bar and then into the apple TV
4) when you see the apple TV device in iTunes, click on the restore button and iTunes will update the apple TV software, then i t will restore it back to the factory settings ( you will have to wait a few minutes for this to happen)
5) once the apple TV software is up to date, disconnect the apple TV from your mac when iTunes tells you to do so and then plug it back into your flat screen TV . After that ,you reset all of your network settings , iCloud settings etc
I realize this is the long way to do it, and that you can reset the apple TV by going into the settings menu on the apple TV and clicking on general , reset but my apple TV would not let me do that, so I had to do it this way to make it work properly, and now everything is back to normal again so I am pleased
Hope this helps everybody
Matthew