movie rental problems Apple TV

Same all around...rented film, stopped half way through, back in 20 minutes, film gone, when tried to re-rent it, ATV said I had to go to Settings, Downloads. There is no "downloads" in Settings. The "Check for Rentals" option just spun and spun around with no resolution.

I ended up resetting the system and voila, film was back. It's just a small bug but an annoying one. Suprised this hasn't been fixed by now especially with SO MANY on this post having exactly the same issue as me!

Thank you to Tom and all for your help!

same problem today. logged out of applestore, logged back in, and the rental showed up at the top of movies.

how do grandmas keep these things running?

"Suprised this hasn't been fixed by now especially with SO MANY on this post having exactly the same issue as me!"

Don't hold your breathe waiting bradsven! Apple ruined ATV's single best feature when they either deliberately decided or accidentally destroyed the ATV's ability to stream genuinly random selections of photos from an entire iPhoto or Aperture library. The hardware is capable of doing it, but the software just won't. This occurred years ago and no amount of bug reports to Apple has ever elicited a response, let alone a fix. Maybe they'll fix this rental problem beacuse there's money to be made from rentals, but they seem to have no interest in fixing photo streaming, because I guess, there's no money in it for Apple. I continue to have a love/hate relationship with this company.

Same problem + solution here.

Thank you for your help!

I do not know if you are experiencing problems with renting or purchasing items from the Apple TV through iTunes, if so see all the steps I have taken to rectify the problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5446101?answerId=23399558022#23399558022

People, I may have found a solution. I was trying a few of the suggested solutions in this thread to find my rented movie, stopping short of fully reseting the whole unit.

I found in settings (see below) the unit had changed my location settings once I went through them and set them back to where they should be (Australia for me) the rental came back and I watched it through with no further problems. I relly hope this helps!

Settings > iTunes Store > Location

Settings > General > Time Zone

Settings > General > Region Format

This message may clarify the "It's a bug." issue.

The latest update for Apple TV may have been released a few weeks ago, but the notice for the update appeared on my device only 10 days ago - October 8th.

After the update installation, my problems with disappearing rental movies started.

I scheduled a call (October 10th) with a support person and explained the problem, and the eternally spinning gear when I selected "Check for Rentals". It was this support person who said, "There appears to be a glitch with the latest update." - his words, not mine. He then told me he was not surprised about the spinning gear and that I was not the only person with this problem; others with similar experiences had called. He didn't use the word 'bug', but 'glitch' comes pretty close. Perhaps he mispoke - I don't know. But he certainly created the impression that the problem was created by the latest Apple TV update.

As I reported in another post, he walked me through the steps that have fixed the problem for some people, but not others. Unfortunately, I fall into the latter category.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I had tried all of the other fixes being suggested in reply to this post and others like it, but nothing worked. I then resorted to contacting iTunes and asking for a refund for the rentals that had disappeared.

After reading your post, I checked in Settings and discovered that under Region Format, the wrong country was listed. As soon as I made the correction all the icons for my rentals came back.

Very welcome sauble! Am glad my solution worked for you as well 🙂

Resetting the Regional Settings fixed the issue for me.

Selected movies to watch later. Couldn't find them anywhere. Tried 'check for download' to no avail (spinning white circle).

Signed out of iTunes from 'settings' menu. Signed back in and all my rentals appeared.

Same issue. And same movie too! WW Z. What I found most upsetting was the outdated UI prompts telling you to go to Settings > Downloads (which don't exist--You have to go to Settings > iTunes Store > Check for Rentals). And then Check for Rentals does nothing....you just get the dial spinning forever. Or, you get a message that says, iTunes store is temporarily unavailable.

The only work around is to re-rent it but you can't do that if you are still in the 24 rental period. So you wait it out and then re-rent it...but all the other stuff happens: can't pause, movie disappears, etc. So, in one 38 hour stretch I think I purchased the rental 4x. And in spite of my open ticket on the missing rental, Apple refuses to refund me for the duplicates.

Apple must be hurting for money if it is resorting to stiffing it's loyal customers for a few measly dollars. Disgraceful.

Try this:

I found in settings (see below) the unit had changed my location settings once I went through them and set them back to where they should be (Australia for me) the rental came back and I watched it through with no further problems. I relly hope this helps!

Settings > iTunes Store > Location

Settings > General > Time Zone

Settings > General > Region Format

I just updated Apple TV and the problem described above went away I click on the movie and now see the VIEW button.

This has happened to me several times since the iOS7 release. Logging out of iTunes from the Settings menu has fixed it everytime. It's been over a month now with no fix.

I have to say that since iOS7 every Apple product I own, all 8 of them have gone from the best products made to products of constant frustration. I could ramble off a list of problems with every device I own. How could a company so good a getting right, get it so wrong? Beyond software problems, Apple even let their fascination with flat design trump usability. Since when has Apple not made usability their top priority? Never, that's when. What is going on behind closed doors in Cupertino? Whatever it is, it's scaring me. Scratch that. It saddens and ****** me off.