apple tv does not access iTunes - 4/17/2014

I had an interesting observation last night as I went to try to fix my 1st Gen AppleTV. After performing a factory reset I was able to access/play trailers which I assumed were from the iTunes store as well. However I was not able to access or play mives and I had lost all of my downloaded content. I'm wondering if this is related to a backend server fix to address heartbleed and if so would it be possible to hack these 1st gen AppleTVs to use any newly issued SSL certs. I really like my AppleTV1 and still use it heavily, though I also noticed over the years that movies rented on it do not show on my Apple TV2. I'm waiting on an explanation from Apple.

Just spoke to Apple Senior Support Specialist and he assured me they are aware of this and are working on a fix. He did say this was primarily a 1st generation ATV issues, but acknowledged other versions are being effected also.

I'd happily upgrade tomorrow if I can stream from NAS that doesn't require me to keep a computer on to listen to my own music and videos. Apple sort our ATV1s or give us USB drive or NAS support on latest ATVs. I don't understand why Apple has not given us these options and is the only reason why I continue with my ATV1.

I have my doubts whether this will be fixed. I certainly get the feeling Apple are now arrogant enough not to care about ATV1 users.

Same issues as everyone else.

Connecting the ATV1 to my compter via a network cable is letting me watch anything I have in iTunes, though. It's not much, but at least there's that option for those of us who have a long enough cable or a laptop that can be placed near their ATV1. My desktop is connected to the router via WiFi, so my LAN port wasn't in use, anyway.

Here's hoping for a speedy solution, of course.

So I get the why bash Apple answers and until now I have been and was one of those that would be saying let them just get it right. But I own a restaurant that plays music videos I invested in my ATV because it had a hard drive and I could download my playlist and not have to have a computer streaming the content. I also loved Apples reliability it has now been 4 days that my restaurant has had to play radio. And 4 days that we should have been slammed but if one of the draws is a unique entertainment factor and that's not there then..... OK APPLE get your stuff in order and do something. YOUR COSTING ME CUSTOMERS....

Is there a solution yet?

Thanks,

Richard

As I mentioned (much earlier on here .. lots of posts!), you don't need to physically plug in your ATV to your computer with a long cable. All you need to do is go into Settings and change your network router/gateway address to something else. e.g. if it's 192.168.0.1 change it to 192.168.0.2

To do this select Manual rather than DHCP and just go through IP address, subnet mask until you get to router/gateway. You may need to alter your DNS in a similar manner depending on whether your DNS forwards to your gateway or not.

This will at least allow you to play content already stored locally, sync with itunes on your mac/pc etc. It doesn't solve the problems but it saves physically moving things.

If the gateway/router is invalid then the ATV can't get out to the internet which stops all the stuttering and slowdown issues.

Regards

Steve

Message was edited by: Solar Wallace

no need to cut the ATV off from the imternet,

set rent/buy movies to 'hide' in parental controls and you can play all of your stored content without stuttering and also you can still use Youtube online etc

The week Apple announced the ATV2 I had lunch with a bunch of developers on the AppleTV team a few blocks from 1 Infinite Loop and I explained this exact scenario to them. I was really upset that Apple went down-market with what is essentially the HUB of my $7,000 home theater system. I was really hoping Apple would offer a bigger hard drive and the ability to stream data from the 1TB RAID (I know that seems small, but remember I bought this years ago) that stores all my digital content.

For those of you shaking your fingers at us die-hards for being so upset about a four-day absence of iTunes, you have to keep in mind that this is the last straw. Apple has been dropping the ball on the ATV1 for a while now and the ATV2 simply doesn't have the features or power to be a viable replacement. It was just a few months ago that I had to demand a refund for half a dozen movie rentals because of a subtitle bug on the ATV1 that makes it impossible to enjoy any movie with subtitles because the subtitles never go away. Imagine watching Olympus Has Fallen and being forced to stare at the last phrase spoken by the Korean terrorist for half an hour unless you stop the movie, back out to the main interface, then click back in to restart.

The best answer I've received so far from Apple Tier 2 support has been "go buy a Mac Mini, install an older version of Mac OSX that still contains Front Row and use that as your Apple TV instead." They even shipped me a free copy of OSX Snow Leopard to accommodate the change. We're still thinking about doing this, but my wife wants me to seriously consider investing in an HP Media Center before we drop another penny into Apple hardware.

This is not just about ATV1 devices losing iTunes access for a few days, it's about Apple turning it's back on early adopters who invested heavily in iTunes content because we loved the way the ATV1 gave us complete control over our digital content. I'm waiting for the announcement of the next Apple TV before I decide whether to move to the Mac Mini, upgrade to the latest generation ATV, or switch to Windows, but things like this don't give me a lot of confidence that Apple is taking the living room seriously.

(To PCaruso) Instead of going through my ATV, I hooked my computer directly int my TV set with a HDMI cable which allowed me to watch a film downloaded in iTunes on my TV. However, there was no sound and I had to plug external speakers directley in the computer. A temporary solution I hope.

April 17th, 2014 - California

Both my ATV1s at same time:

No iTunes Store on my ATV1

Movies stored on ATV1 stutter

Movies streamed from my computer stutter

YouTube content streams fine

Powers up fine

Wifi connection fine

I am so grateful for finding this discussion. I have been going crazy. I thought it was my ATV1 logic board or hard drive. I tried everything. Menu and -. Restore to factory settings. Unplugging for the night. Restarting router and modem. The reason I suspected apple is it happened to both my ATV1s (bedroom and living room) at the same time (April17th 2014). I have been scouring message boards and search engines, I am relieved to know more what is going on. I was close to trying a jailbreak or purchasing another used ATV1 on ebay.

I would consider an ATV2 or 3, but I don't want to have to have my laptop running (loudly) in order to stream movies. I love ATV1. I love having my movies stored locally on the hard drive. I don't want to lose all the money I've invested in my iTunes movie library.

Bansche wrote:

. . . This is not just about ATV1 devices losing iTunes access for a few days, it's about Apple turning it's back on early adopters who invested heavily in iTunes content because we loved the way the ATV1 gave us complete control over our digital content. I'm waiting for the announcement of the next Apple TV before I decide whether to move to the Mac Mini, upgrade to the latest generation ATV, or switch to Windows, but things like this don't give me a lot of confidence that Apple is taking the living room seriously.

I, too, have been a long-time ATV1 user, and at first lamented what I thought were the shortcomings of the new ATV2. But that was some years ago, and I think my Home Theater setup is quite good. Like you, I consider ATV a Hub of my system. And it doesn't require a Mac Mini. Here's another alternative:

For music I use my old ATV1 as my home "jukebox." All of my music is loaded on its hard drive. I use its optical output to feed an excellent Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), with outputs from that into the analog input of my AV receiver. Sound is wonderful, and far superior to connecting directly from the ATV1 to the receiver. I control this (playlists, volume) throughout the house with the Remote app on my iPhone. This makes particular sense for music only since ATV1 is limited to 720p output and my TV can do much better than that. The ATV problems reported in this thread don't affect this setup.

For TV I spent all of $99 a couple of years ago to get an ATV3, which I connect via HDMI to my receiver. This gives me 1080p picture quality and excellent surround sound, and works reliably without glitches. Everything I have bought from Apple over the years (music, movies, etc.) is available from the cloud, which always works well.

For an additional cost of $99 I think I have the best of all worlds. Took me a while to see this when the next generation Apple TV's (ATV2, ATV3), but i've been happy with this setup for a few years. Reading through all the woes related in this thread reinforces my conclusion. IMO a Mac Mini wouldn't improve this.

Try it. You might like it.

Bansche wrote:

It was just a few months ago that I had to demand a refund for half a dozen movie rentals because of a subtitle bug on the ATV1 that makes it impossible to enjoy any movie with subtitles because the subtitles never go away. Imagine watching Olympus Has Fallen and being forced to stare at the last phrase spoken by the Korean terrorist for half an hour unless you stop the movie, back out to the main interface, then click back in to restart.

Whoa - I have the same very frustrating issue! Drives me absoluetly crazy. I thought it was specific to my unit but apparently not.

The workaround Bansche describes does work. It's a little annoying but I just back out to the menu about five seconds into the movie when the studio logos are playing and then resume playing. That fixes it no problem.

2005 PowerMac G5 Audio recording & Midi Management

2006 Mac Pro modded to 8-core, Apple only lets use me 10.6.8 :-( For just about everthing.

2007 iMac My Wife's favorite

2004 iPod Reading histories to my son :-)

2007 Mac Mini TV recording and media home server

Just to name a few.....

;-)