Level 1

6 points

HBO GO won't activate on Apple TV but it's activated on my MacBook Air

I just uploaded the newest version of Apple TV and when I go to HBO GO it tells me I need to activate HBO GO and gives me an activation code. I already have an active HBO GO account on my computer but I went ahead and followed the steps I was told. Once I finished the steps, my computer said "SUCCESS.... you may now start streaming HBO GO on your Apple TV". Yeah. Not. I went back to HBO GO on my Apple TV and the same thing happened again, I was prompted to activate. Now I have done literally everything I can think of and I have been doing this for four hours, I have read blogs, apple community, Apple TV help, HBO GO help, you name it and nothing. I have also done the following:

I made sure my Apple TV and HBO GO are on the same network...Check

I logged out of HBO GO and logged back in...Nothing

I restarted both my computer and my Apple TV...Nothing.

I restored my Apple TV to it's factory settings...Nothing

I restored my Apple TV to it's factory settings AND went through the activation process again...Nothing

My cable provider is AT&T UVerse and is compatible and offers HBO GO on Apple TV. So what the heck?????

Can somebody PLEASE help?? All I want to do is start watching Empire Boardwalk from the beginning and its not on Netflix yet and I can't get back to season one on my cable. Additionally my Airplay playback is really slow if I try to watch it on my computer through Airplay!

Trust me...I've tried it all.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Oct 12, 2014 4:04 PM

43 replies

debjmir

Level 1

0 points

Jan 31, 2015 10:21 AM in response to red_kls

I was having trouble with this too! I went the way PRINAYNAY said too and it finally did work! Thanks so much!

Mar 21, 2015 8:15 PM in response to prinaynay

Do EXACTLY as prinaynay says and WAIT UNTIL YOUR TV SAYS "SUCCESS" on the screen before you exit your TV back to try your HBO selection!! THANK YOU PRINAYNAY!!

Mar 21, 2015 8:17 PM in response to red_kls

Do exactly as PRINAYNAY says and make sure to leave your TV on the code activation screen until your screen READS "SUCCESS"!! Thank you PRINAYNAY!!

jgraue

Level 1

0 points

Mar 23, 2015 7:16 PM in response to red_kls

My problem was similar. AppleTV was updated already, however. I had to go to Setup=>General=>Reset and reset the device (not restore). Afterward, I was able to activate HBOGO with the given set of instructions. I spent a week attempting other fixes (clear cookies on browser I used, multiple attempts to activate, etc.).

Litag8r

Level 1

2 points

Mar 28, 2015 7:13 AM in response to red_kls

Same problem. After trying half a dozen times, I reset the AppleTV to factory settings, and got the same result. I have Dish. The laptop says

Success!

Your Apple TV® has been activated and is now ready to stream HBO GO.

However the Apple TV says "Error Needs to re-authenticate[.]"

Over and over again. Same messages, same lack of punctuation.

I have been using this same Apple TV and the same HBO account for over 6 months without an authentication problem. As far as I know, the things that have changed are a new Apple TV update and HBO started selling a la carte Go packages. However it was working no more than a week ago for sure. Still works just fine on the laptop and the iPad.

Ordinarily I would point the finger at Dish, but Apple has been so slack in their testing of new software I have decided to be the last person in the world to update anything they make. Therefore my money is on Apple screwing up the authentication. Fortunately we will never know because HBO and Apple will never fess up to anything. Well they won't respond to requests for service, which is the same thing.

Mar 31, 2015 7:24 PM in response to Litag8r

I'm having the exact same issue with the ''Error. needs to re-authenticate' -- we also use Dish, and have been using HBOgo on this Apple TV without issue for over a year. Works fine on my iPhone and laptop, but I'm going in circles trying to activate on my ATV. Laptop and iphone will say success, then the ATV throws the error. I've also restarted, reset to factory settings, and nada.

The only thing I can think for the life of me that might be causing the roadblock is approximately a week ago I had to change my Dish log on password; seemed to be a few days later perhaps that I got the activation prompt on the Apple TV. But, the point still remains that HBO go works fine on my other device, even after the online Dish password change. So, I'm stumped.

Apr 1, 2015 9:08 AM in response to nikkimlee

Same issue here with Dish and ATV. Works everywhere else.

Apr 1, 2015 9:21 AM in response to red_kls

SOLUTION

After entering the code into the hbogo.com/activate website don't touch the AppleTV. Leave the AppleTV on the screen with the code until a message appears that HBO GO has been activated on the AppleTV. This took about a minute for me.

Apr 1, 2015 12:04 PM in response to prinaynay

Thanks so much for posting this. THE KEY IS than YOU CAN'T LEAVE THE ACTIVATION SCREEN on the Apple TV until you see SUCCESS! Once you do this all is good. Seems like the instructions should say this 🙂

chrisfox

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2015 11:16 PM in response to mapheiman

This did it for me, thank you so much! Took about 15 seconds, I just wasn't expecting to wait and there's no feedback to that effect in the UX.

Gina B

Level 1

127 points

Apr 11, 2015 12:22 PM in response to prinaynay

Follow prinaynay. His suggestion was the solution after much frustration. Once I did it his way I realized how easy and logical it is. It works !!

Apr 14, 2015 7:01 PM in response to sobersobe

Mine finally worked today -- no error. they apparently fixed whatever glitch there was 🙂

Apr 14, 2015 7:02 PM in response to Litag8r

Mine finally worked today -- no error. they apparently fixed whatever glitch there was 🙂

Edit

Litag8r

Level 1

2 points

Apr 15, 2015 8:50 AM in response to nikkimlee

Thanks to nikkimlee for alerting me that the problem has resolved itself. I was finally able to get the success message today also. Who knows what got fixed, but I'm just glad that it did. However I suspect HBO is the culprit. Why? I have a Roku that had the exact same problem as my AppleTV. Today the AppleTV worked with no update in between.

Apr 15, 2015 6:20 PM in response to Litag8r

No problem, Litag8r; I was wondering who the problem was with, also. I was curious if it was a Dish/AppleTV issue, as I noticed you and I and sobersobe were the only users on this thread that were complaining of the authentication error, and we all subscribe through Dish. Either way, just glad it's fixed 🙂

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HBO GO won't activate on Apple TV but it's activated on my MacBook Air