Why can't I play purchased movies on my Apple TV? And why does iTunes match not work on my Apple TV?

Question

Why can't I play purchased movies on my Apple TV? And why does iTunes match not work on my Apple TV?

I have an Apple TV (early 2012) and bought some movies in the iTunes store. Now, Apple TV doesn't let me watch my purchased content. I very well can listen to music I have bought in the iTunes store and watch the purchased movies on my iphone 6 (running the latest iOS 8) and on my MacBook Air (running the latest version of Yosemite). I can also rent movies on Apple TV and watch them - no problem at all.

The other problem I have is that I activated iTunes Match on my Apple TV. But it doesn't work either. On my Mac and on my iphone - there's no problem. On Apple TV instead there is always appearing the message, that it will take a couple of minutes to setup iTunes Match on Apple TV. Well... that is too nice to be true! It takes hours and even after that it doesn't work at all.

I checked the forums and tried different things:

1. Updating my Apple TV's software to the latest release

2. Restoring all settings of my Apple TV and taking it offline (meaning: logging out of iTunes on Apple TV and taking it off power)

3. Restarting my modem and router after half a minute break and taking it off power.

4. Setting up Apple TV again and reconnecting it with iTunes and my WLAN-router.

5. I also wanted to Airplay the screen of my MAC or iphone to Apple TV -> doesn't work (even though I can watch the movies on this two devices without any problems). Other content can be airplayed to Apple TV without any problems as well.

-> Nothing seems to work!

When I tried to play the moves the following to messages appear:

1. iTunes is currently unavailable. Try again later. (But Apple TV recognizes how much of the movie has been watched already. It indicates that it is connecting and authorizing... and after that the message above appears). OR

2. Apple TV says that the movie will be ready to be watched in two hours from now... or that you have to chose a lower resolution, if you want to watch it any sooner.

Does anyone face the same difficulties? And of course: Does anyone know any cure and salvation for my Apple TV? ;-)

Thanks so much for your assistance!

AppleTV 2, iOS 8.1.1

Posted on Nov 23, 2014 3:42 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 23, 2014 6:05 AM in response to sunnymountainviewonthesea

There's an issue currently that a lot of us are experiencing in that we all get the error message "iTunes is currently unavailable; please try later"

It's an issue with Apple and we're awaiting an update re this

I've posted a topic in regards to this after having a long conversation with Apple support this morning and will be receiving a call from their tech team tomorrow to run through it further

As it stands iTunes cannot be accessed via ATV's and nor can it be streamed via AirPlay from iTunes to the ATV

However I can access all films/iCloud content via my Mac Mini with no issues!

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Answer 2

Nov 26, 2014 10:16 AM in response to sunnymountainviewonthesea

I just got off the phone with Apple support who fully acknowledge it's their issue. Only affecting certain accounts and only Apple TV.

No fix yet. Frustrating because I like to stream directly from iTunes Match to one of two Apple TVs I have.

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Answer 3

Nov 30, 2014 4:25 AM in response to Edwin Becker

Hi Edwin and DAN1979

I checked again and now it works again, as we were used to it. I have no clue what Apple did and when, but it works (which is great!) :-)

How about you?

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Answer 4

Dec 13, 2014 9:42 AM in response to sunnymountainviewonthesea

Hi

After having suddenly again the same problem, but only with a few movies I have purchased, I finally contacted Apple support myself. And the solution they told me is quite simple:

Go to settings - general - time zone support and change it to auto. It then changed the time zone to my region. And that was it! Now it perfectly works again.

I cannot help but this reminds me in a way of Windows: you need to know where you have to tick the box, otherwise it does not work at all. Not very intuitive to use...

The change of the time-zone can happen after updating the os of AT. So, it it does not work after another update, you know now where to check first.

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