HBO Now crashes every time I start to play content

I tried doing the full reset of my Gen2 Apple TV. Took forever. And putting in my user name and passwords was a giant pain in the *** with the ****** Apple Remote in order to get in back on wi-fi so I could control it with my iPhone again. And then it STILL timed out lots of times. Super annoying. It would load HBO Now, let me choose the content, play the rating screen, then you can see the connection light blink on and off, and it throws up the AirPlay error/disconnected screen. Then it just goes back to the main menu again.

Out of ridiculous frustrated tenacity, I just kept trying it. Eventually, it worked. What it'll do next time, who knows.

Though there's no actual evidence of it, it certainly does seem like one of Apple's awful forced-upgrade strategies.

I have had the same problem, but it seems to work when I first start to watch a trailer from the HBO Now homescreen, then pause, then go back to the homescreen and choose the show and episode that I want. Hope this can help others.

I'll try this (watching a trailer first) tonight.

I have a Gen2 AppleTV that has been working very well for years. This behavior only started recently (a couple of months ago, maybe?). I'm running the latest software. I can browser HBO Now content, select shows, get the "HBO gong/rating screen", then the AppleTV resets. I'm able to watch content from iTunes Store and from my local iTunes library without problems, so I don't think it's a hardware issue.

If I unplug the AppleTV and then plug it back in, sometimes it will work. Last night I was trying to watch Game of Thrones and nothing I tried worked. I had to watch on my iPad. The iPad always seems to work, BTW.

@ WMatsui - This works! Thanks so much!

I don't use most apps on my gen 2 apple tv, but the ones I do use work without issue - except....HBO Now. My "manual work-a-round "- I play movie/show on iPhone and airplay it to apple tv to watch on the big screen.

I think I have found work around that has worked consistently through the whole last season of Game of Thrones. My problem as stated here before: I start HBO on my Apple TV, go to the episode of GOT I want to play, it plays the original "HBO" splash screen, then I get the "busy loading circle" when suddenly my Apple TV resets, i.e. I see the light flashing meaning it has hit a reset.

SOLUTION: Once I got an episode of Game of Thrones (GOT) to play, I stopped it 1/3 of the way through. Before playing the new episode, I go to this episode and ask it to play. The first choice comes up asking for me to either play from the beginning or resume play. I choose to resume play and let it spool for about one minute. Then I menu up to the episode choices and select the unplayed episode and lo and behold, even after the HBO splash screen, the episode plays.

I have no idea why or how this works, but it does so far 100% of the time, and for this exciting season of GOT, that was good enough for me!

This worked for me. Thank you!!!