Apple TV Won't Play Anything

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Level 1

1 points

Apple TV Won't Play Anything

As of today, my Apple TV has been rendered virtually useless. I'm not sure what could have happened overnight but as of this morning I can no longer play anything on the device.

To summarise the issue, when clicking on any of the icons (i.e. Trailers app) the pages load without problem and bring up fresh thumbnails, descriptions, etc. It is only when I click the big blue 'Play' button that I experience problems. When clicking the button the screen goes blank for a second, and then simply refreshes the page. On occasion it may show the 'loading wheel' for a second, but it always returns me back to the launch page without displaying the video.

This occurs with all videos (Netflix, Trailers, TED, etc) apart from video streaming directly from my computer. I have performed all of the following without success:

Performed Network Test
Updated software
Checked all cable connections
Reset
Rebooted
Performed Factory Reset
Manually Set DNS
Checked & Reset Internet Connection

At this point I'm pulling my hair out. The only thing that I've changed in the last 24 hours is registering my Netflix account details but given that I've performed a factory reset I can't see how this could be the issue. It's loading up the pages correctly and I've performed a network test so the internet connection is not the problem.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Stu

AppleTV 2

Posted on Jun 26, 2015 7:28 PM

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Answer 1

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stuh78 Author

Level 1

1 points

Jun 26, 2015 10:14 PM in response to stuh78

For anyone interested, I seem to be on the trail of a solution after noticing that the screensaver has started displaying "Untitled - Internet Radio".

For some reason, whenever my Macbook was on the same network, I experienced the issue. As soon as I turned off the network connection on my Mac the problem disappeared. I finally solved the issue by turning off Airplay on my Apple TV.

Not sure what's going on here but I'm guessing there's a bug involved somewhere. See the link below for more information ...

NOTHING Will Play..."Untitled" Box Appears, Very Odd Behavior- HELP https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5916862?tstart=0

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Answer 2

Oct 16, 2015 11:34 PM in response to stuh78

This definitively fixed the problem for me. No doubt. I had the exact same issues. What gave it away for me was the appearance of the generic itunes icon with the "untitled internet radio" label that would appear in lower left of the screen at times. I did not do anything to my system that was too unusual of late, except that I added home sharing of itunes amongst a few devices so that I could get Amazon Echo to play itunes from my laptop. But honestly I don't that was related. it was more than 5 weeks ago. Just mentioning though in case it's related.

Anyhow... if you have this issue, do not do any other trouble shooting (assuming your network is working and tests well: test by going to Apple TV Settings>Network>Test). After verifying network, just go to Settings>Airplay and turn off Airplay. You can play purchased media again after that. If you use Airplay a lot then you may not be happy with this solution. But it does put a bandaid on the above problem and allow you to watch Netflix and rent/buy movies from iTunes store.

Thanks stuh78 for the fix.

Mike

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