Apple TV Siri Remote DOA?

Do you have an ATV 3? Try using the old remote it works with my ATV4. Else, box it up and get another one I guess.

We had the same problem. I went to Best Buy and got a USB-C cable and plugged the AppleTV into my mac and used iTunes to factory restore and it downloaded an update as well. It took almost no time and now everything is working perfectly! I hope this helps.

Any way to get this to work WITHOUT having to go buy a USB-C?! I didn't really expect to have to go BACK out and purchase additional items just to turn on my new Apple TV.

kphillpotts wrote:

Not that I saw unfortunately.

It's very un-apple to have an issue like this... but there you go. What I did notice after the reset was it went to a first page where it asked to synch the remote... so I guess somewhere things got screwwy with the pairing and because of the minimalist design there is no way to reset other than an attached computer 😟

That is absolutely right. I bought a second AppleTV (32GB this time) for my second tv and I did not have any setup issues. I did not want to go out and buy additional items either, but I was just happy that I could fix the AppleTV without returning it.

Hi

If you have a problem with remote just change for a hour if its been in box for 2 months it will be flat

Cheers

Brian ( UK )

Tried this approach. Did not work. Good suggestion, though. Thanks.

Thanks, but the first thing I did was to plug the remote in. Then I charged it overnight because it still didn't work after an hour. It is a software issue because everything works after restoring it. Furthermore, my second AppleTV Siri remote worked right out of the box. The USB-C cable and an iTunes restore and update is the only way I know to fix this issue.

I had some trouble locating a USB-A to USB-C (Best Buy guy looked at me like I was crazy), so I ended up just purchasing an Apple Tv Remote from a prior generation and used it for set up. Worked right out of the box. I then paired my Siri Remote with the new Apple TV and returned the other remote after I got everything set up. Quite the work-around, but my Apple TV now works!

I had the issue with the Siri Remote not working out of the box as well. It looks like the initial screen on startup SHOULD be "Pair Your Remote", and mine went right to "Select your country". So I happened to have the previous gen (Gen 3) Apple Remote...and I used that to get to the Settings Menu and Restore the AppleTV. This resolved my issue!

Which is great because I didnt want to go back to the Apple Store or buy a USB-C cord to factory reset.

Hope this helps!

Just to confirm; I used my old Apple TV remote to go to settings and did a "restore", just like JasonMacFreak. The software update section said my software was up to date, but when I did restore, it installed two separate updates. It feels like Apple might have rushed this a bit, or isn't doing as good a job of user testing before release. Once you get the device updated, it asks to pair the new remote and then you have to go through set-up again, but you can do it with the Siri Remote.

Thanks this should be helpful to others that are having the issue. When you say you restored from the settings menu do you mean "Reset"? I'm only aware of the restart and reset menu options in the Settings. AFAIK doing a restore would involve connecting to a computer via the USB-C service port.

I wonder what these mysterious updates are as everyone should be on 9.0 right now unless there are different build numbers for 9.0.