Apple TV 4 - Home Sharing Slideshows - Scratching my head...

i talked to Appple support today about the shoddy workmanship in the slideshow saga. " well it's not really designed for that " ! oh well that makes it ok then lol so she had me reset reinstall all the software cause company policy says so and guess what. it's still the same now there a surprise , I got a reference no to contact apple about the problem but to be totally honest what difference will it make ? Apple know about the problem they just can't be bothered to fix it iam paying extra for iCloud storage and it's not really working for me and my photos as I can't see them in the fashion I would like may just go back to Flickr pro and I think the give you about 10gb storage for the same kind of money

I decided I would email this to Tim Cook at Apple. If that doesn't get a response, I will try to get someone (who has > 1 million followers on Twitter) to tweet it to Apple Support on Twitter and to Tim Cook on Twitter.

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Hi Tim,

Long time Apple user (Apple ][ plus, 128k Mac etc), and was curious if you could help get to the bottom of the slideshow bug in the 4th Gen Apple TV. In short, it doesn't work properly, unlike in the Gen 1,2, and 3 Apple TVs and has been like that with all the versions of tvOS (9.0 to 9.2). It shows some photos in order, then randomly shows them out of order and often just ends the slideshow abruptly.

See Apple developer bug report numbers: 23038324 and 25328408 (among others).

[Link to video showing the problem]

And one of several Apple Support forum discussions:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7321908?answerId=29961343022#29961343022

Thanks for looking into this and try to help the Apple TV become a more bug free product.

Thank you again,

What I did notice was if I switched off repeat in the slide show I get about 5 photos and then it stops and goes back to the main slideshow ,menu . Something else which I have noticed since updating was when clicking on my computer to use home sharing some times it crashes Back to the main menu sometimes it works and some times I get a few photos then it goes back to the menu again, this is something that either I never noticed in the earlier software or it was by luck has anybody else noticed this problem

Same here. If auto-repeat is disabled, after a few slides the show stops and returns to the main slideshow menu screen. For an update that was 3 months in the works (with about 8 or so public beta versions) I would have thought that these highly visible slideshow bugs had been worked out. But like someone here said, apparently, a new app switcher, folder, Siri whatever was more important than fixing a jarring bug.

Christian,

Thanks for doing that. Its a lot of effort you put into demonstrating this bug. I just can't imagine the developers of tvOS are not also users of ATV4, and this kind of behavior would drive the crazy and they would never let this get out in the public. (Looks bad on their resume). I am very disappointed in the Apple testing folks for letting this stuff get out. A related bug in tvOS 2.2 is that if you turn on iCould photo library and then try to select an album to be your screen saver, you get to the screen that shows all the albums but the "set as screen saver" button in the upper right is missing so while we can now see our photos from the cloud we still can't use them as a screen saver (buggy or not). I certainly think a screen saver, is the second priority, after viewing, that most users would have. So it should be at the top of any test plan. To me it appears that the managers of these development groups do not hold their developers to high standards. These kind of bugs have a very high visibility and really reflect bad on a company that prides itself in its products.

Alex

What's particularly surprising: this bug is highly reproducible, probably easy to fix (how difficult can it be to count down 1, 2, 3... or any other order, alphabetical or temporal) --- yet paying (..!) customers are being fed with "slideshows not a priority" etc statements... totally unacceptable.

Yes, I originally reported this error (slideshow returning to menu after a number of photos) ,and I got this "workaround" from Apple: Either set duration to something less than 5 seconds or enable the repeat function. And yes that kept the slideshow running, BUT after a number of photos - in the wrong order (as documented by many here).

I wrote this to Apple November 23, 2015:

<quote>

I can confirm that the two mentioned workarounds are working “to a degree”:

• Choosing a duration of 3 seconds/photo keeps the slideshow running.
• Choosing a duration of 5 seconds/photo and setting repeat=yes keeps the slideshow running.

But common to both workarounds is that after 25 photos, then photos are shown “randomish” … not completely random but absolutely not in order, as chosen in the settings.

BTW, I was sad to see that my earlier post here has disappeared - turn out that is has been "branched out".

/Carsten

I wonder if the error affects only individual devices or all? Do you know someone who can use the slide show without any problems?

The same here. I just updated my ATV4 to the newest software version. Nothing seems to be fixed regarding the slide shows.

For the moment I downgraded to my old ATV2. Slideshows run very nicely on that device.

On Apple TV 2:

• Slideshows run in the correct picture order
• can be paused and restarted anytime
• can be startet from any selected picture
• come with music

I am really frustrated about the poor support of slideshows in Apple TV 4. I am very close to trying slideshows on an Amazon Kindle Fire TV stick. If that will work better, I think I will leave the Apple TV products.

😟

Samaki,

Yes I agree, even Tim Cook should be seeing this while showing off his Apple TV to his friends! So why no fix? I work in hardware design and what is frustrating to me, as engineers we come up with the most creative metal only changes using the fewest metal layers to our designs when a bug has been found in a chip and we fix it. Here all that is needed is a editor, and a few lines of code, some regression testing and release the fix, not expensive masks that have to be created. I just don't understand the expectations that software managers have on their teams. This is happening in living rooms all over the world what would be more important to fix?

Just upgraded my ATV4 to OS 9.2. I really hoped the slideshow would finally be fixed. NOT! My 5s slideshow from my computer plays exactly 7 photos and then stops every time. Allowing shuffling still only plays 7 photos. If I set it at 3s (no-repeat), it seems to continue playing, but it does so with repeats.

Hello All,

I really appreciate this post! I'm an ATV3 user and the slideshow is the the glue that keeps me on the ATV. My current ATV3 constantly resets so I have been considering the upgrade to ATV4 - I won't be doing that if I cannot have a solid slideshow experience. I have +25k pictures on iCloud, my large screen TV is absolutely the best way to make use of this treasure (photos). My family and extended family come over and are always excited to sit and look at old photos, we laugh joke and reminisce. I'm really getting frustrated with the way Apple just pulls the rug out from under it's customers during upgrades.

Hello rdgen,

Regarding your ATV 3 constantly resetting, you might try a full software restore, Restore your Apple TV through iTunes - Apple Support since your software may be corrupted. This is a large download, so be prepared to wait a while.

I did a quick test and today's Apple TV update may have fixed it,