ATV 4, slideshow problems

ATV 4, when set to pictures slideshow or screensaver it keeps playing the same 10-20 pics over and over? My activity folder has over 1000 pics yet I keep seeing the same ones over and over. I have set random and do not duplicate. this happens both with slideshow and screensaver. I have tried different folders that I have pics in and photo stream but it only goes about 20 deep. Very annoying as my ATV3 worked great for this. Would be nice if you could download the pics to memory and then random play them. Our main use of ATV is to play music and have a slideshow going!

I have updated to the latest version this morning and still has problems. (9.0.1)

Apple TV, iOS 9.0.1

Posted on Nov 15, 2015 8:06 AM

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34 replies

Sep 28, 2017 7:13 PM in response to Lance Berry

I have just beeen on the phone with Apple support about this issue. They have suggested to do a factory restore (standard advise!) and see if that has any effect. I will keep you posted, but have a fair idea what the outcome will be!

The issue appears to be an image size problem (both Classic and Ken Burns effect are full screen effects). I have been able to fix the issue by changing the settings to either snapshots or reflections (both of which reduce the size of the image, but allow the slideshow to continue without stalling)

Jan 5, 2017 4:02 AM in response to Lance Berry

This thread started in 2015 and the ATV4 slideshow is still broken in 2017! I was trying to demonstrate the slideshow to a visitor only to end up with egg in my face because whatever i do, i get 7 photos come out and then it stops. Just out of desperation I put back my old ATV3 and it works fine. Not surprising no one is buying this ATV4 crap!

Jan 5, 2017 4:56 PM in response to foxcub 6

Just an update. I found the screen saver slideshow works better with appletv4. Does repeat but less frequently. I'm the end in Xmas day I ran the smugmug app on appletv4 and that slide show worked. Warning smugmug takes a while to get your head around. I advise a weekend to do this. However with smugmug you have to run album slideshows and there is no shuffle option. I did try setting up my Apple tv2 but couldn't get the slideshow to work on Xmas day.

Dec 6, 2015 12:34 AM in response to Lance Berry

I'm sorry to report that I blieve the ATV4 is just not working properly at present. It stops showing any of my photos when streaming from either a Mac or PC after 30 seconds. And when using the iPad mini to Airplay TV shows I have bought on iTunes it is very unreliable on the Airplay. It drops out or stalls quite frequently and worst of all when paused it drops out of Airplay mode. The ATV3 works fine on the same network and devices. Considering the price it is very disappointing to have such a flawed product on release. In contrast my Chromecast device gets better and better. C'mon Apple - get your firmware upgrades issued and let's get going.

Dec 6, 2015 8:08 AM in response to Lance Berry

I Am having the same issue as well and called Support who told me there was no fix for this and I should go to the Apple "Feedback" section. It seems that if enough of us "Complain" they "May" create a fix. I sent in a comment to "Feedback" but I worry I just spent $250 on an item that does not do the one thing I want it to do. I have over 15,000 photos on my computer and always enjoyed streaming them as a screen saver when we play music, but the same photos are coming up.

Furthermore, when I want to show someone an "album" of photos, I cannot stream them in the order that I painstakingly put together. Just like you I set it on "No" for shuffle and repeat photos and it starts out fine, just to jump back to some previous photos, then jumps ahead again then back to the same photos. It is quite embarrassing. My thought is to return the product until it works like I want and use my old 2nd generation that works exactly as I want.

Dec 12, 2015 9:32 PM in response to Lance Berry

Some more info: if I run the slideshow on "Reflections" theme set to 3 seconds then it appears more or less ok. The real problem seems to be with the Ken Burns mode of one picture at a time with slow panning - which is a mode I really like. That bombs out and gets stuck in patterns. Maybe someone else can try some of the other themes and see if there is a way out of this current rut?

Dec 21, 2015 3:36 PM in response to Lance Berry

Even with the current Apple TV update, the slideshows don't work on the ATV4. They'll play about 5-10 slides, then just stop. Same slideshows all play fine with the Apple TV 3.


Prior to this update, they'd play, but end up repeating the slides after 5-10-15 slides.


edit: This is with Ken Burns, which is all we use. I'll have to try the other modes per the suggestions above.

Dec 25, 2015 9:06 AM in response to Lance Berry

I am having the same issue with my photos. I have a shared photo stream album with around 200 photos that I wanted to have playing for Christmas. I started a slideshow, turned random off, and repeat off. The photos are being played at random, repeating, and only a couple dozen of the same photos are being played. In addition, when I go to my Photo Stream album it only displays 120 of the thousands of photos I have. This is my fourth Apple TV. I have owned the 2nd version, two of the 3rd version, and now the newest 4th version. I really thought this would be resolved with this newest version of the Apple TV. I also tried Air Playing an album from my MacBook Pro and the playback wasn't 100% smooth either.

Dec 28, 2015 12:11 PM in response to Lance Berry

Same issue here.


I have tried:


  • multiple different slide show types (doubt this matters)
  • logging out and into icloud
  • turning on/off icloud photo sharing
  • using icloud shared libraries AND family sharing on a local Mac
  • deleting all photos in a shared library and re-sharing them
  • deselecting "repeat photos". In this case, the slideshow just stops after showing a few photos, even though there are >800 in the shared library


So far, nothing has worked. Maybe I get a *different* 20 or 30 photos (out of the >800 in the shared libraries I've tested) repeating over and over after one of the above tests, but that's as much variety as I get.


I have sent feedback and suggest that everyone who has a similar issue does the same:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

Dec 28, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Lance Berry

I did give various slideshow settings - times between slides, type of show (e.g. not just Ken Burns) - and none fixed the problem The Apple TV 4 slideshows do not make it through more than 10-20 slides before either repeating some at random or in some cases just stopping and returning to the menu.


Disappointing experience. And I did a bug report too at the link above.

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ATV 4, slideshow problems

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