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Apple TV 4 Family Sharing Movies Showing as Blank Tiles

Recently my Apple TV 4 has started showing my some of my wife's purchased movies as blank tiles in the list, and when you select them it says the item is not available in the store. This is with my account set as the account on the Apple TV and then going to Movies->Purchases->Family Sharing->Wife. If I set her account as the account on the Apple TV they show and play fine, and my purchases are all available.


On my iPhone, Mac, and our older Apple TV 3 I can see all of her movies and play them with out issue.


I've tried restarting the Apple TV, logging out and back in, and just force quitting the Movies app on the ATV4. It seems like something is cached incorrectly, but I can't figure out how to clear it.

Apple TV (4th generation), tvOS 9.2

Posted on Apr 3, 2016 9:50 AM

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13 replies

Apr 3, 2016 10:13 AM in response to LordOphidian

I just started encountering a similar problem on my Gen 4 ATV. When scrolling through my list of purchased films, I see only white rectangles about halfway through the list sometimes.


I've backed out of this view one level and then selected "Purchased" again and it seems to then show everything, but it's annoying to need to do this. My wife's account, which has fewer films, hasn't exhibited this problem (yet?).


cjr

Apr 3, 2016 10:34 AM in response to LordOphidian

I think this is a server end issue. It started last week, then got fixed, then on Friday broke again. I have blank tiles on my own purchased movies and happens on both my ATV4. So I probably wouldn't bother troubleshooting. Apple Support aren't great help as they recommended me sending my ATV4 back for repair when i don't think that would solve the issue.


Might get fixed this week again?


BTW all is fine on my iPhone iPad iMac.

Apr 3, 2016 10:47 AM in response to OllieJT23

I figured this was on Apple's side, and it's great to hear I'm not the only one who encountered this, though I hope it's fixed soon.


Gotta admit, the first time I saw most of my movies "missing" last week, my heart stopped as the downside of "virtual ownership" vs. physical media reared its head 😁


cjr

Apr 4, 2016 12:01 AM in response to OllieJT23

It fixes itself and then breaks again randomly, so you are probably right that it's something at least partially server side. It's strange that it only seems to happen with my wife's purchases when my account is the one signed in. If I sign her in, I can see my purchases just fine, but then switching back gives the same failure. Seems like what ever the server side issue is, it's getting cached or something.


And it's fine everywhere else, phone, iPad, Apple TV 3, etc. It wouldn't be much of an issue, but when the kids are screaming, etc…

Apr 12, 2016 6:12 AM in response to LordOphidian

I have the same issue and I am relieved to read it is a wider issue. All my purchases show on my older ATV, but on my new ATV Gen4, only about 20% of the movies show, the rest are blank tiles. Any newly purchased movies display ok, but older purchases are just blank. My problem isn't intermittent though, its been like this since the day of purchase of the ATV Gen4.

Apr 12, 2016 10:45 AM in response to djcksa

If you back out one level and then return to the Purchases view, do the rest of the tiles fill in with the movie titles? That's what (still) works for me.


I didn't have this problem with my ATV4 originally, which is why I suspect it's something on Apple's side. Hopefully the next OS update will resolve this.


cjr

Apr 30, 2016 1:18 PM in response to cjr

Thanks for the tip, I've been having the same issue.


I found going to other menus within Movies, such as 'Genres' and 'Recommendations' where it caused it to show signs of loading, then going back caused purchases to reload and show correctly.


I'm guessing there was a stale or broken cache of purchases being stored, loading other menus forced the cache to be cleared, and then it could load correctly.

May 23, 2016 9:57 AM in response to LordOphidian

I have this issue for my own movies although there are family accounts linked. Purchased movie collection is pretty large 400+. It would have tiles for new purchases but no tiles or tiles for old ones. Also there was no name and you could only play movies unless I used Siri.


A possibly related symptom is that the iCloud Photo Sharing was not updating, but there appear to be no settings or network reset options.


Closing the app by double clicking screen button and swiping up did not help.


Restarting the Apple TV 4th gen didn't help.


Resetting TV back to factory helped a little - scrolling quickly through I saw a few more loaded but still many blank tiles. That did fix the photo sharing features.


I tried scrolling very slowly after the reset through the collection - one row of movies at a time and all the tiles did load successfully. (That did not work previous to the reset).


Beware of reset. Not all Apple TV games use iCloud drive or other logins and there is no backup.

Apple TV 4 Family Sharing Movies Showing as Blank Tiles

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