Apple TV seems to be stuck in a loop

Mine has just appeared to have this symptom. Surprisingly, all of us have this in the same day. I can rule out the updated iTunes version because just before the problem occured, my ATV did not connect to any ITL. It was only playing its local contents.

It reminds me of the nortorious Macbook random shutdown.

I'm running iTunes 7.1.1 too. I really don't think it has anything to do with the issue, and I reckon it's more likely that Apple TV has been updated behind the scene, without us knowing about it.

Will try 7.2 though, and another power outlet. Though I have my doubts it will do much good....

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Update:
Okay, so I tried a few of the things suggested in this thread, but none did any good. It's crazy hot and the remote has stopped responding to any command. I'll have to go with faulty software too!

Well..me too.
I've had my ATV not one week. Was OK for about 30 mins then froze. I pulled the plug to restart and then it started looping as described above. Has anyone talked to Apple Support yet ??

mine is doing the same thing. i shut down my wireless network and started it up again, then it worked for about 10 minutes before going back into the infinite loop. i tried connecting with a ethernet cable directly to the mac, and that worked for about 20 minutes. then the loop came back. i am stumped.

Ditto effect here in the UK, started this evening 30th May

Happens with the old 7.1 version of iTunes (downloading 7.2 now)

Finally when it gives up connecting and goes into screensaver it stablises again.
Tried a factory reset/restore but that has no effect.


Somewhat glad others are seeing the same problem here - i.e. at least its some type of software problem not hardware, would appear its the AppleTV itself though? Its still indicating Software 1.0 - so it didnt 'secretly update'


???

Right completely disconnected all iTunes library.
Apple tv was fine. Then launched iTunes and it goes
into the loop again. So pulled out my Macbook with
iTunes 7.1 and it works fine... thats enough proof
for me, has got to be this new iTunes! That is until
someone can come up with a better explaination 😉

p

Same here, I used my MBP that did not get the update and it works fine.

Its the same old update problems!! don't they test these things or maybe its a crossed fingers approach?

My issue seems to be somehow connected to network access.

I just left mine to cool down, started it back up without the net cable plugged in - all seemed fine. Plugged in the net cable after 5 mins, started to loop within seconds. Unplugged cable, looping stops and it's been stable for 10 mins +

I'm going to disable DHCP and only provide it with local access (ie no gateway - if it'll let me). Maybe it's phoning home for some reason and is getting a response causing the loop.

What ever this is its new. I phoned apple and was put through to the appleTV people, without realising the Tech guy had the silence turned off so I could hear him before he spoke to me.

'Wow, thats another one, this is really weird' was what I heard before he picked up the phone to me.

If updates were installed without my permission I would be uncomfortable with that.

Otherwise all I can think is some random bug has surfaced in one of the components set to go off at 12pm 30th May. Haha.

Luckily I have a mac mini right next to it, so I am not totally out of music.

Well, I just did some testing... In my caes, both my tv's have been working just fine all day, and in fact I was watching some video off of one at lunch time. However, with the reports in here, I decided to restart one of them, which is when the problems began....

Even though I only restarted one of the two tv units, they both suddenly began exhibiting the rebooting symptoms that everybody in here seems to be reporting.

I am now in the midst of doing a factory reset on both units to see if that resolves the problem....

It phoning home could indeed be the problem... seems like a apple update day. Gonna leave mine unplugged and give it another go tomorrow, the update issue mite be something they are fixing in an update lol!

p

Yep, reconfigured Ethernet without specifying a Router address (or DNS for that matter) and so far so good.

If it is a "phone home" issue, turning off your iTunes will not in itself solve the problem if your AppleTV (unless your iTunes box is also your router) - you'll need to prevent it talking to the outside world entirely.

Hi Carole, good point regarding iTunes versions. I was running version 7.1.1.1 (5). It is with this version that I had all the problems descibed previously.

I have just updated iTunes to ver 7.2 (34), checked that the ATV software is uptodate, resynched the remote to the ATV and am still having the same problems as before except now at least I can see another synched library.

But what happens soon after accessing a library is that the apple logo appears and I am rebooted back to the main menu. This unit is completely inoperable.

Even as I type, I am not doing anything to it, it is just looping between the main menu and Apple startup logo.

I'm figuring that it is an installed upgrade directly to the ATV itself.

I don't know that it's necessarily phoning home for an update, but there could be something going on in regards to its communication to the outside world, rather than iTunes itself.

In my case, doing a factory reset did not resolve the problem, nor did shutting down iTunes on all of my computers, or even the computers themselves.

After the factory reset, it was attempting to reconnect to an iTunes library, and displaying the five-digit code... However, it kept flipping back to the Apple logo and then coming back to a different five-digit code.

Disconnecting my actual physical Internet connection seemed to resolve the problem, and it was okay until I reconnected it back to the Internet.

It may not be iTunes 7.2 so much as it may be related to the work they're doing on the iTunes Store today with regards to all of the iTunes Plus content being added.

In short, I can sync and view content just fine from my iTunes 7.2 libraries, as long as my Internet connection is offline. As soon as I reconnect to the Internet, the problem begins again.

The new iTunes update seems to be the problem in my case. The ATV was working fine immediately before I did the upgrade this morning. Then it went totally crazy, exhibiting the same symptoms others have described here. I've even tried the factory restore, but the ATV eventually goes crazy again. What's weird is that it will display my album covers and shows my music, but there is no sound. None of my movies even display, no TV, no podcasts except for a momentary glimpse of This American Life, which then disappeared. My iTunes library appears intact and the content works fine on my Mac.

It's seems to be working fine again.

I believe that there was a clash in the synch settings. My ATV was syching to my laptop library but in iTunes on the laptop, no synching options were selected. A mismatch.

I have disabled the synching on the ATV (having to quickly navigate the menu during the looping) and reconnected the ATV to my iTunes library on the Macbook so that it streams the content only - which is what I want. Therefore, there is no syching settings on either the AV nor in iTunes.

I believe the opposite should also hold true i.e. syching material from iTunes to ATV.

I appears that the settings need to be the same on both devices. I'm not sure how I messed it up but I have been watching a program now for about 15mins without any glitches at all.

Hope this helps! (and I hope it stays fine too!)