Apple TV seems to be stuck in a loop

chas_m,

YOU may safely say it WAS an issue related to iTunes 7.2 update but please don't post it so authoratively.

Anybody new coming in and just reading the thread from the bottom may think you are right. Which of course you are not.

If they read the thread from the top they will see many people who did not update to iTunes 7.2 suffered the same symptoms.

No rudeness intended.

Well never know

However, something like a rogue server update their end - i.e. so we'd see random effects on the client depending where the load balancing pointed you would explain some of these issues...

That would also explain why it might have been missed in regression test


Still - provided its fixed - i guess alls well?

Remaining issues
1. The guys who dont like the 'hidden' phone home functionality
2. Apple just knocked out an app/hardware with a little carelessness
&/or the watchdog thread is a little too anxious at stopping the box crash

Probably both fixable...
Roll on 1.1

🙂

After several months of hassle free use, I had the Apple Logo continuous reboot problem yesterday. Tried a factory reset and then it just kept giving different numbers to register with iTunes. Gave up and left the thing unplugged overnight. Just started it again this morning. It gave me one number, is connected to iTunes 7.2 and it's all working fine again.

FWIW, I put this down to the iTunes Music Store being wonky.

I'd bought my ATV partly for what it can do but mainly for what it may do in the future if you follow the logic. Anyway, after loading up iTunes 7.2, I actually dropped the remote when the ATV started to go into update mode (because I'd gone straight to the update selection thinking there might have been one after the iTunes update) So I was sat there in a high state of anticipation, not to mention a wide grin, awaiting the very first update to my ATV. I remember thinking 'this is either a really cool update procedure or.... no, this is apple, it must be cool:)

What a fool! 10 minutes later, the choice was either to pull the plug or lob the ATV out of the living room window! I chose the former luckily.
So it came as some relief to see this thread this morning, despite a slight denting of my regard of Apple it must be said.
I think Apple should release some of the goodies they've (probably) got up their sleeves for ATV as a way of apologising.

After reading this thread and going through my own experience with the problem, I think I can safely say that it WAS an issue related to the iTunes 7.2 update. AppleTV apparently gets some of its information from the connected iTunes, thus putting some of the paranoid "AppleTV phones home" concerns to rest. I witnessed my AppleTV completely restart itself (back to the diagnostic screen!) when a second computer on the network updated to iTunes 7.2.

Well, as others have pointed out already, there is actually a fair bit of evidence that it had nothing to do with the iTunes 7.2 update.

I have two tv's, and when I first saw this problem reported, I rebooted one of them, and the result was the continuous loop that others have described here. After that, I shut down ALL of my computers (iBook, PowerBook, Mac Mini -- all powered OFF), and then did a complete "Factory Restore" on both of my tv's. Hence, two fresh out-of-the-box re-formatted tv's. The problem manifested itself as soon as I got an IP address assigned to either of them (by my Airport Extreme router).

Unplugging the Internet connection completely was the only solution to stop the tv reboot cycle, and then later (as others have described), set the default route to prevent them from accessing the Internet (so that I could otherwise turn my connection back on).

Once the tv's had no direct Internet access, they continued to run just fine, even after my other computers were brought online, iTunes 7.2 started up on all three of them, and registration, activation, and synchronization started occurring. The back-end copies of iTunes 7.2 had full access to the Internet, yet the tv's remained completely stable until I reconfigured the network settings to give them Internet access again, at which point the cycle restarted itself.

As for the tv phoning home... That's demonstrably true. A simple series of packet traces will prove that easily enough. The content appears to be all HTTP, and on investigating the packet content, it's basically just updating a local cache of the trailers and top-ten lists and their related artwork, and is obviously intended to improve performance and the overall user experience by having this information readily available when requested.

This is not done via iTunes or a back-end computer, but is rather direct communication between the tv and the iTunes Store on the back-end -- a basic run of Ethereal, Sniffer Pro or even tcpdump can demonstrate this in a few seconds.

Personally, I'm not particularly concerned about it, since all evidence I've seen thus far (and I've looked inside the packets) indicates that the tv is simply pre-requesting the data that you would be requesting anyway if you selected the appropriate menu options. There is no other "hidden" data being sent back to the mothership.

So did EVERY aTV go t's up after the aTV update?

Well, there was NO tv upate... Merely an iTunes 7.2 update that appears to have had nothing directly to do with the problems that were encountered.

You can revert to iTunes 7.1 if you're actually concerned by downloading the earlier version from somewhere and uninstalling 7.2 and reinstalling 7.1.1. However, it will make no difference, since it's not the cause of the problem.

The iTunes 7.2 update was connected to a bunch of work on the iTunes Store, however, and my theory is that the issues with the iTunes Store had a cascading effect on the tv->iTunes Store communication causing weird and unintended results.

The real issue is that there's obviously a bug in the v1.0 firmware that caused this issue, since something as simple as bad, spurious, or no data when checking trailers and previews should most definitely not be enough to cause a problem like this.

I spent a half hour on the phone with support on this issue yesterday. They were supposed to find out more from "the engineers" and get back to me today. But they called me back last night to tell me it was a problem with "Apple TV subscription". I said what does that mean? He said it was something on their end, but should work within a few hours. Now it's working!

Hi Folks,

I had the same problem as everyone else. A bit of a coincidence they seemed to happen yesterday.

I left mine loop for several minutes and eventually it started working fine, was playing as normal. I suspect as one post alluded to it is something to do with Apple and adding things to the box. I find it hard to believe everyone experienced the problem at similar times without some network related issue.

Well all is working well for me, but I don't know if its fixed, I am more than happy to keep the apple TV away fro my internet connection. Its none of its business!

I had a call from apple Tech today. He said the issue was not resolved and that they were looking into it.

Anyhoo, as long as we are all happy, gave us an opportunity to geek and whip ourselves into a frenzy for a while eh?

I spoke with an Apple Care person last night, and he said they are well aware of the problem and it has everything to do with the upgrade (server side) of iTunes. Apple engineers are "currently working on a fix". He acknowledged the problem even before I described it to him- apparently they received A LOT of calls last night on this problem.

Me too. With Apple support now.

So did anyone of you talk to Apple Support about it? Did they have anything to say?

It happens to me too. And I've only had it for like a few hours. It's so annoying.

Please keep us updated!

Have the same problem, tried to fix the problem but no chance...

Anything else to report on this problem???

Regards
Andy

hmmmm... just started happening to me as well. All of you guys haven't updated to the new itunes by any chance have you? Just wondering if it could be that?

p