A strange thing has happened to Apple TV owners since last night’s iTunes update. What ever Apple have done on their server end has caused Apple TV’s to get stuck in a rebooting loop. I discovered the problem myself when I went to use my Apple TV tonight. It kept resetting back to the silver Apple logo again and again. After following all the support instructions in the manual, including a factory reset, the system continued to continually reboot. At first I suspected that my system was dud and needed replacement, but I went to the Apple support forums, and right at the top of the user discussions was a thread with a lot of other users also experiencing the problem, all of which started over the last day or so.
The suspect was the iTunes update of course, but the iTunes application itself does not seem to be the root of the problem. Users on the forum have suggested that the Apple tv contacting the iTunes servers is causing the issues, and sure enough if you disable internet access, the problem abruptly stops.
The bizarre nature of the timing of the problem suggests that there is a problem somewhere on Apple’s servers, but also suggests that the Apple TV is doing some kind of communication with Apple’s servers on a continual basis. For the moment, if you are experiencing this problem, the solution is to disable internet access to the Apple TV. Hopefully a fix will be forthcoming. You can check the progress of the discussions here.
Addendum: Even stranger, the problem only seems to manifest itself after the Apple TV is restarted. Can’t entirely confirm this yet.
UPDATE: One user on the Apple discussions reports that Apple Support staff have let them know that they are aware of the problem and working on a solution.
UPDATE2: All now seems to be well again. To quote someone from the Apple Discussions: “Maybe it was just a dream!” Kudos to Apple for getting it fixed so quickly, although you could argue that it never should of happened in the first place, but these things happen.
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>but also suggests that the Apple TV is doing some kind of >communication with Apple’s servers on a continual basis.
Umm, yeessss – the Apple TV does connect to Apples servers e.g. to get movie trailers. I’m not sure it does this constantly, but perhaps on startup
I do know it connects to the internet for the trailers etc, but It was happening the second you turned it on before you go anywhere near the Trailers or iTunes top ten. So unless it connects the second you turn it on to get the lists etc.