Annoying Glitches With Apple TV Take 2

March 18th, 2008

After achieving “nirvana” with my Harmony Remote, I must report some problems I’m having with the Apple TV Take 2. There are only two, one minor and one major.

Minor issue: My favorite podcasts no longer display cover art. Seems to have vanished for some reason.

Major issue: The Apple TV repeatedly loses its wireless internet connection. The issue first manifests itself with it forgetting the network password, and gets worse until it no longer sees any active networks. Kind of hard to re-enter a password that way.

At first I thought it was my router, however, I set up a connection using Internet Sharing via my Mac Mini and the same problem manifests itself over time. I’ve tried various settings on the router (different channels, time outs, disabling corny settings) to no avail. Other folks are encountering this issue.

The annoying thing is the problem gets worse until the Apple TV is losing its connection within a day. And also odd: my MacBook has no problems getting on the wireless internet.

The one fix that works acceptably: pulling the plug and letting the Apple TV restart. Resetting the settings doesn’t work.

This is one instance where the simplicity of the Apple TV is a bit of a detriment. It doesn’t have a power button. It also doesn’t have any network troubleshooting settings where I can turn on or off the Airport connection.

So basically, I’m looking at two fixes:

Give up using the wireless connection and reconfigure my home entertainment system to run an Ethernet cable over to the Apple TV (no way, I shouldn’t have to do a workaround for something the product is advertised as having – wireless connectivity).
Wait for Apple to release Apple TV Take 2.1.

I’m going with the latter option.

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