Screensavers not working on new Apple TV (3rd Gen)

[MaclovioG]

I recently purchased a new 3rd Gen Apple TV. Everything seems to be set up fine. Home Sharing is working. I can access the apps, itunes, and my photos (photo stream or over home sharing). Airplay is working great. However, when I try to use the screensavers or slideshow settings, the only one that will work is "Floating". If I set the theme to anything other than Floating, I just get a black screen. Note that this is the case whether I'm using my own photos or any of the built in photo libraries (e.g. Nat Geo, Animals, etc).

Is anyone else having this issue?

Also, when using my own photos, it seems to just repeat the same 100 or so images. Is there anyway to get the screensaver to pull from my full photo library (~5,000 images)? My PC is on Windows 7.

 

[Sedulous]

Hmm, sounds like there is a firmware issue. All of the built-in screen savers are stored locally so it is unlikely that something external is the problem.

As far as limited homeshare photos, I really don't know how it works on the PC side so I can't offer advice on that issue.

 

[MaclovioG]

wouldn't restoring to factory settings clean up any firmware issues? I tried doing this, and there are still no working screensavers other than floating. I restored to factory settings over Wifi. Is there any difference when restoring through the mini-USB cable?

 

[Sedulous]

wouldn't restoring to factory settings clean up any firmware issues? I tried doing this, and there are still no working screensavers other than floating. I restored to factory settings over Wifi. Is there any difference when restoring through the mini-USB cable?

I'm not sure. Maybe try a cabled restore is worth a try if you want to give it a shot.

 

[MaclovioG]

I tried the cabled restore, and it still didn't fix it, but I think I figured out the problem. My TV only has one HDMI port, so I have been connecting using an HDMI -> DVI cable into the DVI port. When I switched to an actual HDMI -> HDMI connection, all the screensavers worked, and the device as a whole seemed a bit faster as well. I'm not quite sure why some screensavers would be blocked over DVI, but this seems to be the case. Guess I'll need to invest in a new TV as well for this thing to fully work (or at least an HDMI switcher).