"An error occurred loading this content."

[Mikel30]

I've had my Apple TV for about 2 months, and I'm going crazy. I have very reliable internet. Fast speed, consistent uptime. I never have any problems gaming, streaming Netflix to my computer, or anything else.

But with my Apple TV, it seems like a different story. And I'm not sure if it's my Apple TV to blame, my internet, or something else. Basically, the streaming is very spotty. I was just watching WatchESPN for the last hour, and I got the "An error occurred loading this content. Try again Later." message about 4 times. And even when it was playing, it was jumpy and laggy. Sometime the sound would drop out too.

Maybe it's just a bad app, but I get the same thing with other apps. I might be using the MLB app to watch a game. Or even Airplaying something from my iPad. And I consistently get this message. It's maddening to have to keep restarting what you were watching. Any ideas / fixes?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

There's lots of possibilities. Start with the simple stuff. Next time it happens, unplug the TV, wait about 30 secs, then plug it back in and try to resume the exact same thing. Does the problem happen again?

Once you might rule out the TV, the more likely culprit will be your broadband connection. Is this an evening problem or a anytime during the day or night problem. In the evenings, lots of people around you are more likely to be using their computers and wifi than during the day or overnight.

Is there more than just you in your household? Are roommates or family watching web video when this problem starts happening? Maybe too much demand on finite wifi bandwidth.

Do you live in a crowded area with lots of wifi routers? If so, it might be too many clashes between wifi signals for reliable streaming bandwidth.

If you are using wifi, temporarily hook up a wired connection and see if the problem continues. This might tell you it's a wifi problem.

Check your broadband speed with speedtest. Do you have broadband at fast enough speeds. Check again when the TV is acting up. Is it still as fast?

This is the kind of stuff you'll need to do to try to pin down the issue.

 

[Panch0]

There's lots of possibilities. Start with the simple stuff. Next time it happens, unplug the TV, wait about 30 secs, then plug it back in and try to resume the exact same thing. Does the problem happen again?

You can reboot ATV without unplugging it. Hold the "down Arrow" and menu buttons down together for ~8 seconds and the ATV will reboot.

I've had this issue with most of the ATV apps from time to time, and often rebooting will clear the issue. I usually just exit back to the menu then retry and will also fix the problem without going all the way to a reboot.

Sometimes you will find that specific content has the problem. I've even had cases where I could watch one episode of a TV season, but not another.

In the case of Netflix, when it was first added to ATV they had setup specific Servers to handle ATV Traffic, so you really were hitting a different set of servers than if you streamed from your computer. I don't know if that is still the case.

Do you do anything special with your DNS Settings on your LAN? If you use a national service - Like OpenDNS or Google - you can end up being directed to the 'wrong' node in the Netflix delivery network. For example. You live in New York, but use Googles DNS servers that are in California, so Netflix thinks you are in California and directs you to a West Coast server. Then your content travels all the way across the country to reach your TV. Some ISPs use OpenDNS. You might want to check into this further - it's been discussed here in the past.

 

[bigcahuna12c]

I've had my Apple TV for about 2 months, and I'm going crazy. I have very reliable internet. Fast speed, consistent uptime. I never have any problems gaming, streaming Netflix to my computer, or anything else.

But with my Apple TV, it seems like a different story. And I'm not sure if it's my Apple TV to blame, my internet, or something else. Basically, the streaming is very spotty. I was just watching WatchESPN for the last hour, and I got the "An error occurred loading this content. Try again Later." message about 4 times. And even when it was playing, it was jumpy and laggy. Sometime the sound would drop out too.

Maybe it's just a bad app, but I get the same thing with other apps. I might be using the MLB app to watch a game. Or even Airplaying something from my iPad. And I consistently get this message. It's maddening to have to keep restarting what you were watching. Any ideas / fixes?

Go to settings/apps/iTunes movies & tv shows and set "quick start" to off.
This worked for me. With the new update Apple is going to an adaptive download
sort of like Netflix. At least that is my observation. I have a very fast connection so
I kept "quick start" set to on but kept receiving the error message. Turned it off
& was able to watch movie without error message.
Hope it works for you.

 

[benjitek]

...I'm going crazy...

You probably don't have your network configured for optimal multimedia functionality -- you should look at those settings in your router, or research the existence of them.

 

[MacBlackBook22]

Go to settings/apps/iTunes movies & tv shows and set "quick start" to off.
This worked for me. With the new update Apple is going to an adaptive download
sort of like Netflix. At least that is my observation. I have a very fast connection so
I kept "quick start" set to on but kept receiving the error message. Turned it off
& was able to watch movie without error message.
Hope it works for you.

Thanks so much your solution has fixed my problem

 

[rjjacobson]

Go to settings/apps/iTunes movies & tv shows and set "quick start" to off.
This worked for me. With the new update Apple is going to an adaptive download
sort of like Netflix. At least that is my observation. I have a very fast connection so
I kept "quick start" set to on but kept receiving the error message. Turned it off
& was able to watch movie without error message.
Hope it works for you.

There was another thread on this and your solution was also shared there. It does work. Not sure what the TV os 10.x did but it messed something up. thanks