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Apple TV 4 remote touchpad stopped working properly

MythicFrost

MythicFrost

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
3,944
40
Australia
We've got an Apple TV 4. Everything's been working fine for the last six months, and nothing has changed in terms of setup.

However this morning the touchpad on the Siri remote has stopped working properly. Swiping up or down does nothing 90% of the time, and when it does work it jumps through the menus way too fast. Remote is fully charged, tried it directly in front of the Apple TV, etc.

Could the remote be defective? Has anyone else run into this issue?
 
Hopefully you still have AppleCare, if so they'll replace it -- if not, you'll need to buy a new one.
 
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MythicFrost said:
We've got an Apple TV 4. Everything's been working fine for the last six months, and nothing has changed in terms of setup.

However this morning the touchpad on the Siri remote has stopped working properly. Swiping up or down does nothing 90% of the time, and when it does work it jumps through the menus way too fast. Remote is fully charged, tried it directly in front of the Apple TV, etc.

Could the remote be defective? Has anyone else run into this issue?
Click to expand...

I had issues with my remote, became unresponsive/laggy... I unplugged the apple tv for a minute and then restarted. That fixed my issues.
 
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I had the same issue. I ran the software update, that didn't fix it, so I restarted it. Still didn't fix it. I unplugged it and waited a couple minutes, then started it back up and voila! Working remote.
 
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i hate phones said:
I had issues with my remote, became unresponsive/laggy... I unplugged the apple tv for a minute and then restarted. That fixed my issues.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I couldn't get the remote to get me to "restart" in the settings it was so bad. Unplugging and replugging it back in fixed it.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies!

Yeah, restarting it seems to have fixed it. Took like 10 minutes or so after the restart to kick in though, which was weird...
 
Mine does exactly the same, I had to unplug the power to my Apple TV, reconnect and it was fixed.
 
This happens to me even more often since updating my Apple TV (4th gen) to tvOS 11. What I find odd is that when it happens now, a reastart won't solve getting the remote fully responsive again, but a sleep and wake does.

Wonder if it will be fixed in a tvOS update. I think this should work better since Apple is behind both the hardware and software. But maybe not everyone is having this problem?
 
MythicFrost said:
We've got an Apple TV 4. Everything's been working fine for the last six months, and nothing has changed in terms of setup.

However this morning the touchpad on the Siri remote has stopped working properly. Swiping up or down does nothing 90% of the time, and when it does work it jumps through the menus way too fast. Remote is fully charged, tried it directly in front of the Apple TV, etc.

Could the remote be defective? Has anyone else run into this issue?
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1520806313][/doublepost]Hold the Home Key and Volume up for 3 seconds to re-pair to the Apple TV. Fixed the issue for me.
 
i hate phones said:
I had issues with my remote, became unresponsive/laggy... I unplugged the apple tv for a minute and then restarted. That fixed my issues.
Click to expand...
I've had my Apple TV 4th gen for several years, just recently I started having a slow, unresponsive, laggy remote trackpad; restarting the Apple TV hasn't help, the remote is charged 100%; I just tried apple .com's own suggestion of holding the Menu+Volume Up button for 3 secs but that didn't help. I'm glad I found this post; I unplugged my Apple TV for 5 mins, upon powering back up, my remote is responding like it's supposed to (yay!!!)! Thank you all VERY MUCH!
btw-this is ridiculous that this is even necessary.
 
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I’ve had this issue a number of times and usually unplugging does the trick, except today. I tried a number of things (menu/volume thing, plugging in remote, HDMI cables, making sure all pages were closed, etc). Seems I had to follow a certain order to get it to go - unplug Apple TV, then plug in remote and THEN plug Apple TV back in.
Add it to the list of things Apple doesn’t seem to address, although this seems like a minor issue compared to others, especially those who updated their phones to iOS 13 😞
 
After 30 on the phone with Apple doing all the stuff above with no result, here’s what they suggested that worked:

settings/general/remotes and devices/touch surface tracking

switch from where it’s set to another choice (switch if back if you’d like)

problem fixed
 
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Placement of the aTV next to other electronics has a noticeable impact on how well the remote works.

I have my aTV on to the back of my TV, kinda propped in the bracket that holds the TV. I can slide the aTV side to side almost the entire width of the TV, and there are certain places the remote is horrible. My guess is there is something in the TV emitting a bit of RF that's interfering. even a couple inches (about 5 cm) can make a noticeable difference.

If you've just got yours on top of your cable box or other electronics, you might try moving to a different place on top, or off to the side.

Since the remote uses bluetooth, any device that's using 2.4GHz wifi also has the potential to interfere if it gets too close.
 
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JeffPerrin said:
Sounds like a software glitch. Have you tried restarting the Apple TV?

There's some good tips in this article:

http://www.imore.com/how-pair-or-repair-siri-remote-to-your-apple-tv
Click to expand...
I know it’s several years later, but I just experienced this issue and the following worked for me from the above link:

How to reset your Siri Remote​

If your Siri Remote has become unresponsive or glitchy, you can reset and re-pair it with your Apple TV.

  1. Press and hold the Menu and Volume Up buttons at the same time.
  2. Hold for two to three seconds.
  3. Release the buttons.
You'll see a message pop up in the top-right corner of your TV telling you that the remote is paired or pairing.
 
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