Unable to download error, ATV 2 2nd generation

[nickdalzell1]

Just started saturday. I am unsure why since I have made no 'recent purchases' in over a week (last purchase was Season 6 of the Andy Griffith Show, which went through fine since I just finished it!)

Error comes up when attempting to play any purchased movie or TV show.

"Unable to Download: There was a problem with a recent purchase on your Apple ID. Try using a computer to go to the iTunes Website, review your purchase history, and try again"

What is odd is that I have owned a lot of these shows for over a year, and they play fine on the Apple TV app on a newer device (Roku, Google TV dongle) but not on this one. Sometimes, I can pull the AC cord and reboot it, and it works for another hour or so, then this happens again. Doesn't seem any one show causes it--any of them just up and do it for no reason.

 

[Audit13]

Apple cut off access to the iTunes store on the 2nd Gen ATV.

I had the same issue on my 2nd Gen too.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It worked up until Saturday. Why does it claim there's a billing problem? Last time it did this I had just purchased Stargate: Atlantis season 3, and it pulled that same error, but a reboot fixed it. This time a reboot ain't fixing it. My purchases show up fine, but trying to play any of them produces this error shortly after the 'loading' screen comes up. It's like it thinks I don't own jack! But the Google TV's Apple TV app works.

 

[Audit13]

I encountered a problem when I could not access the iTunes Store to browse after being asked to verify my account. Decided to do a factory reset from the settings menu and still no joy. Used iTunes to do a restore and still no luck.

This happened a few months ago, around mid-July.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I never have been able to purchase shows with the ATV 2, but worked around it by using the Roku in the kitchen to do the purchases and then they'd show up. The error the ATV 2 gave when attempting to purchase (when a show came up, since the search is kinda broken) was 'Unable to purchase content'.

'Top shows' also was broken out the gate (unavailable in your country, despite me being in the USA). I understand the device is old and not everything works but it was working perfectly fine for my use case. I hope it's just something wrong at Apple.

But playing purchases worked fine. I still have my ATV+ sub active and that's the only sub on my Apple ID so I have no clue what billing problem it's referring to. Even if my sub payment were declined it shouldn't be affecting stuff I already own?

I bought this thing used around summer this year. I had to fool the 2FA on my account to make it log in, using the code added to the end of the password since it doesn't officially support 2FA, but that's how I got logged in. Everything shows up still. I just can't play anything.

It normally does a screen showing the episode description, middle says 'loading...' then the bottom scrub bar shows, then the screen shows 'authorizing...' then it plays. Now, it just gets to 'loading...' and gives up right away, no scrub bar. Error shows 'unable to download' along with the rest.

 

[nickdalzell1]

UPDATE: My Apple TV just up and started wanting to work again, over a week since I was getting that error. Nothing changed on my Apple ID, and no billing problem. It only did that once before right after I purchased Season 3 of Stargate: Atlantis a few months back, but rebooting solved it. This latest time, the reboot didn't fix anything. So now that it's working I can only guess a server outage (the authentication server) caused my issue.