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So strange!

Mine works flawlessly since my wife gifted to me as brand new 8 years ago and after using it almost every single day since then. May be you have a defective one or even your Wifi could be the flawed one.

Are you sure your Wifi modem is close enough to your ATV? Have you ever tried a wired connection between the 2 boxes?
I also got mine from my wife about 8 years ago and early on it was great. It was a number of years ago it started playing up and won’t connect to my iMac library. I found going into settings and restarting fixes it.

I did think WiFi was the issue but I had the issue arise while at the previous house I was living at. I’ve since moved and yes the modem is quiet a distance away so I have also been using it upside down (WiFi antenna is in the base).

I recently however extended my WiFi with a mesh extender and it’s still doing the same stuff.

Edit: As for the software slowness I thought it was just age. It locks up and you click something. The white light flash but nothing happens. Then suddenly it goes crazy to catch up to all the clicks you just did. I’ve tried a full reset as well.
 
I thought YouTube was highly standardised down to the UI.

edit: I guess the lack of ads is probably it.
 
youtube-apple-tv.jpg
This is not an image of the third-generation Apple TV.
 
it's the one with an A5 processor, right? I guess it's done it's time. Wonder when they'll stop supporting YT on the original / 2nd gen Chromecast sticks, these probably don't support VP9 with their anemic hardware. My current smart TV setup is a 2020 Sony OLED with Android TV and while the choice of apps is great on paper, it's ridden with bugs and slowdowns, apps have no sound half of the time (even with the latest Dec-20 updtae that was supposed to fix that) and I need to reboot my TV at least once a day. A total s***show. I can't wait to get an Apple TV but am not interested in spending so much money in a 2017 device just now so hoping they release a new one soon.
 
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This does not make sense... Doesn't Apple TV third gen run exactly the same OS as Apple TV 4th gen and later? I would understand if they are stuck at older AppleTV OS, but that is not the case.

Internally, they all run the same "OS X" kernel, but the developer APIs are completely different, so they don't run the same apps. (And, of course, there isn't any app store for the 3rd generation and older).

It's annoying because this is the only YouTube app in existence using an Apple template design. It's much better than any of the modern YouTube apps.

I respectfully disagree. The YouTube app on the 3rd-gen device is functional, but it is missing some important things, like an indicator on the list of subscribed channels indicating which have new content and which do not. You need to actually view each channel's contents in order to determine if it has something new.

All of the other ports (including the tvOS version) provide an indicator so you can quickly scroll down the list and only look at those channels that have something new. (Unfortunately, the act of scrolling down the list also removes the indicator from subsequent runs of the app, so it's still not perfect.)

The YouTube app is pretty weak even on the ATV 4K. No support for 4K/60, no HDR, and the UI is always months behind what has been rolled out on other platforms. It's a poor effort.

I concur about the lack of features, but the UI seems nearly identical to the UI I've seen in my Roku-based smart TV and in my Blu-Ray players. These devices are slower (the Blu-Ray player painfully slower, to the point of being useless), but the US seems the same.

Of course, it's completely different from the UIs in the iPhone and Android apps, but that's to be expected. You can't port a touch-screen UI to a device that uses a remote control with a cursor-pad.
 
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The ATV4 does nothing I care about, and I care little enough about YouTube that I won't miss it. When the ATV3 stops being able to play content I've bought from iTunes, I'll worry about it.
 
I also got mine from my wife about 8 years ago and early on it was great. It was a number of years ago it started playing up and won’t connect to my iMac library. I found going into settings and restarting fixes it.

I did think WiFi was the issue but I had the issue arise while at the previous house I was living at. I’ve since moved and yes the modem is quiet a distance away so I have also been using it upside down (WiFi antenna is in the base).

I recently however extended my WiFi with a mesh extender and it’s still doing the same stuff.

Edit: As for the software slowness I thought it was just age. It locks up and you click something. The white light flash but nothing happens. Then suddenly it goes crazy to catch up to all the clicks you just did. I’ve tried a full reset as well.
Maybe you should try a wired connection so you can identify if the failure is because of your Wifi range/modem/antenna or not.

If it still fails wired, then your ATV might be got broken after several years of use, or maybe your internet service up to your home is being defective or not well configured.

I insist on this due to I haven’t had a single issue since I got mine 8 years ago. Not a single one, and which that I live in Mexico were the Internet connections are not the best.
 
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Just a continuation of their storied history of changes and dropping support for popular items that people actually use. No real impact to me as YouTube is tiresome these days as there are so many ads that I use a browser (and Ad blocker) and cast / airplay to my TV in the event I need youtube content. 2020 caused me to essentially quit Google as a service provider in my daily life.

Google Play Music going away, and them dropping unlimited high quality pictures in Photos killed it for me. Outside of those, they dropped the API support for the Google Earth maps in my less than 5 YO car in 2020 as well. Continuing my migration away from their services as I can't even trust that paid / subscribed services won't be killed underneath me yet again.
 
Anyone have thoughts on Roku? I'm replacing my parents and will need 3 devices (so price matters). The Premiere is only $25 each.
I recommend the Roku stick (~$50) to all my clients. My only issue is that the remote is not rechargeable (needs two AAA batteries) which seems like a fail in 2021.
 
This is why I stopped using Apple TVs years ago. I had a mix of 2nd and 3rd gens but apps stopped being supported. I replaced them with Rokus. Not that Rokus are supported for a longer amount of time, but it seems about the same. Being $30, they're not as painful to take out of commission.
 
Anyone have thoughts on Roku? I'm replacing my parents and will need 3 devices (so price matters). The Premiere is only $25 each.
They just work. My wife is kind of a technophobe and she gets along with them fine. We have two Roku Ultras (for the Ethernet port). And a Roku Streaming Stick+ that we use in our motorhome. I'd recommend spending $10 more for the Streaming Stick+. It has a better remote that can control TV power and volume.
 
I don’t use YouTube often at all and if I do, I AirPlay from the phone. But I am hanging onto my Apple TV 3 due to its optical out port, which is missing on all later models. This enables me to use it as audio streaming interface with my “dumb” 2 channel stereo hifi amp.
 
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This is one of the only reasons I've kept the 3rd Gen Apple TV, doing YT though AirPlay is not the same as grabbing the remote and just using it.

And I don't want to get a new Apple TV knowing a newer one is set to be released soon.
 
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I don’t use YouTube often at all and if I do, I AirPlay from the phone. But I am hanging onto my Apple TV 3 due to its optical out port, which is missing on all later models. This enables me to use it as audio streaming interface with my “dumb” 2 channel stereo hifi amp.
I still use my ATV3 to watch Netflix and Prime Video thru their own ATV3 channels, and also to watch YouTube airplaying from my iPad.

But you have gave me a great idea, so thank you very much! As soon as the new 6th gen ATV is released, I will buy a pair of them for my TVs, and will use my old ATV3 to AirPlay music to my fancy tubes amp.

Thank you again for the unintentional advise! 😃
 
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I don’t think you can do YT with airplay, it tries to hand off to built in app.
I use two of them. Get a lot of errors when trying to play YT videos but eventually it works after several reboots.
 
I don’t think you can do YT with airplay, it tries to hand off to built in app.
I use two of them. Get a lot of errors when trying to play YT videos but eventually it works after several reboots.
Almost daily for the last 8 years I have used to AirPlay YouTube from my iPad to my ATV3 with not a problem.

Actually I do prefer to watch YouTube in my ATV3 that way, instead of using the ATV3 channel do that purpose. I find AirPlaying much more easy to use.
 
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