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What to do if the Apple TV does not turn on or how to flash the set-top box in DFU mode. How to restore or update Apple TV software via USB? Firmware for apple tv 3

08.12.2021

It does not turn on, and at the same time the indicator flashes - do not rush to contact the service. In most cases, this is due to a software failure, which can be solved by restoring (flashing) the set-top box in DFU Mode.

In contact with

As with iPhone and iPad, this procedure will allow iTunes to detect the device and restore factory settings or install new firmware.

It is worth noting that in the case when the Apple TV does not turn on (while the indicator on the front panel flashes), the set-top box may not be detected in iTunes on the computer, which makes the standard recovery process impossible. In many cases, in order to "see" an Apple TV with a software failure in iTunes, it is necessary to put the set-top box into DFU mode.

What do I need to reflash (restore) software on Apple TV in DFU mode?

  • Apple TV
  • Mac or Windows computer;
  • iTunes with the current (latest) firmware version (you can download);
  • Cable (for set-top boxes of the fourth generation and higher) or microUSB (for older versions). Please note that they do not come with Apple TV.

1 . Connect your Apple TV to your computer with a USB-C cable. Simultaneous connection to the TV via HDMI is not required.

2 . Open iTunes on Windows or Mac.

3 . Reboot the console: press and hold the buttons Menu and Home on the Siri Remote (Apple TV 4) or Menu and Way down on older models for 6 seconds until the indicator on the set-top box blinks rapidly.

The moment you release the buttons, the device will reboot.

4 . Literally 1 second after you release the buttons Menu and Home press and hold buttons Menu and Play/Pause until (approximately 10 seconds) iTunes tells you that the Apple TV is in recovery (DFU) mode.

5 . Resetting (flashing, restoring) Apple TV to factory settings (all data from the device will be deleted!) Is done by pressing the button Reestablish in iTunes. After that, the set-top box will automatically be downloaded from the Internet and installed latest version tvOS.

6 . If the firmware for Apple TV has already been downloaded to the computer earlier (for example,), then to flash it, you must press the button Reestablish along with key Option (Alt) for Mac ( ⇧Shift + Reestablish for Windows). Next, specify the path to the file with the firmware.

After installing the software, a reboot will occur. Internet access is required to activate the set-top box.

With all this hype around, Apple device TV (as always) remained in the shadow of the news highways. However, despite the lack of any news regarding the jailbreak of this device, there was some, modestly suggesting the possibility of a jailbreak in the future.

While I wouldn't take these rumors seriously at this point in time, it might still be useful for those who have an Apple TV 4 running tvOS 10.1.1 and want to downgrade to tvOS 10.1. Read this guide for more details.

This guide will help you restore the original firmware on your Apple TV of any year. This process will be useful not only when updating or downgrading firmware versions that are still signed, but also in cases where you need to restore a device that has serious problems and there is a need to restore such a device as new.

Requirement:

  • Apple TV device.
  • Micro-USB cable or USB-C cable, depending on the year your Apple TV was manufactured.
  • Computer, with installed application iTunes.
  • Firmware IPSW file for installation on your Apple TV device. The firmware version must match the requirements of your specific Apple TV device. The firmware version must be signed.

Apple TV firmware recovery process

1) Download the IPSW file you need:

2) Disconnect all cables from your Apple TV device. Connect your Apple TV to your computer with a Micro-USB or USB-C cable.

3) Connect the network cable to your Apple TV.

4) Launch the "iTunes" application on your computer and wait until your device is detected in the list of connected devices. As you can see from the screenshot, we are restoring a device running "tvOS 9.0" firmware.

If the iTunes app doesn't recognize your Apple TV, you may need to put it into "recovery" mode.

5) Find the "Restore Apple TV..." button.

6a) If you are working on a computer running OS Windows, then hold down the key Shift» , and then click on the " Restore Apple TV…» .

6b) If you are working on a computer running MacOS, then hold down the " Option/alt» , then click on the " Restore Apple TV…» .

7) A file browser window will appear. Browse to the "IPSW" firmware file you downloaded earlier and select it.

8) In the dialog box that appears, check that the version number of the firmware you are restoring the device to is correct and click the " restore» .

9) Your Apple TV will begin the recovery process. Do not disconnect the device from the computer or from the network cable until the recovery process is complete.

10) When the restore process is complete, the following message will appear: “Your Apple TV has been restored to factory settings. Please disconnect your Apple TV device from your computer and connect it to your TV device."

wonderful apple Apple set-top boxes TV! And today I would like to talk about a small problem that can happen to her. I think that some of you have already seen a picture on the screen where Apple TV requires connection to iTunes. Everything seems to be simple, but, as always, it cannot do without pitfalls ...

So, first we need to disconnect the Apple TV from the TV and disconnect all cables. Next, we need a computer with the latest version of iTunes installed. Among other things, we need micro usb cable<->USB, which is naturally not included in the kit, but it can be easily purchased at any consumer electronics store. If you have a complete set of all of the above, then you can proceed!

Flashing Apple TV

We connect Apple TV to the outlet, and using the micro-USB cable we connect it to the computer. If your set-top box went crazy in recovery mode, then it should show up in iTunes. But sometimes, iTunes may not see the connected set-top box. In this case, you should not run to the store for another cable, just enter the Apple TV into DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode.

To activate this mode, you need to connect the power cable to the set-top box, connect the Apple TV to the computer and press the following combinations on the remote Apple controls remote:

1) Press and hold the Menu and Down buttons for 6 seconds. After that, you will see that the indicator on the console has gone out.

2) Without releasing the Menu button, release the Down button and press Play, and hold Menu and Play for 6-7 seconds until the prefix appears in iTunes. After that, you need to wait 10 - 15 seconds. If everything is done correctly, the indicator on the Apple TV will start blinking quickly, and the following image will appear on the computer screen:

After that, click on the "Restore Apple TV ..." button and follow the instructions. If everything went well, then at the end, you can reconnect the set-top box to the TV, and start using it!

If for some reason you were unable to flash the Apple TV, do not despair - you can write in a comment about your problem or 🙂

I want to tell you how I made a media player for myself based on the old Apple TV of the first generation. The device turned out to be completely suitable for my requirements.


Description of the standard set-top box configuration:

CPU: 1 GHz Intel "Crofton" Pentium M
Memory: 256MB 400MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Storage device: 40 or 160 GB hard drive
Graphic arts: Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 with 64MB VRAM
Connection: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g and draft-n), 10/100 Ethernet

As operating system a modified assembly of OS X v10.4 was installed with Front Row stretched over it.
This configuration was not enough to play small 720p videos, most video files even in this format were unwatchable. Ordinary films of size 1.4 - 3 Gb and a little more were played with a bang. For 2007 it was cool, but now it's not the case at all. The system is very weak.

And all that could be done with the set-top box itself was buying / renting movies, watching trailers, and later the function of viewing content from Youtube in low quality was added. It was possible to synchronize content with iTunes, the data was stored on the hard drive.
It was impossible to stream content from devices via AirPlay, if I'm not mistaken, to the first Apple TV. I don't remember exactly.

There is a cooler and a hard drive inside, so the set-top box made quite a noticeable noise, at night it was very well audible. Sometimes I had to turn off the console before going to bed.

The device itself is quite beautiful and ergonomic, convenient remote control, there are all the necessary outputs - RCA(sound and video) HDMI, SPDIF, USB(only for service use, it was impossible to connect disks).

This is what the device looks like before intervention:

What was done:
1) The operating system has been replaced. Once upon a time, the brave guys made atv-bootloader, which allowed you to boot Linux on this set-top box, and then the young guy Sam Nazarko made a ready-made Ubuntu-based operating system with XBMC, which was easily installed on Apple TV. This miracle is called Crystalbuntu. The project has a website and a large forum where problems and wishes are discussed. lie source files.

The same person makes a ready-made build of Raspbmc for Raspberry.

The first version was Ubuntu 8.04 and core 2.6 . About a year ago, test builds appeared on 12.04 and core 3.2.27 and then the full version came out. Crystalbuntu 2. Installation comes down to connecting a flash drive with an image and rebooting. You can install the system on the same flash drive without touching the internal HDD, or you can install it on your internal hard drive. The second way is better, the system will work faster.
The installer itself marks the disks, configures the system, downloads latest version XBMC and required libraries.

After installing Linux, the set-top box became much faster, 720p videos began to play better, but still, in most cases, the power was not enough to play more or less decent content. Now you can watch videos from network drives, connect external drives, watch videos directly from the Internet.

XBMC opened up many new possibilities for the console, a huge number of plugins are available, easy to use, looks more beautiful.

2) Removed all noisy elements- a cooler and a hard drive, booting from a flash drive was used, the prefix was completely inaudible. There is no need to worry about cooling, the regular cooler did not do much. Nothing bad has happened over the years.

3) Added hardware video decoder. Broadcom has an amazing BCM970015 Crystal HD card. The decoder can easily handle the decoding of huge 1080p video files. This board replaces the BCM970012 and can handle H.264/AVC, MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV9, MPEG-4, DivX®, Xvid, AVS and also Flash video in hardware.
With it, you can watch videos of any quality, the set-top box plays 30-gigabyte movies without problems. It became possible to watch content directly online - there are a huge number of plug-ins for this in XBMC. YouTube videos are played in any quality.

The card is inserted instead of a Wi-Fi card (of the same manufacturer - Broadcom :)) into the mini-PCI slot. This deprives us of wireless communication, if necessary, you can use an external card via usb.

4) Installed SSD. From a USB flash drive, the set-top box works fine, but still not as fast as it could. After replacing with an SSD, the difference is very noticeable, it loads and works very quickly, all menu transitions are very smooth, there are no more delays associated with the file system.

The set-top box has only an IDE connector (44-pin), so it was more difficult to find a suitable drive. You can find 2"5 IDEs on eBay SSD drive, which would have replaced the old one, but the choice has become even better - a DOM disk. This is a board with soldered memory modules, which is inserted directly into the IDE connector. Such boards are used in all kinds of embedded solutions - cash registers, machine tools, etc.
We need about 2Gb of memory for the finished operating system, so the Kingspec 8Gb disk was enough. I had to connect anyway through a cable, and not directly to the board, because the lock on the IDE connector turned out to be turned in the wrong direction for me and the board did not fit into the power supply. It was necessary to immediately check, but the connection through the loop suited me.

5) Bought a new remote. The first set-top boxes had an old plastic remote control. The new consoles are solid aluminum, very beautiful, outwardly more suitable for the console. Although, as it turned out over time, it is more convenient to use the old plastic one.

This is what the device looks like after the intervention:


(on the left - this is the SSD)

All my media content is stored on the NAS, which, like the set-top box, is connected to a gigabit switch via ethernet, the network speed is enough to write to the NAS and read HD movies from it, there have never been problems. XBMC can read from any source - NFS, SMB, FTP, UPnP, you can take content from several sources.

It was very pleasant to be able to watch content immediately from the Internet. We have sites ex.ua and fs.ua in Ukraine, for which there are XBMC plugins. I haven’t downloaded TV shows and many films for a long time, everything can be found there, the Internet speed is enough to watch movies in HD quality without downloading. Links to your favorite series are easily added to "Favorites" directly from the plugin, then easily selected before viewing from the XBMC menu.

More goodies:
Works Airplay, there are tons of apps to control XBMC with your smartphone. There is also a very nice thing - a browser plugin that allows you to send a video from YouTube directly to the console. There are plugins for IPTV.

Seppius-xbmc-repo plugin repository for the Russian-speaking population has been added, it has a huge variety of plugins - online TV shows (sites with thousands of TV shows), online TV, radio, video jokes, sites for learning ...

Yes, and in the standard list of XBMC there are plug-ins for every taste - TED Talks, game channels, VimCasts (Vim lessons), Mosfilm archive ...

Installed MPD. The music ball is mounted to the Apple TV directly from the NAS and added to the MPD. Now all home computers can play music over the network. The sound system is connected to the set-top box, so now you do not need to bother with choosing the sound source on the speakers, all the music is collected in one place.

As for the overall system load. The processor frequency is automatically adjusted from 600 to 1000 MHz, when watching most movies, the frequency does not rise above 600 MHz, while the processor is only half loaded on average.

Here, when viewing a 15Gb, 1080p file, the average CPU load is ~ 70%. The processor frequency is still 600 MHz.

There is not much memory in the system, so just in case, 1Gb of memory with SSD for swap is allocated.

A good USB sound card was also connected to the system, but I did not notice much difference in sound and the card was returned back to the desktop computer for use with headphones. You probably need a more expensive audio system and better hearing to hear the difference.

Minuses: there is no hardware button to turn off the set-top box. You can buy a socket with a switch, but your hands do not reach, there is no special need, the prefix is ​​​​always on.
There is also no Russian layout in the search menu, but on Habré there is a person with an article who made patches. Russian search is not often needed, but still needed, you will also need to allocate time and do it.

In this guide, we will talk about jailbreak Apple TV 3 and why you need to perform an operation on this device. For Apple TV 3 Jailbreak is performed using special utilities. Using one of them, you can view many online media services. You can also play music, watch movies, videos, or photos through your tvOS devices using the Airplay feature. Through Air Play Mirroring, you can stream and transfer videos to the set-top box if you have a new Mac computer. And not to mention, the Apple TV 3 user interface is currently arguably the best in the world, leading the competition by a wide margin.

While the Apple TV 3 has some really amazing features it can offer to every user, it doesn't take long to notice that compared to other similar set-top boxes it offers quite limited content. And you can't help but notice this fact unless you're really in the apple ecosystem. For example, compared to competitors, TV does not offer such a wide variety of channels. Broadcasting options are also very limited.

But still, despite some limitations, this does not mean that you cannot bypass them. There is a way that will allow you to get much more content available, more features and get the most out of your Apple TV 3. You just need to perform the jailbreak procedure.

The very term Apple TV 3 Jailbreak can sound a little intimidating. But this is not the case, because we are not talking directly about hacking. It's just about getting access to tvOS Apple TV 3. Apple TV 3 jailbreak is a popular method to bypass tvOS restrictions. While many people may question its legitimacy and safety, that won't stop you from doing it. In addition, jailbreaking a tvOS device is not that difficult (if you know the algorithm of actions and strictly follow it).

In general, the procedure is very easy. Its implementation will not be difficult for everyone who has installed software on a PC at least once. The operation is safe for the device itself and should not cause negative consequences. Therefore, do not worry about anything and repeat the steps suggested below.

Why hack Apple TV 3?

The first question that may arise in your mind about the jailbreak - what will this operation give? Is it worth it and will it be harmful to the device? By performing this simple operation, you will significantly expand the capabilities of the set-top box. Until then, its functions will be limited to playing only standard types of music and video.

If at using Apple TV 3 you want to stream media to your TV, you will need iTunes. In other words, you are limited by the type of media and apps chosen by Apple. This applies to software available in the official store iTunes. In addition, it is possible to install popular applications such as XBMC, which will make it much easier to stream digital content to your home network.

Know that after doing jailbreak Apple TV 3, none of the "native" programs will be erased. And none of the features included in the operating system. won't disappear. In other words, you'll be able to shop for premium movie rentals through iTunes and access some video streaming apps like Netflix.


Benefits of Hacking Apple TV 3

The result of hacking depends on the original goals. Let's say if you wanted to expand the functionality of Apple TV 3, then you will undoubtedly achieve this. And if at the same time you have a huge library with media files, installation XBMC or another manager will allow you to view any type of content.

If you want to access streaming video, you will need to install XBMC and a Plex server.
But if you want to access all free TV episodes from popular movie networks like NBC, SyFy, FXmYSAmThe ​​CW, ABC… It would be nice to install the Bluecop repository which will be installed in XBMC and this will allow you to access all free TV clips from popular television networks.

Also, if you're interested in changing the layout of the navigation menu, changing some other options, or adding other custom backgrounds, then hacking will get it all. In addition, there are many other benefits that you will get by simply having this operation. It will only take a few minutes of your time. After the jailbreak, the device will have no restrictions and will be able to support and play all file formats. This is really a recommended thing that everyone simply has to decide on. user .

How to jailbreak Apple TV 3?

The method of performing the operation on the "apple" TV does not carry anything complicated. Any user will complete the process in no time using Pur Jailbreak Apple TV 3 Tool. You do not need to have advanced technical knowledge - you only need to use the instructions below. The method has been tested and confirmed that it should not take more than ten minutes.

At present, it is quite obvious that the third generation of TVs from the company in question is already available on the market. And if you didn't know, we inform you that the main reason for this is a free jailbreak tool for Apple TV 3. If you think about what is the best media player in the world, you can no doubt decide that this is the Apple TV 3. And all this because the set from the "apple" allows you to watch movies, play videos, listen to music directly from your tvOS device.

And the only requirement to access the content is to download it from the firm's online resource. In addition, if you choose to subscribe to the Netflix server, you will be able to watch the world's best TV series. But if you decide to jailbreak, you also have many other options. After jailbreak, you can easily install the latest and best apps, services and systems in the "apple" TV 3. And all this is completely free. If you are interested in jailbreaking Apple TV 3 then just follow the instructions below.


Instructions for Jailbreaking Apple TV 3

Start downloading the software. Unzip it on your computer and install. The jailbreak tool is compatible with Mac computers and Windows.

  • After running the tool, select "Generate IPSW" and proceed with Jailbreak for Apple TV 3.
  • Once the IPSW has been created, open this IPSW file on your device.
  • Connect your Apple TV 3 using a USB cable to connect to your computer. While doing this make sure you leave Power Disconnected and after that just press Play/Pause for about 5-10 seconds.
  • As soon as you complete the previous step, the device will start the process of automatic reboot. Once it is completed, your Apple TV 3 will be successfully jailbroken.
    All the steps above are quite simple and easy to follow. We are absolutely sure that you will not have any with hacking the Apple TV 3 and carrying out the procedure yourself.

many users have already managed to jailbreak their Apple TV 3. Just download the free tool and try it yourself. Why limit your Apple TV 3 to only cloud content when you can access all kinds of media and streaming content for free. Jailbreaking Apple TV 3 is the perfect solution. Do not postpone the operation for the future and do it right now.