AppleTV, I'm at the end of my rope...

Everything started great, I got a new Samsung 46" LED Smart TV and a Samsung Blue Ray player with surround sound and I was ecstatic when my AppleTV arrived. I followed the instructions and let the AppleTV do its thing and it was working perfect. Then i tried hooking up the wireless LAN 2.0 stick so I could surf the web too and, "Down goed Frasier!!".

I'm not super tech savvy at least when it comes to internet techy stuff. I spent several hours last night on "Live Chat" with customer service from Samsung, Comcast and even the tech library at Apple, but to no avail. Finally tired and frustrated I was gonna watch a movie on my iTunes thru my Apple TV and it no longer is communicating with my Mac Mini. I know during the course of things last night I changed the ethernet and airport settings around a few times and now I can't use my AppleTV. I've gone into settings on the AppleTV and reset up my network and it shows my network, but iTunes won't show up and when I go thru the reset process it just sits on the activating screen saying its, "updating the date & time". I think I've got my Ethernet/Airport all screwed up and I don't know how to make this right again. I've been working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week for a while and was looking forward to some down time with my new stuff and now it just sucks...

Can somebody walk me thru making this right again, Comcast and Samsung were all but useless.

Help, lost in IP H E L L .

It seems that the wireless LAN stick seems to have messed things up a little. Hvae you tried again without it?
Also, can you run through your exact set up (connections etc>) so that we may be better placed to try and help.

Brand and model of both your wireless router and modem will help.

Kevriano said:

It seems that the wireless LAN stick seems to have messed things up a little. Hvae you tried again without it?
Also, can you run through your exact set up (connections etc>) so that we may be better placed to try and help.

Click to expand...

I must be more tired than I thought, it didn't occur to me to try it again without the LAN stick, I'll do that next. As to the connections questions I'm a little dumb as to what you need from me. Are you referring to cable connections or the settings for Ethernet/Airport? Sorry I'm a little dumb on some of this and really, really tired...

Tiredness forgiven, we all know the feeling.
What router, as OSXX said, and yes, what cable connections are you using to the TV, and how are you connecting the ATV to your network.

osxx said:

Brand and model of both your wireless router and modem will help.

Click to expand...

I don't have a wireless router, I'm using my Mac Mini and the Airport it came with. It was working perfect before I tried installing the LAN stick.

Mac Mini specs:
10.6.8 OSX
2.26 Ghz Intel Core 2 DUO
2 Gbits 1067 Mhz DDR3

Modem:
Comcast provided ARRIS WBM760

Kevriano said:

Tiredness forgiven, we all know the feeling.
What router, as OSXX said, and yes, what cable connections are you using to the TV, and how are you connecting the ATV to your network.

Click to expand...

Cable connections are as follows, ATV2 uses HDMI to TV and Optical Audio to Blue Ray Player. Both are from Radio Shack, "AUVIO" I think (spl?)

Presumably the Blu Ray acts as a passthrough for the audio then? To the TV, or a receiver.

Okay, heres what I just did.
Disconnected everything from the TV(including LAN stick) and did a "Reboot (Plug/Play)" of the TV.
Second, I unplugged the ATV2 from the TV and from power source.
TV is back up and running and i also switched the optical cable to run from the TV to the Blue Ray instead of from the ATV2 to the player(I was tired when I did that).
Third I reattached the ATV2 to the TV thru an HDMI cable and reconnected power to the ATV2. Under ATV2 settings I set up WiFi and it recognizes my network and shows between 3 and 4 bars of signal. However it says it can't connect to the internet until my date & time are set. Next I opt to do a reset to factory settings and as it goes thru its steps it reaches a screen that says, "ACTIVATING" with a spin wheel beneath it and says, "Sending date and time" at bottom of screen.

It sits on the activating screen indefinitely...

Whats next?

Question about Ethernet/Airport. Should the IP, SUBNET, ROUTER, etc be the same for Ethernet and Airport?

Thanks again for all the help, especially on Christmas Eve day.

I am wondering if this could be a firmware issue, there have been some updates that Apple pulled. You could connect it to your network via Ethernet and try and update to the latest firmware, and let it run through it's set up again. Then try setting it up on your network.
I have also had a bit of a google about for you, and it seems that this time and date issue is quite common, and sadly as yet relatively unsolved it seems.
Have a read through this discussion if my first bit of advise doesn't work:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3084621?start=0&tstart=0

Sorry if that is bad news, but if you are under warranty, I would suggest that it goes back to Apple. Any reset should have the ATV resetting it's time and date automatically.

UPDATE:
I left the ATV2 sending its date time to Apple for half an hour or more and WooHoo everything seems to be back except it says my iTunes "Home sharing" isn't "ON" when in my iTunes says it "IS" turned on... I'm gonna switch the "Home Sharing" off then back on and reboot my Mini and see if that helps.

I hope that it's is sorted for you, sounds like you need the break.
Keep us posted, and Merry Christmas to you.

Kevriano said:

I hope that it's is sorted for you, sounds like you need the break.
Keep us posted, and Merry Christmas to you.

Click to expand...

For now everything Apple related seems to be cool. I eliminated the link stick, turned home sharing "OFF" then "ON" again and rebooted everything. I can enjoy my iTunes library now and watch youtube so for now its good. I am tempted to buy a separate wireless router and retry the link stick to see if maybe the "Airport" was incompatible with it, just a thought... Thanks for everyones help, hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

More good news, I reconnected my wireless LAN(USB) and got it working as well. For whatever reason it wouldn't comunicate with my network using "Airport", so I took a gamble and bought a Netgear wireless router(top of the line) and boom. Now I can access my iTunes library and I can connect to the internet thru my TV. Sadly my TV doesnt having browser capability, so only the provided things like Youtube, Netflix and a few others are accessible, but at least I'm up and running. Thanks again guys.