How to restore Apple TV 4K (Without USB-C)

My Apple TV died last night, no video and the light would keep blinking. At the Apple store today they said it’s nothing they can do about it and recommended to get a new or refurb unit.

Back home I tried a one minute power on - one minute power off repeat sequence and at the fifth one it powered up normally. Watched a couple hours shows after that and worked just fine - knock on wood.

Unfortunately my Apple TV died again last week any numerous attempts to resuscitate it by either repeat restarts or combination button press failed and I am now waiting for a refurb unit to arrive.

I told you,the only solution provides by apple is "contact Apple support"

Fortunately, I didn't face with this issue, but I'm interested to know what is the solution for this.

Certainly there is solution and Apple are using that.

You'll have to visit an Apple Store and ask ;-}

That is what is referred to as a soft reset/force restart and that really should be the first thing that you do if there is really any issue with the Apple TV of any model. 2nd and 3rd gens you hold menu and 6 o'clock on target wheel of silver remote. The new Apple TV's are in many ways like an iOS device with the options. Except with the 4k and the idea of being able to restore manually apparently.

Is this really true?? And where would I be able to find such a cable USB-C to HDMI?

Apple should make such a cable for there newer MacBooks, so of course they’d be available at Apple store

Ok but is this USB-C to HDMI cable for real or just speculation?

And would iTunes recognize the device, and how would you force it into DFU mode?? No keys to press?!

Essentially what happens is when you unplug the power and HDMI cable, the boot loader interface gets powered by USB and this goes into recovery automatically. There is a light in the front that theoretically should illuminate to tell you it’s ready. If not iTunes will do its thing if it works. Your idea of iTunes itself supporting cables isn’t quite right. Software doesn’t care what cable you use. That’s just the medium or method of delivery in the physical sense. I looked st the port itself and there appears to be pins that surround the hdmi that I guess are grounded out during normal operation or otherwise inactive. These have got to be how they restore it short of opening the device up. The only other thing I can think of is POE injected lan power to power the boot loader. I wonder if anyone can reverse engineer this to get a 3rd party cable going

Alright, I understand that there are extra pins on the HDMI cable jack which could be used as a USB interface, so my questions are:

1. Does such a cable really exist, and where to buy it or build it from?

2. How would you put the ATV4K into DFU mode if in fact such a cable exists?

@Dominic < And what if the WiFi which was set up in the normal interface is no longer available, either defective, changed password/SSID, or simply the AppleTV4K box is not at that original location? If there any way to set up the AppleTV4K box with a new WiFi hotspot? Thanks.

Here's an interesting solution I ran across on Reddit which I haven't tried yet, but might be worth a shot.

Do a soft reset by pressing and holding the Menu + Home buttons at the same time on the remote until the sleep menu comes up, and continue to hold it till it starts to reboot. As soon as it starts to reboot, press and hold the Volume Down + Play + Pause buttons at the same time till it brings up the recovery mode screen separate to the main interface. This new menu will run independently from the standard interface and uses the Internet which you have previously set up in the main interface to recover the AppleTV4K box.

Would this work for me, as the power light on my ATV 4K does not even light, I took it apart and checked the capacitors and they looked ok,

That's Apple for ya, sadly their Apple TV4K devices are virtually unfixable due to the lack of a USB interface.

All you can do is reset it and hope for the best. :/