Why AppleTV displays "An error occurred loading this content. Try again later" error?

Question

I bought my AppleTv a couple of weeks ago (Black Friday) got it set up and running just fine. I've been enjoying Netflix and video podcasts, overall its been great.

Then unexpectedly starting sometime yesterday and with increasing frequency today I've been getting the error:

An error occurred loading this content. Try again later.

All the videos start playing, and play for usually a minute or more but then stop and that message appears. I can get back to the previous screen and hit play again and it plays the content, again for just a minute or so.

I've noticed it with video podcasts, Netflix streaming and Youtube streams.

Could this be a problem with the AppleTV or might it be my ISP? Thoughts, solutions appreciated...

Answer 1

If you hold down the Menu button and the down arrow on the remote for 10 sec until the LED on the front of the Apple TV begins to flash. Let go of the buttons and the Apple TV will do a soft reboot.
This has been happening to me several times a week and doing this seems to fix the issue.

Answer 2

I fixed mine by just going back to the stv menu and trying to play it again.

In my case I was streaming the content from my iPad.

Answer 3

For my Apple TV 4K, Buddy's answer worked as well, but my remote has no down arrow. I had to reboot the Apple TV by pressing the MENU button and the TV button together for a couple seconds until the LED flashes and TV went dark.

Answer 4

I think I have fixed the problem. I unplugged the AppleTV and plugged back in (since I could find no way to reboot via the UI, #fail) and now my programs seem to be playing with no problems.

Another odd thing though was that I had to "reboot" a couple of times as it failed to fully load the menus the first two times and the remote was completely unresponsive... It starting to sound like I may have a faulty unit...

Answer 5

like all ive seen this error also. the source can be anything from the apple tv not being able to contact the server where the content is located, so anything on your local network preventing access like your router. Or if you switch tv inputs while a video is loaded and paused, when you come back you may see this error and its due to HDMI content protection DRM crap.

There is also a reboot option under settings now so you dont have to unplug the apple TV anymore.

currently i only see this error when trying to send a video via airplay from my iphone when the video is in a format that the apple tv cant understand, usually from an app using the webview and the video is loaded from there instead of safari.