Apple TV not recognized by iTunes

SOLUTION:

iTunes will NO show your Apple TV 4 unless you enter restore mode: using the included remote, press and hold MENU + Play/Pause for 6 seconds until the indicator light begins flashing rapidly.

Then you can restore using the downloaded tvos beta

Hold the Option key and click Restore Apple TV in iTunes

Select the tvOS beta software restore image from step 1 and click Open to begin installation.

Similar to me.

When I try to connect the USB cable to a mac, it returns a message 'USB Devices Disabled' Unplug the desvice using too much power.

the AppleTV is the only USB device and I tried with three different cables.

Any idea?

Can verify, this 'solution' worked for me. We placed a little sticker on the side up which works, maybe overkill but can't afford to waste any more time on a problem like this. Thanks!

This fixed it for me!

I had the same problem. ATV not showing in iTunes. However, if you already have a beta installed (presumably 13T5347l), it is very easy to update to the latest beta without using iTunes. You don't even need your Mac. Just go to the ATV Settings, System, Software Updates, Update Software. In my case, it updated to the latest beta (13T5365h).

Cheers.

J.

Another vote for this solution. For me, the Apple TV shows up in Xcode, but only shows up in iTunes by doing the recovery mode trick.

Nice tip. I was able to install the latest tvOS update finally after I unplugged the HDMI cable after entering restore mode for the 35th time. Next time I'll just do the update from settings. 😐

This worked for me. I had already installed beta 1 and was looking to install beta 2, but the built in software update kept failing so I was trying through iTunes and it wouldn't recognize the AppleTV until I put it in the recovery mode.

Which USB port did you plug the ATV into, and what type of Mac was it?

It is an iMac (Late 2012, OSX 10.10.5). I tried all 4 ports. The ATV was the only USB device. It was never recognized in the System Report / USB devices.

The same happened at a MacBook and a Mac mini.

Great it works fine. Thank you!

I also have the exact same issue. I have tried multiple USB C-> A cables, and using multiple Macbook Pros. I always get the ''USB Devices Disabled' Unplug the device using too much power." error pop up. At this point, it has to be faulty hardware, I can't think of anything else to try.

Same issue here--shows up in system info, not visible in XCode or iTunes. Also the system update from the TVOS menu fails too. It downloads it but won't restart. When I manually restart, it won't install the OS.

There is an issue when updating from Beta 1 to Beta 2, where software updates may require the Apple TV to be connected via ethernet, and not Wi-Fi. If you try connecting your Apple TV to the internet using Ethernet, you should be able to do a Software Update from the Settings menu, versus using iTunes and doing a clean reinstall with a tvOS .ipsw downloaded from the developer website.

Did not work either. Since the Apple TV in the development kit has no tvOS at all, we have to install it first.