4th Gen Apple TV Remote Not Working? Here’s A Quick Fix

Get a new 4^th Generation Apple TV for Christmas and can’t get the remote to work?

You’re not alone, but if you’ve got a previous version Apple TV, then you’re in luck and can save yourself a trip to the Apple store or the hassle of performing a complicated factory reset.

You might find that the Apple TV boots up, but you can’t control anything with the remote and charging it doesn’t help.

Online help says to press and hold the menu button and the volume up buttons for 2 seconds.

It then says, if that doesn’t work, you might have to go to an Apple store.

But Apple stores aren’t open Christmas Day and not everyone is conveniently located near one, not to mention long waits for appointment times at the Genius Bar.

There’s an easy trick to getting your new 4^th Generation Apple TV remote to work though: if you have a previous version Apple TV, you can use the remote from that to get started on setting up your 4^th Generation Apple TV.

Here’s how:

Use your old Apple TV remote to click through and follow prompts beginning from the initial screen. You should be able to begin setup this way.

Once the basics are up and running, go to Settings>Remotes and Devices>Bluetooth: Press the track pad or any button on the new remote.

It will now appear under Other Devices: Click on it to pair it.

Then the new remote should work properly.

To get the Apple TV Remote App to work, update the firmware on your 4^th Generation Apple TV.

Then come back to Settings>Remotes and Devices and there should now be a menu link to Remote App: Press on it and you can now pair it with the iPhone or iPad Remote App.

There’s one more thing to check out to ensure your 4^th Generation Apple TV and remote will function properly: The Region setting.

Go to Settings>General>Language and Region: Scroll down to Region Format and make sure it’s set to United States or whichever country you need. Ours was default set to the wrong country.

If none of that gets it working, Apple Tech Support is open on Christmas at 1-800-275-2273 (for U.S. callers) and this morning, the wait time to get through was only a few minutes.

So the quickest way to fix a 4^th Generation Apple TV remote that’s not working is to get started setting up with a remote from an older version of Apple TV and make sure your Language and Region setting is set to U.S. or the correct country you need.

Have A Question? Ask Jessica!

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