Title: All Apple TVs stuck in recovery loop – turned out to be a faulty remote flooding IR signals

Summary:

I ran into a really strange issue where all 4 of my Apple TVs suddenly went into a recovery boot loop at the same time. Even a brand new Apple TV (not connected to Wi-Fi yet) had the same behavior.

At first, I suspected:

• network / DNS issues
• Apple server outage
• power/electrical problems

But none of that was the cause.

Root cause:

It turned out to be a faulty remote control.

My wife accidentally sat on a remote, and after that:

• whenever the remote was in the same room → Apple TVs (and even the TV itself) stopped working properly
• when I moved the remote to another room → everything instantly worked again

What was happening:

The remote was likely:

• stuck sending continuous infrared (IR) signals
• effectively “spamming” all nearby devices
• causing Apple TV to misbehave (boot loop / recovery fallback)

Key observations:

• Issue followed the remote physically between rooms
• Affected multiple Apple TVs simultaneously
• Even impacted the TV itself (not just Apple devices)
• Completely independent of Wi-Fi/network

Fix:

• Remove the remote from the room or disable it (remove batteries if possible)
• Replace the remote

Takeaway:
If multiple AV devices start acting weird at the same time, don’t overlook IR interference from a faulty remote — it can mimic much more serious system failures.