After dealing with issues electoral, my brain returned to the world of technology. And in the process of doing so, my left brain reached across the aisle to its counterpart on the right:
I don’t know if you were paying attention, but in the last several minutes I’ve been attempting to install atvusb-creator (a patch that allows the Apple TV to perform wonders not supported by Apple) on our Apple TV. When it failed the first time I tried something creative (I know, I know, I should leave that up to you) and, well, now our Apple TV won’t boot beyond the Apple logo. Any idea what we might try to make it work again?
And my right brain responded:
In cases such as these I first opt for an interpretive dance accompanied by a song of my own composition—I mean, what can’t dance help? But I know these indirect solutions annoy you, so I’ll simply suggest that when our Apple TV misbehaves in this manner (and I can’t say I blame it) we unplug the Apple TV, plug it back in, and as soon as the Apple logo appears, we mash down the Menu and Minus (–) buttons on the Apple Remote. This should force the Apple TV to ask us what language we’d like to use (I’d prefer Portuguese, but I suppose you’ll choose English as we don’t speak Portuguese) as well as the resolution (oh, go ahead and choose 720p, you old stick-in-the-mud).
The next screen will ask us what we’d like to do and the correct choice is Factory Restore. This returns our Apple TV to the original 1.0 software (which, I must say, is far more responsive than the 2.x software). We’ll need to reestablish the Apple TV’s relationship with our Mac Pro by keying into iTunes the five-digit code offered by the Apple TV.
On that Apple TV we’ll now want to choose Settings -> General -> Update Software and then allow the Apple TV to download and install the update. Once that’s done, you’re free to try installing atvusb-creator once more. I might suggest that if the original USB keydrive didn’t work, you try a different one—some work, others don’t. And if that doesn’t lead to joy, try an earlier version of atvusb-creator.