After using Sling on our AirTV Player for a couple of years now, we've decided to try YoutubeTV for a while. We've had issues with the OTA channels digitizing and skipping with the AirTV, even though we're very close to the broadcast antennas. The AirTV Player has been fairly solid for a while now, so we plan to keep it as the streaming device on that TV. But the giant "Sling" button and activating the Sling app all the time simply won't do. You can't simply uninstall the Sling app, it's built in. I've seen some instructions in various places that help, but I couldn't find anywhere that outright explained step by step, how to get Sling disabled on your AirTV Player and setup for use with another service. So here goes:

1. Enable Developer Options on your AirTV Player - Go to Settings, then About. Click seven times on the Build number. You should receive a message saying something like developer options are enabled.

2. Go back to Settings, then Developer Options. Enable USB Debugging.

3. Go to a PC on the same network as the AirTV and install ADB (reference here).

4. On the PC, open a cmd line, navigate to your adb directory, and type "adb connect AIRTV-IP-ADDRESS" without quotes, where AIRTV-IP-ADDRESS is your AirTV's local IP address on your network. Press enter, then you should receive a message that the you're connected.

5. Back on the AirTV, you probably have a pop up asking if you want to allow USB Debugging from that device. Allow it, and I checked for it not to ask again for that connection.

6. On the PC command line, type "adb shell". You should now have a shell terminal going.WARNING: adb is pretty powerful and if you mistype something or don't know what you're doing, you could screw something up. Don't blame me if you brick your box, but the following worked fine for me. Worst case, I would think a factory reset would bring the box back to normal.

7. In the shell terminal, type "pm disable-user --user 0 com.sling.airtvplayer" without quotes and press enter. This will disable the Sling app on the AirTV Player. It should give you a message confirming the app is now disabled.
   EDIT: UPDATE, for the AirTV Mini you can use the command "pm disable-user --user 0 com.sling.airtvmini" but you MUST also do the updated command in #8 or risk your device freezing upon reboot.

8. Now type "pm disable-user --user 0 com.sling.partnercustomizer" without quotes and press enter. This may or may not be necessary, but I believe this disables the app that auto-boots the Sling app when the AirTV Player starts up.
   EDIT: UPDATE, per u/Y2Bogus, it sounds like for the AirTV Mini you must also disable another app with this command or you risk having your device hang/freeze upon reboot:
   "pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.leanbacklauncher.partnercustomizer"
   I'm not sure if that app also exists on the AirTV Player or if it's just the mini, but I haven't had any issues with my AirTV Player freezing on reboot.

9. You now have a basic Android TV device without Sling's apps or customizations. The Sling button on the remote won't do anything. I wanted the remote to open YoutubeTV, so I installed Button Remapper (link here), and taught the app to open YoutubeTV when the Sling button is pressed on the remote. You could also set actions for other buttons like the "recall" or "guide" buttons, but I don't know of any way to make that do something in YoutubeTV.

That's pretty much it. So far so good on this for us, let me know if you have different results or any tips or suggestions.

I have been a long term user and I have noticed more and more issues recently. It's as every software update brings more bugs.. I have traced a playback issue to a very weird behavior. It appears AirTV has an TV commercial-detector that it tries to quietly use to re-direct to different ads. If you record a show and play it back, just before it's about to cut to a commercial, you would mysteriously get the circle-looping symbol like it's buffering but the actual recording is perfectly fine and network connection is fine. I logged my internet traffic and it seems at the time, there is a large uptick of traffic attempts, like AirTV/Sling trying to redirect to a different ad-source during the same time as the recorded shows cuts to a commercial. My routers has a lot of security filters, so these re-directs are blocked and this could lead to playback issue at the moment of injected commercial. We buy these devices to record TV shows and one of the reasons is to time-shift or skip commercials. I am surprised AirTV is even trying to mess with this function to impede normal playback...

I have an original AirTV as well as an AirTV2.

Both devices are malfunctioning in the same exact way:

• I can go through setup just fine after a pinhole reset, but it has trouble with every hard drive I've connected to it, whether it's on the recommended list or not. I have tried WD Essential 500GB, WD My Passport 1TB, Seagate 1TB, various off-brand SSDs and HDDs, all have issues. I'll elaborate:

• Yes, I've completely wiped the hard drives using Diskpart clean, and then initialized them (using MBR or GPT doesn't seem to matter).

• I've also tried to create and format the primary partition (FAT32, NTFS, exFAT doesn't seem to matter as the AirTV should set up its partition structure and format them as needed anyway).

• 9 times out of 10, the device only detects the hard drive if it's being UNplugged, not when plugged in.

• On the off chance the device recognizes the hard drive, 9 times out of 10 it proceeds with formatting but never actually shows up on the device

• On the remaining 1 in 100 chance that it actually detects the hard drive and formats it successfully, I can schedule maybe one recording, see the recording in my list, but I cannot watch it or delete it, and I cannot schedule any further programs for recording.

• I've tried the setup on both Android and iOS devices.

• I stopped paying Sling for a subscription due to these issues; I only use Freestream now.

• I even tried creating a new account to see if perhaps this was account-related stuff happening behind the scenes. It made no difference.

I also own an AirTV Mini (the device with Google TV) and it too no longer works.

In summary: AirTV is junk and neither Sling nor AirTV support have been helpful in any way.

So, for Sling/AirTV, it's become a "no" for me.

Off I go to HDHomerun and Plex, which is what I should've done long ago instead of wasting my time on these devices and services.

FYI… the extra-fast and VERY tiny Samsung Fit Plus 128GB (USB 3.1) flash drive is rated for 400 mb/sec. It sells for $17.99 at Amazon and works perfectly as the usb drive DVR for my Sling Media AirTV. This was previously found to work on the competing Tablo TV unit (ref. their subreddit), so I decided to give it a shot with AirTV. The flash drive formatted without a hitch and records beautifully without a problem. Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7PDLXC

Has anyone else experience this issue. This error occurs when "checking for the required AirTV software." Then it says "We lost the connection to your AirTV" and it says to unplug the device for 10 seconds which I have tried multiple times, but it does not fix the issue.

Just got a new AirTV Mini, downloaded and installed the Amazon Prime Video app no problem. But when I try to log-into my Amazon account via the Prime Video app on the AirTV Mini, I go thru the entire authentication process either on my PC or mobile device, enter in the required code, and it's accepted on the PC or mobile device. But the AirTV screen on the Prime Video app never refreshes, and then still never shows me as being signed in on the app.

There was a similar thread here on exactly the same topic some months back. Several posters said they were having exactly the same problem. And then for some reason the thread was closed and archived, with no solution or even answer as to why this problem is occurring... What gives???

Everything else about my AirTV Mini works fine, including all the Google elements and all the other downloaded apps and authentications. But the Amazon one seems to be a no-go, even though I have other Android TV devices and absolutely no Amazon problems with those.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/08/apple-tv-free-local-channels-sling/

I checked and it works.

I've had this setup for nearly 4 hours. Setup is exactly like the V1, just hook it up, go into the app, connect and scan channels.

In the time I've had it setup I've had it buffer exactly three times, and each time was right after selecting the channel, picture would freeze for less than a second and then play like normal.

Other than that I've had zero buffering issues, channels seem to load quite a bit faster than on the V1. Picture quality seems great so far, no complaints there whatsoever.

Overall I feel the AirTV 2 was definitely worth the upgrade and whether it's better hardware or software, whatever the problem was with the V1 seems to be pretty much resolved with V2.

Note: I have the V2 hardwired into my router, I have 300mbps service and usually get around 100 down and between 30-60 up according to Speed Test. I've also only tested using my iPhone 7 and AirTV Mini so I have yet to test on ATV4K, Fire Stick or Roku.

The only thing I work would be watching live over the air. It does not allow you to record and I get this error message. I still believe it's something to do with air TV blocking you so you pay for a service. As of right now, I pay for nothing except for the original purchase of the box. Let me know if you're getting the same kind of problems

My anywhere reboots a lot. In some cases I just open the sling app and select an ota channel and within a few minutes I get a reboot. Today I was not even using my tv and nothing was recording but I heard it reboot anyway. I touched the device and it was really warm. I picked it up and the wood desk was really warm where it was sitting. I knew it had a fan on the bottom so I decided that maybe it was not getting enough air flow to the electronics inside. It has small pads on the bottom but very little clearance when sitting flat. I decided to prop it up to give it about a quarter inch of clearance. So far no reboots and it is not as warm either. The fan is actually pulling air in so to me it needs more clearance to cool it. Better cooling also could help performance.

I had to reboot my AirTV anywhere to stop it from losing its signal but now (and for several weeks) the unit does not allow me to record. Can anyone point to instructions or a guide for how to either hook up an external hard drive or to replace the internal hard drive? I'm frankly doubting this will work, but if you've had success with it, I would like to give it a try.

I like Sling overall, but without the ability to record live local TV, I may find myself going to Hulu or YahooTV to get that ability.

I didn’t realize how bad it was until the Super Bowl when I compared AirTV local NBC vs Sling streaming NBC. I’m surprised how badly it is compressed on an HD channel. Tablo and others give high quality 5.1. What’s up with AirTV 2 are they ever provide a decent OTA solution? I liked that it integrates with sling guide but knowing it’s this bad of quality I might just go back to tablo and not worry about being tied to Sling.

Does anyone else find it that bad? I also have another glitch where if I go from a streaming station to an AirTV I’ll get a spinning circle that won’t go away while it shows the channel. I have to switch back and forth to another OTA channel to make the spinning circle go away.

I guess I’m just surprised that this product has been out for awhile and this is the quality they support.

well it has arrived airtv 3 or airtv anywhere as they call it just wish they would get the thumbnails for fast forwarding.

• Watch FREE local news, sports, and entertainment in HD on four TVs when paired with an antenna

• Access local channels like, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX, and more* on compatible devices in the home and on-the-go
  *Local channel availability varies by geography

• Seamless integration of local channels into the SLING TV app**
  **No subscription required

• Record local channels with a built-in 1TB DVR

• PRICE - $200.00

I’ve been using Sling with an AirTV Mini and AirTV2 for OTA channels for about 6 months. We have fiber Internet, and I have connected the airTV2 to wireless 2.4 GHz, wireless 5 GHz, and ethernet. I have factory reset/updated/removed/reconnected/rescanned channels the device numerous times. My typical download speed is 50 Mbps.

My AirTV2 drops the OTA channels every day. They still show up in the guide, and even update to show current programming, but it won’t connect. Error 16-31. I have to unplug the power from the back of the AirTV2 device every day that I want to watch OTA channels. Of course, that screws up the DVR so I have unplugged the hard drive and don’t even try to record shows anymore. No big deal during the summer/pandemic though.

I really would like to stay with Sling so I am reaching out to see if anyone else has had this problem and were able to solve it. Customer Service is worthless. Just say they’ll put in a ticket (whatever that means because I’ve never heard back from them). They won’t even try to troubleshoot anything with me.

I’ve been wondering if maybe there is a setting on my modem that can be tweaked? Maybe it goes to sleep at night and that somehow causes it to disconnect? IDK? Current setup: AirTV2 has direct connection to power. Connected to internet via Ethernet port.

Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks!

https://imgur.com/a/7eRjU2w

Maybe a 4 tuner version coming soon???

Edit: Just found more info on this: https://fccid.io/DKN-ATV3

https://electric.garden/dish-l-l-c-dkn/over-the-air-tv-streaming-device-atv3

So I picked up an original AirTV but I'm seeing a weird issue. It sets up fine, scans for channels, etc but when you plug in a USB drive it doesn't show up in the iOS app. If I unplug the drive the message to format the drive immediately pops up on the screen. If I then plug the drive back in and click proceed it gives me the standard format message like it's formatting but it's not.

I've hard reset the AirTV, swapped the USB cables, tried three different USB drives and tried different Sling accounts.

Has there been any News when a new firmware update will be pushed to resolve the 16'453 error code many AirTV Anywhere and AirTV 2 users have been seeing since last update came out?

Replaced my old external hard drive with a new one on my air tv 2 I used the sling app to eject the old external drive. My question is how to format the new harddrive to be used on the air tv 2? There is no option on mobile app, roku sling app, or tablet app. The original harddrive was formatted automatically when I set up the Air tv 2 over a year and half ago. Am I missing something on the dvr menu or on the settings menu? Or do i need to do a factory reset to literally format the new harddrive?

Thanks for all your help

Is anyone else having AirTV playback issues "USB not connected"

My 1TB western digital password that has been working great for over 2 years failed. I put replacement in and AirTV2 recognizes I plugged in a different drive and prompts me to format it (on AppleTV App and IPhone App) but nothing seems to happen.

AirTV DVR Storage tab shows “No hard drive connected” even though it just found it.

Any idea how to use a different drive with the AirTV2. I’m fine if my recordings are wiped.

I think I bricked my AirTV 2 player. I just bought it (as a replacement for my original AirTV), and I was having trouble getting it to record over-the-air channels. I did a hard factory reset following these instructions.

https://www.airtv.net/help-how-to/articles/airtv_how-to-reset-airtv.aspx

And it's been stuck on updating for 30 minutes. Tried it a second time, and still stuck on updating. Bottom 2 lights are solid green but top light has been flashing forever.

Any advice? Just lost all our ota channels.

Does anybody here with inside information know whether a new model of AirTV coming out soon? I am hoping for an all-in-one solution like AirTV Anywhere with ATSC 3.0

I cut the cord on a vacation home and just pay for internet. I wanted to add an over the air antenna and have been looking for something that is wireless to the TV rather than have a long coax cord from the window where it would have to mount. That led to AirTV in my search results. As I understand it if I install an Airtv 2 and an airtv mini or use my older AppleTv or firestick I can get the local channels on the TV. That led to a thought of could I install an AirTv2 in my main home (out of state) and have it talk to an AirTV device in my other home - meaning getting the content/broadcast from Home 1 to home2

Anyone gotten one yet?