Jailbreaking your ATV2

I finally made time to jailbreak the ATV2. The Apple TV is now the central hub (sort of) of my media center. I can play Netflix (pretty much every day), rent movies from the Apple Store (maybe once every month or two) and now, stream media over the network using XBMC (every day, baby!)

UPDATE – According to this post by the FireCore team , the tethered reboot is no longer needed which simplifies the process quite a bit. So, just a heads up on that. I just restored back to factory settings, went through the entire process again and no trickery was needed. As a result, the section below titled “Advice on SeasonPass” won’t all apply now.

Jailbreaking – Tools Needed

You’ll also want to update your iTunes to the latest version, and for kicks I would recommend plugging your ATV2 into your machine (via the micro USB, no power connected) with iTunes running and update it to the latest version by clicking “Restore” in iTunes.

Now you’ll have the latest version of iTunes, the latest firmware on your ATV2.

Advice on Seas0nPass

There were some gray areas on the Seas0nPass installation. It’s basically broken into two parts. The first part is the jailbreaking, that’s pretty simple and straight forward. The second portion is the tethered boot, which I had some trouble with. Here’s some tips to help in case you run into any issues.

  • Read the tutorial all the way through before doing any of the steps. The last step of the tethered reboot requires you to quickly unplug the USB and plugin the HDMI cable. I was not prepared for that, as I was doing these steps at my desktop computer which is nowhere near the TV.
  • If you get any kind of “Connect to iTunes” logo, or just the standard Apple logo (for a long time) then you probably need to start all over. Do this by unplugging everything. It’s not enough to just unplug the USB from the ATV2, you have to unplug the USB from your machine and the ATV2. Then, plug the ATV2 back into your machine and restore using iTunes. Now you have to start with step 1 of the Seas0nPass install.
  • I found that during the tethered reboot, it would only “take” if I had iTunes launched. I tried probably 5 times, and on the last try before giving up I thought “Hmm, maybe I should launch iTunes” and it worked. Not sure if that was a coincidence or not.
  • Check out the FireCore forum on jailbreaking if you run into any snags. There’s a lot of speculating from other members who recommend an odd number of steps (not specified in the Seas0nPass instructions. But there’s also some nuggets in there.

Install XBMC

This is the reason for jailbreaking, for me anyway. I have a central server in the house that has 4TB of storage which houses all of my downloaded TV shows, documentaries, movies, etc. XBMC allows me to connect to that machine (from anywhere in the house, either via ethernet or wifi) and stream to the TV.

Here’s the instructions for installing XBMC – It’s super straight forward. It requires that you ssh into the ATV. If you’re not comfortable with that, don’t worry, all of the commands are there so you can easily copy/paste.

The End

Jailbreaking and installing XBMC leaves all of your ATV2 functionality intact. It simply adds the ability for you to install additional programs like XBMC, NitoTV or add some additional AirPlay functionality.

Should you ever decide to revert back, or if you run into any problems during installation, you can always connect your ATV2 to your machine and restore using iTunes. There is no such thing as bricking your ATV2, that I know of anyway.

Here’s a shot of XBMC installed (click for larger)