Top Shelf is always empty

I know this has been an issue in the past for folks, has a consistent fix been shared yet? Just wondering if there's anything else I can try.

I am on tvOS 15 on two AppleTV 4K's (1st and 2nd gen.) Both have this issue, so maybe this is tvOS 15 related. Are others experiencing this?

I am running the latest TestFlight version of the app, and latest pre-release of the server. I've tried deleting and re-installing the app. I've moved the app icon off the Top Shelf and then back again. I've restarted the AppleTVs. I've also renamed my primary Custom Collection back to "Favorites," as I read that was a requirement for this to work, at least in the past? And I restarted the AppleTV's again, for good measure. But none of these efforts had any effect. Top Shelf is always empty.

I've also tried toggling off the "Up Next in Top Shelf" setting, so it would just show the live TV channel selection like it used to... but even that isn't working. My Top Shelf is always empty. What else can I try?

Move the app off the first row and then back

Yes, I've tried that many times now. Sorry, I didn't describe it well:

I've often seen that the Top Shelf loses its content. I've found that rebooting the Apple TV brings it back. (And it's not just Channels' content that goes missing; I've seen Hulu, Netflix and others have their Top Shelf be empty, too.)

I've rebooted both of these units at least 3 times now troubleshooting this issue. Top Shelf remains empty, for Channels DVR content. FuboTV's icon right next to it, shows "Recordings" and "Trending."

I did some troubleshooting this morning after searching this forum to learn the history of this feature, and figured something out. It seems Top Shelf doesn't appreciate the number of channels I've added (?) by way of adding a few TVE sources. The only thing that got Top Shelf to start populating again was to disable some of these TVE sources (all of which are legitimate logins.)

I pared my enabled source list down to just the HDHomeRun and two TVE sources, and Top Shelf started working. Then I enabled DirecTV TVE, and Top Shelf stopped populating again. I can enable DirecTV TVE and get Top Shelf to display, but only if I disable another TVE source. I also want to make clear, that none of my various Custom Channel M3U's were enabled for this test, so none of them would be to blame.

So I think Top Shelf has an issue coping with DVRs that have more sources than others. That said, I'd rather keep all of my relevant and valid sources enabled than have to disable any of them just to get Top Shelf working, but at least now I think I understand what's causing it to not work as advertised.

I have 23 favorites in a Channel Collection, I was just hoping to get "On Now" for them in the Top Shelf, moreso than shows in "Up Next." But until this feature is able to work with all of my enabled sources I'll just have to manage without it.

Hopefully this helps others with troubleshooting though, and maybe even leads to a proper fix.

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Roping back around on this. Rather than removing sources entirely, I went into each one, and pruned down my channel lists, hiding even more channels that I'd never watch, and also hiding a bunch of TVE channel duplicates.

Now the Top Shelf is working consistently and is populating with new thumbnails :+1:t3:

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Sorry to dredge up an old topic, but I’m trying to figure out how to get the Top Shelf working as well with a custom “Favorites” channels collection. Basically trying to get the Top Shelf to show my custom Favorite tabs to show my home team’s live sports game, but I’ve had no luck getting them to appear. I have an HDHomeRun, ESPN+ (eplusTV docker), and PlutoTV m3u as my three sources. Does this mirror your situation when the Top Shelf wasn’t working for you? And you said you pared down the number of channels, was that down to a specific number and/or any certain channels that would have caused an issue?

Thanks!

Hmm, now in review, this has never been permanently fixed for me. I don't use ESPN+ and I don't recall any specific number of channels (and I've added more channels since then.)

Sometimes the Top Shelf displays what's on, and sometimes it doesn't. Force quitting the app, moving the app icon off the Top Shelf, relaunching the app, and then putting the icon back on the Top Shelf sometimes works, but sometimes it doesn't. I haven't been able to discern any rhyme or reason to it.

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Didn’t know this was a thing because it’s always been empty for me. Never had “favorites” so I added some and it worked after closing and moving it out of the first row and back.

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Are your Favorites individual channels that you've marked as a favorite, or a custom channel collection titled Favorites? I have had success with the first method, but I think the latter is what @Fofer and I had been running into issues with.

I just “hearted” channels inside the channel list in manage sources. I just did the main networks as opposed to the whole list.

Why does this have to be such a mystery? Is there a hard limit for sources or channels or favorites? If so, what are those? Top shelf works perfectly on one ATV but not the other. I have experimented with a few things based on this thread but no luck. Would really love to have this working again.

Yep, me too. I have five ATVs of various models. Top shelf works fine on four of them. But one never works no matter what I do.

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Got it working by removing a couple of my TVE sources though that didn’t seem to work before.

With sources: DirecTV Satellite, Pluto and a handful of Virtual channels, Top Shelf works for Channels.

When I enable another source like Samsung or DistroTV in addition to the above, no Top Shelf.

And I can tell immediately - just going back to the Home Screen, selecting an app in the 2nd row then selecting Channels is enough to determine if it’s working or not. I’ve not had to force quit Channels or move it in and out of the top row.

I’d really like to keep all of my sources enabled but for now my solution might be to use both the Beta and the regular release versions of Channels, disable some of the sources for the non-beta app and put it in the top row.

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