NFL+ app not working on Apple TV

The NFL app on Apple TV is absolute garbage. I have to keep signing in to all of my providers almost weekly (there’s like 5 of them, Amazon Prime, Paramount, ESPN, cable provider, etc). And that’s on top of the times when the app just doesn’t load at all or like today, the audio doesn’t work for some reason. And I’ve tried force closing the app and reopening, I’ve restarted my Apple TV multiple times, and I’ve deleted and reinstalled the app multiple times and nothing seems to work.

And the most frustrating thing? The NFL practically prints money so you know they can afford to pay to actually get the app working. But they know that there’s so many diehard football fans out there that will keep using the app even thought it’s trash.

I’d rate the app with less than one star of that were possible.

I was having issue also where my NFL+ subscription was not recognized. I was able to get it to work again by going to AppleTV Settings/Users and Accounts/Apple TV Accounts/TV Provider/Allow TV Provider to Access/ NFL should be turned On.

when I went back NFL app the NFL+ account was successfully working again. Hope this helps

Hi ifeckless,

Thanks for contacting Apple Support Communities!

We understand that you're unable to replay games within the NFL app on your Apple TV, correct?

Since the NFL app isn't Apple developed, you may consider contacting the app developer directly for help with their app. They're best suited to assist you. If you need help to locate their contact information, you can reference the steps to do so outlined here: How to contact an app developer - Apple Support

"Contact the developer of a tvOS app

1. Open the App Store on your Apple TV.
2. Search for the app, then choose it.
3. The app's product page appears. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Find the developer's website in the Information section."

Take care!

Week 1 there weren’t any issues related to the app for me, no problems during pre season either, but this week playing my first full game replay (LV@BUF) my Apple TV 4K (1st gen) was very unresponsive to commands. Thought it was the remote at first, but on further investigation the commands were stacking up in the buffer and were either randomly firing one at a time or dumping all at once a few minutes later. I rebooted the Apple TV (didn’t help), but the problems didn’t start until AFTER I started to playback the game. I began to suspect the NFL app itself!

For those of you that suspect my internet connection, the game streamed perfectly throughout this whole thing. In fact, I didn’t realize there was an issue until I tried to interact with the playback via remote. It was reminiscent of what happens with DirecTV DVRs when they freeze up, the last thing that stops working is “live” channel playback.

I was considering next steps and decided to check the NFL app’s settings (inside the app) before going to all the trouble of deleting and reinstalling it. I noticed that all the NFL “related” accounts that I’d logged into (connected to) in the NFL app on my iPad weren’t logged in on the Apple TV’s version of the app. It seemed weird that they weren’t, so I logged into everything that I could again (that I had accounts with.)

I don’t know if this really solved the issue, but after I did that ALL the control problems went away; no unresponsiveness, not even lag! Everything is working great now!

Might be worth a try for those of you that haven’t been able to solve the “unresponsive” issues.

It's working for me... BUT there's a major bug that nearly renders the App unusable.

If I watch a full game, which includes the ads, and try to use the fast forward to skip them, It works ok at first but proceeds to slow down until the buttons become unresponsive. Before halftime, the up arrow had no effect and the pause button took 6 (!) seconds before anything happened. I have the latest Apple TV and the OS is up to date. My network is fast -- measured at 500-700 mb/s. The Apple TV is less than 18" from the access point.

There's no issue with the audio or video. It's just that the app stops listening to my commands.

None of my other apps do this, so I'm pretty sure it's a memory leak or event handler leak in the NFL app.

Thought I had it licked, but this week (4) the first full replay I watched had the same problem with becoming unresponsive to commands as before. It was MIA vs. BUF (CBS) and the game was “loosely“ edited. It included network promo’s (CBS and NFL), PSA type ads and included the half time show. It also had “handles” (the last few seconds of the last ad) leading into each new segment. The problem seemed to develop more slowly than previously, but was very similar in behavior otherwise.

I checked that I have the most recent version of the app; I do! I jumped out of the game when playback finally froze (paused in response to a command issued several minutes earlier?) directly to the Apple TV home page (using the convenient button on the remote provided for this purpose? Probably not!) There were little “hitches” briefly in the Apple TV’s behavior after I exited the NFL app, but that cleared up pretty quickly. I went back into the app once Apple TV was behaving normally, restarted the game, scrolled to where it had stopped and resumed playback. It seemed OK for a while, but within 10 minutes the problem started to become an issue again, becoming unresponsive by the end of the game.

There is, however, new information. The next full replay was TB vs NO (FOX). It was “tightly” edited (don’t know if it’s related to the issue, but it might be.) There were no issues with control responsiveness during playback.

I went back to the first game afterwards and it behaved much better; no issues so far (stopped checking 40 minutes in.) The ad breaks have been tightened up (total run time is now about 18 minutes less!) Not sure who’s responsible for editing the full replays. It seems that it’s the network who’s providing it, but it’s weird that some games are posted with “rough” editing initially and get tightened up later. These games seem to be the ones with command response issues before they are “cleaned up.”

I haven’t watched any additional replays as yet. All of this took place Monday (today), 9am through 3pm.

Deleted and downloaded the newest version of the app and still lagging bad enough to almost be non-responsive. So diasappointing.