I've had enormous problems with Apple TV since the last update. It's buggy, and crashy and constantly loses track of my computers and has to be rebooted (not to mention the ear and brain searing UI of the latest versions).

I guess I'm supposed to be happy that I don't have this and that it at least it *sorta* works.

Yup. My 3rd generation Apple TV died at the weekend in this way. Can't connect to a wireless network and plugging in the ethernet cable immediately starts the light blinking and the screen goes black.

Jail Broken AppleTV may break after an update.

With consumer electronics increasingly subject to firmware updates, the chances of "bricking" a device seems to grow higher and higher. I updated my Apple TV to 5.1 with success, but I'm guessing there are many reasons why an update can go wrong.

The solution to this is pretty simple: Apple and others need to designed firmware update techniques that are non-destructive if the worse happens. Warnings that "unplugging the device in the middle of an update may make the device inoperable" are not excusable in this day and age. Power-cuts happen, toddlers happen, stupid people happen, and random bugs happen.

A simple on-boot checksumming of the firmware to check it's validly written, and fail-over to a permanent copy of an old version of the OS should be standard these days. I don't understand why "bricking" should be an issue any more, other than cutting corners and cost.

this happened to me. it wouldn't detect my wireless network and when plugged directly into my router it would reboot itself after selecting the language.
even an iTunes restore did not fix it. i ended up getting it swapped out at the apple store. the genius said it was the first time he'd ever seen anything like it. when he couldn't fix it, he gave me a replacement.
interestingly, this happened on the 5.0 update but it fixed itself overnight. i wasn't so lucky with the 5.1 update.

All I can say is both my version 2 and the version 3 Apple TVs upgraded and ran fine after all updates so far.

I had the "problem setting date and time" error. Ugh, Apple needs to get on this ASAP

What I love in these cases is the number of folks that gripe on the boards on apple.com but when asked haven't taken it in for service

Things break, no matter who made them. It's part of life. The important part is how that break is handling. Apple generally has good service, as long as you follow the rules and don't act like a douche. I can't say the same about all companies

Had my 3rd gen Apple TV replaced at the Apple Store two weeks ago due to MULTIPLE firmware crashes.