Apple TV seems to do things all on its own, Solved.

Question

Spent more than two weeks trying to find out why my Apple TV (3rd generation) would turn on by itself, move the selection around and cause the video/music to stop, skip and do other weird things. Searched to see if others had similar problems with there ATVs, found lots of probable fixes but no real solution to my problems.
Having the ATV constantly turning itself on was an inconvenience,  but the skipping and stopping during video/music playback was painful. Followed all on the general guidlines for ATV problems, Reset the ATV, local switch, local router, DSL, check ATV iOS version, assigned local reserved addresses, checked router firmware versions, this did not solve the problem. Checked remote, changed battery,  un-paired and paired the remote, the remote worked correctly but ATV would still do things like someone else was linked to the ATV. Shut off and disconnected all computers, iPads, iPods and ethernet connected devices, leaving only the ATV hooked up via ethernet to the DSL, ATV worked well but still had spurious actions. Watched the local net traffic, there was no packet traffic at the time of the problems.  Had this paranoid thought that my ATV was picking up IR remote signals via my large front window, so the IR front sensor on the ATV was covered, still had my ATV doing weird things all on its own. Though that I might have to bring my ATV into the Apple store for repair/replacement.
About a week later, after suffering quietly through movies and music that would skip forward, stop and pause, I was trying to pair my Apple bluetooth keyboard to my iPad(4) for an evening's presentations. The keyboard would not pair to the iPad even though it had been paired in the past. The keyboard battery was low so it was replaced, still would not pair with the iPad.  Why? Now I have two devices to bring to the Apple store.
Then the realization, that sometime ago, I had paired the bluetooth keyboard to the ATV!  And the keyboard had been in a tote bag with a few hefty things on it. Was the keyboard sending commands to the ATV because some of the keys were being pressed in the bag? (Pocket dialing?)  Checked the Bluetooth settings on the ATV, BT seems to be always on and it was paired to a keyboard, of course it was the keyboard from the bag! Pressed the arrow keys on the keyboard, low and behold the keyboard was controlling the ATV ( as do other playback control buttons on the keyboard). Unpaired the keyboard from the ATV, then checked to see if the ATV would behave, sure enough everything was now OK. So problem solved, my bad, lesson learned: don't pair keyboard to multiple devices, un-pair them when you are done.
It's been a week since the "fix" and everything is fine.

Answer 1

Thanks for your reply Alley Cat.
Well at least I'm not alone, this problem with pairing keyboards and other Bluetooth devices with multiple iMac, MacBooks, Mac Pros, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs can be very frustrating. Only a few days ago I realized that another problem, with my iPad suddenly playing songs with the cover closed, was related to the "bag keying, bagging" problem that made my ATV look possessed. Ha, ha, seems the wireless keyboard would lacth on to the nearest paired device (as I moved the tote bag arround) and cause intermittent activations. Spooky! 
I see this as both a user and an Apple design problem. Wireless input devices users should not pair a device to multiple computer/phone/pad/pod/atvs at the same time. Apple (software, firmware) designers should change the pairing Bluetooth proceedure to warn users that the device has already been paired with another computer/phone/pad/pod/atvs.
example:
  Warning:  Bluetooth Pairing Fail
An attempt to pair (Input device) xxxxx has failed
because it is already pair with (DEVICE) XXXXX
You must unpair this (Input device) before proceeding
Force an unpairing with (DEVICE) XXXXX?
[  ] Yes, unpair      [  ] No, don't unpair
This would only work with devices on the same local network and will not solve all of the problems, but it would certainly help.
WP