HDMI-CEC is a poorly implemented standard. Some devices, especially older ones, don’t play nice together. If it’s not working properly for you just leave it disabled.

Does your wife have another device at home that is logged into the same Apple ID?

The data on the phone is encrypted so unless the thief figures out the passcode no, they can’t get at the data, even her ‘dirty’ pictures. So, in other words, you are safe until you get home to deal with it properly.

Then you have a different kind of problem.😬

Move the questionable photos to the ‘Hidden’ album and no one will be able to accidentally see them if they happen to view your photos using the Photos apps on the Apple TV. That’s why Apple created the ‘Hidden’ album.

Why are you torturing yourself? Buy an Apple TV and be done with it!

With an Apple TV you can mirror your iPhone screen wirelessly or, better yet, you can access your photos library directly from your iCloud account.

I don’t think there is anyway to get around that. Even if you reset the computer and re-install macOS, as soon as you connect to the internet it will download Apple’s MDM profile and you’ll be right back to where you were. That’s kind of the point of an MDM. They’re made to prevent the ability to override them otherwise they’re not very effective.

Try this. Disable HDMI-CEC on all devices, Apple TV, TV, receiver, soundbar, all the devices that use it. Turn everything off and unplug them from power and wait 5 minutes. Now plug everything back in and re-enable HDMI-CEC on all devices and try again.

When buying used Apple devices there are two things everyone should check for before paying.

1. Activation lock has been removed. This just requires that the device is not logged in to an Apple ID.

2. The device is not managed by a Mobile Management Profile. Schools and companies use these to manage the devices of students and/or employees to restrict what they can do with the devices.

I’ve never heard of anyone using activation lock as a sort of escrow to keep the device locked until they confirm payment.

Personally, I would never buy an Apple device from someone unless it is in person so I could verify the two things I pointed out above have been removed.

Any modern Apple device, iPhone, iPad, or Mac is basically a brick to thieves while they remain registered to the users Apple ID. They are all protected by Activation Lock.

Putting it in lost mode allows you to leave a message on the screen so if they’re found by an honest person they’ll know how to contact you to return it. Just make sure you never remove it from your Apple ID account and all they’ll be able to do with it is use a few salvageable parts.

Go to https://icloud.com/find and log in. You won’t need two-factor authentication. This will give you proper access to Find My so you can put your phone in to lost mode or erase it.

Fixed by the most recent update iOS 17.1.1

Try starting up in Recovery mode or Internet Recovery mode. If it starts then run Disk Utility to see if it finds and repairs errors. Then try starting up normally again.

Can I buy house insurance after my house burns down? 🥴

Are you blocking both the phone number and the Apple ID?