Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

Update to Jan 14 post:  the replacement works perfectly, flawless AirPlay and movie streams.  However, in the interests of full disclosure:

1:  I did not update the TV S/W from 4.3 to 4.4 but did update the iTunes to 10.5.3 (so that I could activate iCloud and home sharing)

2:  I did not activate PhotoStream on the TV as I've never been too happy with the limited on-board memory and more than half of my library consists of very large RAW files

3:  I have only used my iOS devices for AirPlay, and avoided the MacBook (not rational but following the KISS principle, the functions were made for iOS devices and one suspects that Lion was tagged on as an afterthought).

I will update if/when there is a 4.5 or, better, 5.1 option, but until then am leaving well alone, it ain't broke and I ain't gonna try to fix it.

Just to add to this, I have recently upgraded iTunes to 10.5.3.3 and it seems to me that the connection to Airplay has become erratic. I often have to restart iTunes to get it to recognise that I have an ATV connected.

I have had zero issues now since starting from scratch with Airport Base Station.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/17326208#17326208

I've had no issues since installing the latest ATV2 update and latest Time Capsule firmware update.  Home sharing has been up and Netflix as well for a week.  I made no special settings changes. 

Fred32837 wrote:

 

I've had no issues since installing the latest ATV2 update and latest Time Capsule firmware update.  Home sharing has been up and Netflix as well for a week.  I made no special settings changes. 

Is there a new Time Capsule firmware update in the last week or two or are you referring to the one from a month or two ago? Are you using home sharing wiressly or wired? Thanks

I had received an ATV2 for Christmas as a gift and have been having the same problems as everyone else here. Yesterday, I decided to bring the unit into apple to run some tests to see if there was anything wrong with it, and without any tests or questions or anything, they offered to swap out my old one with a new one and sent me on my way. No receipt, no questions asked. They said that sometimes there are parts in the ATV2 that malfunction that they wouldn't be able to fix. This makes me suspicious about the quality of the product, and that they probably know about this already, which is why they are so eager to exchange new ATV2's with no questions asked.

Needless to say, my new ATV2 works better than the old one, but still is not perfect. Netflix still freezes occasionally (my old one kept me from getting to Netflix at all by the end), airplay is spotty, home sharing is less spotty. Maybe this is about as good as I can expect?

I too am having the same problem.  Hard wired connection from a PC.  I had opened all ports on Verizon Fios firewall, disabled antivirus and even returned the Apple TV for a new one.  They swapped it out with no problem.  Called Apple Support 3 times about this and apparently if you call 3 times about the same issue they give you a supervisor/specialist.  After resetting and restoring and it still not working they did admit that the engineers know about this problem and are working on it.  Strange thing is that Netflix works fine.  Does anyone with itunes match still have this home sharing drop problem?  Just curious if it would still drop if it is streaming from the cloud....since my Netflix works fine.  Very frustrating.

After updating to the latest firmware for Airport Extreme ( brand new ) and my two Expresses, ATV dropped Home Sharing after an hour. Here we go again. I guess I'll have to do Restore on all three again and start from scratch. That fixed it last time so hopefully it will fix it again.

I too was having a problem with iTunes Home Share stopping shorty after starting when watching a movie on my Apple TV (wired), iPad, or iPhone. I am running Home Share from a Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate machine. I fixed it by turning off my Windows Firewall.

Open the Windows Firewall app and select the Windows Firewall Properties. I turned off the Firewall state for the Domain Profile, Private Profile, and Public Profile.

I'm not sure what firewall setting I need to change, but will post back when I figure it out.

I'm currently running the latest iTunes (10.5.3.3).

Hope this helps someone else.

I checked the logs and noticed the WGA Key timeout coincided with the TKP rotation. Which matched the time the ATV dropped Home Sharing. I had the timeout key to default 1 hr, I have now changed it to several days.

I also experimented with turning on sleep on ATV2.  Lo and behold, the ATV2 dropped Home Sharing connection after an hour or so. Sleep set to 5 hours.

+1 here too.

Had Apple TV 2 for about a year, on the same router, no problems. Best 99 quid I ever spent.

Until recently. Totally unuseable now.

I could try the multitude of possible solutions suggested here. But why should I? It worked, and now it doesn't, like for many other people out there.

The only changes in my previously flawless setup are recent Apple software updates. So this is Apple's fault. End of.

I now have a 99 quid coaster.

It's frustrating, having to explain to my kids why they can't watch their Pixar movies anymore. Oh, the irony...

As a loyal Apple evangelist of over 20 years, this is appalling.

beatmunga - see my Jan 23 post.  Or it may be worth trying to update to the OS released on 7 March first (it worked fine on my replacement TV).

billtils - Is there an updated OS for the ATV released on 7 March 2012?

Hey all -

This thread hasn't kicked back up the way I expected it to after Apple's event this past week, but you should know that the ATV2 did indeed receive a massive interface update that matches what will ship with the new 1080p capable ATV3 that is due for release in the near future.

I have updated my ATV2 to the new interface but have so far only watched an NHL game or two over it - I haven't tried a connection to Homesharing with iTunes yet. It could be that the new version only has a new interface and no helpful changes to network activity - but perhaps an update is worth a try for some of you that are having issues.