Jeet K

Q: Apple TV homesharing keeps dropping out ...

The homesharing on my Apple TV keeps dropping off randomly.
I have a mac with wired ethernet access, and the Apple TV uses my wifi connection.
The setup was OK, and YouTube and NetFlix are fine, but the homesharing will drop off at random times (I see the message "activate homesharing on itunes" under the Computers menu option). My mac is set to never sleep, and itunes is running continuously, so I know that isn't the problem. Wifi signal strength is 80% in the Apple TV menu.
Can anyone help ?

Mac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 6, 2011 11:03 AM

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Q: Apple TV homesharing keeps dropping out ...

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  • by rneggers,

    rneggers rneggers Apr 14, 2012 8:04 AM in response to emielstroeve
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 8:04 AM in response to emielstroeve

    if switching from wireless to wired did the trick it was likely an issue with interference, I see it a lot where some devices will connect and others will lose conenction or not work at all... you can try and change the channel on the router and see if that helps...

     

    this is a great website to see what wireless channels are being used in your area

     

    http://www.istumbler.net/

     

    run the program and set your router to an channel that is showingf the least amount of activity on it... this is something you may have to change now and then as often router and other devices are set to automatic which means they will change the channel upon the restart

     

    I change my channel on my router  a couple times a month becuase my baby monitor discconects my apple tv and my husbands computer but my computer that sits the furthest away is fine

  • by billfrompalm springs,

    billfrompalm springs billfrompalm springs Apr 14, 2012 9:44 AM in response to wretched_youth
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 9:44 AM in response to wretched_youth

    Well, I got tired of waiting for Apple to fix this, so I followed what wretched_youth did and changed routers. I bought a Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti router (WHR-HP-G300N) that runs DD-WRT. After setting it up, my problems were gone, and airplay has been working since yesterday with no problems. I didn't have to open any ports in the firewall, it just worked.

     

    My homesharing of video from iTunes was working. What happened to me is that airplay stopped working on the ATV after the 4.xx upgrades last fall, so although I could watch Netflix, and TV shows, it just refused to stream music. I suspect that something they did with that update made it incompatible with certain routers, because before, everything was working just fine on a four year old D-Link router.

     

    I am NOT going to update the ATV to 5.0 anytime soon. And I am slightly resentful that I had to go this route, because it was the 4.xx update that caused the problem. That D-Link router did every other task it was handed.

  • by superchick45,

    superchick45 superchick45 Apr 14, 2012 1:08 PM in response to tkblueyonder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 1:08 PM in response to tkblueyonder

    I'm having the same problem and I use Airport Extreme...

  • by tkblueyonder,

    tkblueyonder tkblueyonder Apr 14, 2012 1:20 PM in response to billfrompalm springs
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 1:20 PM in response to billfrompalm springs

    Thats bizarre Bill i also am using the Buffalo Nfiniti and having nothing but trouble with home sharing with my Itunes on a Macbook Pro... also the remote app on my iphone doesnt want to work with any kind of reliability also... i maybe need to reset my router or install the lates firmware something that had been suggested earlier in these posts but just not had the time to do it yet....

     

    i have been back into an Apple Store to ask a "Genius" on a couple of occasions, both times i am told its definitely a networking problem...No you dont say!....

     

    the Tech guy on the fone sent me this link regarding ports etc on my router dont know if it may help someone?

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2463?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

     

     

    as i have said it works fine if i want to reboot my ATV3 every 10/15 mins then it works like a dream.... lol for a bit

  • by billfrompalm springs,

    billfrompalm springs billfrompalm springs Apr 14, 2012 1:42 PM in response to tkblueyonder
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 1:42 PM in response to tkblueyonder

    Well, I'm sure that my solution may not be a one-size-fits-all solution. My router is running DD-WRT, and I have an ATV2, not a 3. Also, I'm sticking with the 4.xx software for the ATV for now. I'm afraid if I "upgrade" the ATV I'll be right back where I started from.

     

    Whatever it is, something has definitely made the ATV much more finicky about routers and networks in general. Unfortunately, despite all the griping here on the forums, I imagine that only a small percentage of users are affected.

  • by superchick45,

    superchick45 superchick45 Apr 14, 2012 3:26 PM in response to rneggers
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 3:26 PM in response to rneggers

    I just fixed my issue with the Apple care Rep online.  It was an interference issue with me.  At first my router wasn't showing up in the airport utility,  a router restart fixed that.  Then we checked the channels of all my neighbors and their wireless connections (hold option and click on the airport icon at the top of the screen, channels will show up below your network in grey) then click on the other available networks to see what channels they are one (yellow box appears).  Finally, I went into my wireless router and reset my channels in the manual set up of the airport utility. 

     

    Everything is working so far.

     

    Also remember that if your computer goes to sleep then your homesharing sleeps too.

  • by djbutt63,

    djbutt63 djbutt63 Apr 14, 2012 5:56 PM in response to superchick45
    Level 1 (5 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 14, 2012 5:56 PM in response to superchick45

    It's good to hear of all the different people finding solutions (other than those buying new routers). We have no other nearby networks on our wi-fi channel 7.

     

    Apparently iTunes Home Sharing requires internet access to authenticate the various clients, and it seems that this might have something to do with the clients losing each other (which would explain some of the port forwarding success). Perhaps as been suggested Apple are hoping to move everyone to iTunes Match and so aren't interested in local filesharing. If that's the case I think I'll be looking at one of the other media serving boxes.

  • by deetillehdeh,

    deetillehdeh deetillehdeh Apr 15, 2012 5:06 AM in response to djbutt63
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 5:06 AM in response to djbutt63

    I finally found a solution the home sharing issue, though not an ideal one.

     

    After reading posts by ' tkblueyonder ' and ' superchick45', I decided to look at the port/firewall issues and temporarily switched off my firewall ( on AVG 2012 ) and lo and behold ' Home Sharing ' appears to work normally, no switching off after 10 minutes. So it appears ( in my case anyway ) to be an issue with firewall or ports.

     

    I switched the firewall back on and home sharing went off after 10 mins , I contacted AVG support who where useless, but basically said I can't specify which ports should remain open, as link in 'tkblueyonder' post states which ports iTunes, Home Sharing uses ( port 3689 etc ).

     

    I may have to look at new firewall where you can specify which ports to remain open, unless someone else has a suggestion.

     

    Hope this helps

  • by emielstroeve,

    emielstroeve emielstroeve Apr 15, 2012 5:33 AM in response to deetillehdeh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 5:33 AM in response to deetillehdeh

    because of the diversity of solutions, which in some cases even seem to conflict, I think there's a bug in the network section of ATV version 5. And I think that If you change 'something' in the network environment that area gets some sort of reset and wil be overwritten with the proper settings.

     

    The hard reset of ATV or the router sometimes does the trick for 5 minutes or so, and that implies a 'memory leakage' of some sort, probably in the network settings.

     

    I don't believe firewalls are the issue. A firewall either works or doesn't. It doesn't stop working after 5 minutes. And it also seemed to work on the previous ATV version.

     

    Also iTunes is off the hook (I think). Airplay can work fine without iTunes, and airplay didn't work at version 5.

     

    So I thinking apple is looking at the netwerk section of ATV.....

     

    cheers

    emiel

  • by deetillehdeh,

    deetillehdeh deetillehdeh Apr 15, 2012 5:37 AM in response to emielstroeve
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 5:37 AM in response to emielstroeve

    All I'm saying is that I tried various options and switching off firewall has fixed it for me everything now works as it should on ATV, so I' m a happy bunny !

     

    Therefore for me the firewall was the issue

  • by Charmiepoo,

    Charmiepoo Charmiepoo Apr 15, 2012 10:41 AM in response to emielstroeve
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 10:41 AM in response to emielstroeve

    I agree with emielstroeve. It seems that whatever "fix" is applied the end result is that a "reset" is accomplished. The ATV and iTunes are able to "find" each other again. The simpest thing is to simply restart iTunes, or restart the ATV.

     

     

    I guess I should count myself among the luckier ones where Homesharing is concerned because it seems to only drop out once and then after I restart it doesn't drop out again during that use. Happens all over again next time though.

     

     

    I have tried disabling my firewall temporarily, but that had no effect for me. Didn't think it would as iTunes is enabled in my firewall already.

     

     

    As for Apple support.......truth is when you phone them you are calling a call centre. They are often unaware of issues like this because they aren't informed of them. They have set answers that they refer to, which is why we are often sent off on wild goose chases, trying "fixes" that really won't help the issue at all.  It takes a lot of feedback from disgruntled customers before Apple will have their REAL technicians look into a problem to find a solution that can then be relayed to their call centres. Lodge a complaint in the Feedback areas online, and then phone, speak to a rep and say you are calling to lodge a complaint....phone calls are recorded. Won't hurt....might help.

     

     

    We always hear that only a small number of users are experiencing a problem, when I think in truth it is only a small number who become vocal about it. The vast majority just put up with it.

  • by mrobertson,

    mrobertson mrobertson Apr 15, 2012 12:04 PM in response to emielstroeve
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 12:04 PM in response to emielstroeve

    I agree with emielstroeve as well. In my case I have two ATV2s, one is on a strong network link and the other on a weak one. The one on the strong link is fine, but the weak link keeps losing my iTunes library.

     

    I swapped the boxes over and the same still happened, so it's not the hardware. I've added an Airport Extreme to my network to speed up the whole thing and now both ATV2s seem to be OK.

     

    So in my case it looks like the strength of the network connection to the iTunes library was the issue, or as emielstroeve suggests it's possible that in adding the new AE something has been reset.

  • by burnia,

    burnia burnia Apr 15, 2012 8:25 PM in response to Jeet K
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 8:25 PM in response to Jeet K

    After much groaning I think I have finally figured this out. My Apple TV worked fine for more than a year, then after an update it kept losing home sharing. I finaly noticed that this coincided with my computer display going to sleep. So after some investigation I changed my energy saver settings to NOT put the hard disk to sleep whenever possible. That seems to have taken care of it. I don't know why Apple couldn't figure this out.

  • by Charmiepoo,

    Charmiepoo Charmiepoo Apr 16, 2012 11:54 AM in response to burnia
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 16, 2012 11:54 AM in response to burnia

    My computer has always been set to never sleep, so that is not an issue for me.

     

     

    It has nothing to do with the strength of my network connection either. My ATV shows full bars, plus I can access everything else on the ATV just fine...YouTube, Netflix, etc., no roblem.

  • by Drog1602,

    Drog1602 Drog1602 Apr 16, 2012 12:02 PM in response to Jeet K
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 16, 2012 12:02 PM in response to Jeet K

    I rolled back my iTunes on my Mac Mini to 10.5, it works flawlessly. So there is something with 10.6 that has caused this issue for sharing. My Mac Book Pro has 10.6 as do my iPhone and iPad, they all drop out.

     

    I wish I could roll back my iPhone and iPad to 10.5 as well.

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