Kolton Mayberry

Q: Home Sharing - A Story of Struggle

Home Sharing is supposed to be simple.  You enable it on your iTunes account and you should be able to access your iTunes library on any other device you're logged into.  Except when it decides that isn't going to happen anymore.

 

I've used Home Sharing for months.  It's worked on my iPhone, iPad, iMac (2014), and Apple TV.  When I got a new iPhone, I tried to re-enabled Home Sharing on my Remote App, so I could use it with my Apple TV.  The error I received was "Home Sharing is currently unavailable. Please try again later."

 

I did some research, and all the documentation is telling me to go to iTunes, sign in with my iCloud account, and then go to File>Home Sharing>Turn on Home Sharing.  I did this, and when I do, it prompts me for my iCloud credentials a second time.  When I enter them, it accepts them then returns an error, "Home Sharing could not be activated because the Apple ID or password was incorrect."

 

That's the interesting part, if I actually type my credentials wrong, the box just gives me red text that says "Your login information was incorrect." .. So I know I'm typing it correctly when it takes it.  But it's still "wrong".  The error message is either incorrect, or it is another problem in the authentication path that isn't my actual username or password.

 

If I go to any other device and try to enable Home Sharing, I have similar results. 

 

So, I went to support.apple.com and put in a phone service request.  They called me right away and then asked me to choose some waiting music.  Then they hung up on me. 

 

So, I went back and tried to submit my ticket again and now it says "We could not complete your request because of an error.  Please try again later." and there is a string of what looks like Hex code under it.

 

I have a few lingering suspicions on what this could be and I'm going to try them, but I'm posting here to chronicle this situation and, if I figure it out or if I end up actually getting help, it'll be something that exists on the internet that other people might be able to find when they search for these errors.

Mac Pro 2.99 8-Core 16GB RAM / Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Sep 25, 2016 12:04 PM

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Q: Home Sharing - A Story of Struggle

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  • by Rawlo,

    Rawlo Rawlo Oct 3, 2016 5:13 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 3, 2016 5:13 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    Morning - after all your work I feel they finally got the message as mine is now working. No heads up or anything but at least it is working. Thanks for all you time and effort

     

    Mark

  • by Charmian Gaud,

    Charmian Gaud Charmian Gaud Oct 3, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (42 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 3, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    They had a serious glitch yesterday.. I tried so many times I thought I was in danger of being forced to reset my password... Signed into iTunes account with User Name and Password very easily but same user name and password would not sign into Home Sharing and thus no access to my iTunes library on my Apple TV 3..

     

    I wish Home Sharing would just stay on automatically when you have to do a hard reboot of the Apple TV as it always problematic going to the computer iTunes in the office whilst everyone waits for the connection! - turning home sharing off and then logging in again.. Then logging in on the Apple TV as well.. There is something a bit UNsmooth about this whole process.

     

    AND SO TO THE GOOD NEWS.. 3rd October 2016 - the "global" home sharing database seems to be functioning perfectly now.. 12 hours after being locked out - it signed in with my user name and password and is working well. 

     

    One thing I dislike about signing in on the AppleTV is the exposure of your Apple ID password to everyone who is watching - I have discovered that using a Wireless Keyboard shows dots instead and is a lot lot quicker than the selecting characters with the remote.

  • by drjamison,

    drjamison drjamison Oct 3, 2016 6:02 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 3, 2016 6:02 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    Mine works now too. Saw the replies and now suddenly my new Apple ID works. Thanks for NO heads up Apple!

  • by embomer,

    embomer embomer Oct 3, 2016 6:28 PM in response to drjamison
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 3, 2016 6:28 PM in response to drjamison

    WOO HOO...It's BAAAACK!

  • by gmbmke,

    gmbmke gmbmke Oct 3, 2016 7:15 PM in response to embomer
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 3, 2016 7:15 PM in response to embomer

    Same here.  Able to log into Home Sharing on iMac, iPhone, AppleTV4, and iPad with no issues.

  • by volkoedov,

    volkoedov volkoedov Oct 3, 2016 8:10 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 3, 2016 8:10 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    It works!!!

  • by Jim McGowan,

    Jim McGowan Jim McGowan Oct 3, 2016 8:19 PM in response to volkoedov
    Level 2 (184 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 3, 2016 8:19 PM in response to volkoedov

    I received this message from Apple Support this morning:

     

    our engineering team has replied and has acknowledge that the home sharing issue is not only affecting you but is affecting quite a number of apple ids. we should here from them soon once their investigation and resolutions has been set.

     

    Glad to see people are getting Home Sharing back on.  I haven't tried yet, but I wanted to check something first - Do any of you who now have it working have 2 factor authentication turned on?  I'm not sure if I should reenable it before I try home sharing again.

  • by KD0000,

    KD0000 KD0000 Oct 3, 2016 9:40 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (22 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 3, 2016 9:40 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    THEY FIXED IT!!!

    THANK YOU, APPLE, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

  • by gmbmke,

    gmbmke gmbmke Oct 4, 2016 5:10 AM in response to Jim McGowan
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 5:10 AM in response to Jim McGowan

    Jim, yes it worked for me with two-factor turned on.  Actually, I never turned it off in my efforts to get Home Sharing working after reading here that it didn't make a difference for others.

  • by Jim McGowan,

    Jim McGowan Jim McGowan Oct 4, 2016 5:25 AM in response to gmbmke
    Level 2 (184 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 4, 2016 5:25 AM in response to gmbmke

    Thanks for that.  I'll turn 2 Factor back on, and give it a try!

  • by brightonjohn,

    brightonjohn brightonjohn Oct 4, 2016 5:33 AM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 4, 2016 5:33 AM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    Working for me now as well. Even had a call from Apple yesterday about this but wasn't in to hear what the engineering people were wanting to tell me.

  • by Jim McGowan,

    Jim McGowan Jim McGowan Oct 4, 2016 5:54 AM in response to Jim McGowan
    Level 2 (184 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 4, 2016 5:54 AM in response to Jim McGowan

    I turned 2 Factor back on and retried Home Sharing.  It seems to work fine on all devices.

  • by myopicpaideia,

    myopicpaideia myopicpaideia Oct 6, 2016 10:36 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 6, 2016 10:36 PM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    Thos has been very frustratIng. 2 weeks of not being able to homeshare, which WAS a core element of our households media library sharing.

     

    Due to this issue not only not being acknowledged, Apple didn't even let affected users know that they had fixed the issue.

     

    I Jumped ship and installed Plex instead. Far superior to Home Sharing in that you can also access your entire library from anywhere in the world on any device or on the web. The real kicker is that you can use your iTunes library as normal, just point plex to it and it works flawlessly. Even automatically updates metadata, etc.

     

    Was a diehard HomeSharing advocate, but Apple's attitude in this matter has given me pause and made me lose confidence in their services. The worst is that this type of thing has happened with HomeSharing before. It seems with almost every major macOS release HomeSharing becomes unstable or stops working.

     

    Two weeks with Plex has so far been the smoothest I've had it for a very long while. No more having to quit and restart iTunes to jump start HomeSharing, or restart ATV4, etc. Used to be everything really did, "Just work," which is why I completely migrated to Apple 7 years ago. Now it seems they have dropped the ball a bit. I don't have time to reset all my devices and troubleshoot on the phone with Apple for hours on end, that's why I own their products instead of PC's and Android devices.

     

    All credit to those on this thread that did put in the time and effort, making Apple aware of the situation. Sad reality is, though that every time something like this happens, a lot more people just abandon the affected service and jump ship for an alternative, as I have done in this case with Plex. I am happy enough with it that I probably won't even go in and check if my HomeSharing has started working again for a while now....

     

    Thanks again to the OP for extended troubleshooting and absolutely correct theorizing on what the issue actually was. Too bad Apple didn't listen to you on the first day...

  • by joakes66,

    joakes66 joakes66 Oct 7, 2016 5:22 AM in response to Kolton Mayberry
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2016 5:22 AM in response to Kolton Mayberry

    Still only partly working for me. Started using Infuse Pro on my ATV4. Not as pretty as native Home Sharing, but it sees all my computers, not just some of them, as Home Sharing is doing.

  • by Nealf,

    Nealf Nealf Oct 7, 2016 5:55 AM in response to myopicpaideia
    Level 1 (63 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 5:55 AM in response to myopicpaideia

    Myopicpaideia, 

     

    I too went to Plex, which has been solid.  I may not go back for the iPads because even when Home sharing was "working," I often had to reboot. 

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