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