Home Sharing feature not working in iTunes 9

Try and restart each iTunes after you set up Home Sharing. That's what I had to do.

After much frustration, I FINALLY figured it out.

First, make sure all your computers are authorized to play each other's music. For example, click "Store" in the menu/task bar (at the very top) while in iTunes, then click "Authorize Computer...". Type in the other computers' (different) Apple/iTunes account and password. Do the same for your other computers.

Second, click "Advanced" in the menu/task bar and then click "Turn Off Home Sharing" (assuming you already turned it on). Then, turn home sharing back on (again, by clicking "Advanced" but this time it'll say "Turn On Home Sharing").

Third, after turning home sharing back on, iTunes should prompt you to sign in into your computer's iTunes account (or you can sign in into other computers' iTunes accounts, but it doesn't really matter which account you use). Click "Create Home Share."

--> FOURTH, on your other computers, repeat the second and third steps, _BUT HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART_, sign in *_USING THE SAME_* iTunes account you used to sign in into the FIRST computer. Click "Create Home Share." Repeat these steps for every single computer you want to home share with.

Now, all your computers that you activated home sharing with should show up under "Shared" in the source list on the left. BUT, make sure the little icon to the left of other computers is a picture of a little house, NOT the blue squares. After waiting for iTunes to load the computer's library, you should now be able to drag and drop any songs, movies, etc into your Library (in the source on the left). By the way, you might need to quit and reopen iTunes if other computers don't show up under "Shared". Also, make sure your firewalls are turned off.

Hope this helped you all 🙂

Message was edited by: dryplatypus

Since you account page says "One machine is authorized to play content purchased with this account" your other machine (your MacBook) is NOT authorized, because well, only one computer is authorized (which should be referring to your MacBook Pro).

To authorize your MB, click "Store" in the menu/task bar, then click "Authorize Computer...".
--> Now here's the important step, type in your *MacBook Pro's iTunes account* and password (again, while on your MacBook). That should do the trick.

You have to use the same IDs in Home Sharing. That is how it links them. The instructions were from Apple itself in the iTunes Help.

Hello

I had the same problem until I realised that the 'Done' button in the Home Sharing window does not mean you are 'Done' with the setup but means 'Done' with Home Sharing.

When you setup Home Sharing do not click on 'Done' but instead click on the House icon to the left.

Mine worked perfectly once I realised this.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

Have you checked your iTunes Library names (Preferences/General in iTunes) to make sure that your libraries have different names.

I had the same problem, until I made this change.

No one here has helped. I have everything turned on as instructed. My libraries have the same name. I only have one Apple account so that's not the problem. Whenever I turn on home sharing and click done, my Shared icon on the left disappears. Same thing on my laptop and iMac. Any other bright ideas?

Upstairs PC can detect the downstairs one but not the other way around.
All Authorized, using same WiFi network and using same itunes ID.....


hmmm....

Is there a way where I can enable home sharing between two computers with multiple itunes accounts? My wife and I have separate itunes accounts and both of our computers are authorized to play both our music/video. It would be nice to sync everything up using home sharing.

Home sharing is set up using one account, but that doesn't mean each computer needs to use the same account for purchasing. When you set up home sharing, you use the same iTunes account, I don't think it matters which one as long as it's the same one.

Just make sure when you're done that you deauthorize and then authorize each your computer to use your wife's account and vice versa.

I turned on sharing, but when I tried to access the library the sharing would disappear.

I finally got it to work by turning off my firewall. Once I accessed the libraries that I wanted I turned the firewall back on.

This may also help... http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972.

I think we are beyond help. This seems to be problem that affects 2 macs on the same network. You should find that not only does the new Home Sharing feature does not work but library sharing also doesn't work.

On my network of 2 macs and one PC - everything works between either of the macs and the PC. But Home Sharing and Library sharing doesn't work between the 2 macs.

Cindy - Does Library Sharing work? (Preferences: Sharing : Look for shared libraries: Share my library)
If not - all I can say is I've had this problem for several months and no-one has any idea why.

That's not 100% accurate - I have a network here that includes a macbook, an iMac, and a Sony Vaio laptop and home sharing works with no issue. Both Macs are on Snow Leopard, the Windows machine is on Vista.

From your computer and your iTunes application, you need to click on the shared iTunes library that you want to sync with. Once that new library shows up, in the bottom right hand corner is a button called "settings". Click on that and it will open up a window asking you what you want to automatically download: Music, Movies, Podcasts, Audiobooks, etc.

This was definitely not obvious to me so thank you to another forum for walking me through this one!

HOME SHARE NOW WORKS

I think this is now working -- there was a post above that was the clue to my problem and might be to yours. When setting up Home Share -- Do not (DO NOT) select the "Done" button/icon at the end of the setup process -- Once I turned off and back on Home Share and did not use the Done Button - it appears to be working (at least files are importing). Hopefully Apple will change this button to Stop Sharing or something simialar (or just remove it altogether).