Home Sharing feature not working in iTunes 9

@Nathan Jongewaard:

This is a very annoying feature to have to deal with but after looking around for a couple of days both online and at my computers settings, I found out the problem lies with your router's IP Address that your computer is running off. If both of the computers aren't using the same IP, they won't be able to share information on the local network. To confirm this is what really is the problem,(on both computers) go to System Prefs>Network and see if both the computer's are using the same IP address. If they aren't the same, on one of the computers', go to Advanced>TCP/IP tab, and at the drop down menu for "Configure IPv4", put it as Manually. Then just simply manually put in the IP Address your primary Mac is using(or vice versa). I would restart both Macs so it accepts the changes(sometimes when you click Apply, it doesn't want to take effect until after a restart), then open iTunes and start Home Sharing!:D

Cion, good point, I'd like to add to that for anyone confused over anything netwoking - Every device on a network must have its own IP address!

Each machine should have the same network gateway/router, subnet mask, and dns, but each machine *IP addresses* must be unique.

For those not familiar with their network setups: open network preferences -> Advanced ->TCP/IP:

IPv4 address - unique to each Mac
Subnet Mask and Router should be the same. IPv6 - well that could be automatic or off, shouldn't matter

If these are correct: I have had issues with Home sharing not working, and found it was due to using a different wireless profile in my MacBook Pro that the one I initially set up my Home sharing with. (i,e, I have a "work" and and "home" profile, I set up the home sharing under "home" if I have "work" selected, it does not work. Of course, ymmv.)

Just as a quick note, to add what worked for me to this discussion - I had two Macs, with identically named iTunes libraries. I changed the Library Name to something different in iTunes > Preferences > General (Mac Pro Library / MacBook Air Library) and they popped up on each other's sidebars. I think there may be a conflict if you use identically named iTunes Libraries, as well as the other problems that people are having with routers etc.

(Apologies if this answer has already been posted - this discussion is very long, and I couldn't find a way of only searching within this discussion...)

I spent hours and hours trying everything on the Apple site and various discussion boards. I had my Windows XP system connected via Ethernet and my Windows 7 laptop connected via WiFi. When I connected the Windows 7 laptop also via Ethernet instead of WiFi, home sharing finally worked. The Apple troubleshooting page is worthless. Thanks for all the great suggestions here.

I think I figured this out (or at least this solved it for my situation).

1) I have 4 computers in the house.
2) All but one are on Snow Leopard (10.6)
3) All have iTunes 9.0.3
4) I was able to see/share music & videos between two computers (my MPB, wife's PBG4)
5) neither of my kids' MBs would see the shared libraries as "Home Shares", instead seeing them simply as 'shared libraries' (i.e., the standard blue stacked music sheets instead of the Home icon)
6) I went through various tips in this thread and the various Kbase articles linked to no avail.
7) On a hunch I tried this:

Go to the Advanced menu
Turn off Home Sharing on all the machines
Go to iTunes Preferences
Turn off "Share my library and its contents"
Make sure "Look for Shared Libraries" is enabled
close the prefs
Make sure All computers (up to 5) are authorized to play the music (Store -> Authorize Computer)
Go to the Advanced menu and Turn Home Sharing On
Use THE SAME iTunes ID and password for all machines
Click Done

After this last step, all 4 computers showed up as shared (3 on each machine; the other three CPUs showing up in the list) with the Home icon and the ability to transfer and play the music accordingly.

Hey there,

similar problem. Two computers on the same network. MacBook Pro and a Windows 7 machine. From the MacBook Pro, I can access the PC's library and that seems to work.

Much more important, the other way round. I'd like to access it from the Windows machine. Everytime I click on "Mac Luka's Library", iTunes on the PC jumps back to "Music".