Apple TV not responding-Port 3689

Same problem here. I think it has something to do with the iTunes library being on an external drive. Not sure yet.

This is ridicules, i pade 300 bucks or so..and it was working fine....i spent countless hours on this issue..and nothing seems to work. can the monitoring apple tech employees plz assist us.

my Apple iTunes Library is on one of the internal drives in the MacPro= I have now called into support twice and still no answer....and this has gone on since last fall.

Well here is an odd update == I went back to the issue again today [I have two case ## in Applesupport but didn't call in] - thought I would check the Firewall info. I checked the AppleTV and set it up to only sync certain things. It is in the iTunes sidebar just fine = the 3689 message popped up so I thought, well, I'll check the firewall. I don't have the system one on but was looking around and found in my dock, NetBarrier X5 by Intego. I don't recall having it installed but opened it up and looked at it. I saw that there was an item called an 'intruder' in the Stop List = #10.0.1.10" - it said that "this address was put in the stop list because it tried to attack your comptuer with a Connection Flood" = whatever that means.

I don't know if it's the ATV number or not [can't get to the ATV right now] but once I clicked on something in the Stop Intruder area of NetBarrier low and behold the ATV started to Sync with my iTunes Library!!!! I don't begin to understand why. I did get the NetStat application running to try to figure out whether the ATV was 10.0.1.10 in my network, but I can't tell.

All I know is that hitting something in NetBarrier having to do with a 'connection flood" and "permanent host" changed things and all of a sudden my ATV is syncing.

Let's hope that is the answer....tho I don't have any idea of why.

I have exactly the same problem with you. everytime i sync my atv with my imac27 my internet connection stops and firewall problem appears. any solution yet? thanks

Read my note again = the problem resolved itself when I took those steps. I am hoping someone with more knowledge on this forum will see it and understand or figure out what the solution was. I certainly don't know, but it did work== everything is back on my ATV now.

Well I am unhappily reporting that the ATV fell off my iTunes but the things selected to sync are still accessible from the ATV == and the preferences in iTunes says the ATV is syncing = I do not intend to ruin what I have so far and will keep it there til this issue is solved for once and for all. I'm just glad to have my ATV showing some of my iTunes content [I didn't select all or most to show but it's enough for now]

New Report: Spent time tonight with a Wireless Multimedia Guru and we traced it down to, perhaps, the log in items I had and the Other SysPrefs == it seems that there were some things left behind by the various Barrier programs [Intego] and maybe others that caused the problem = cleaned them off, restarted etc. and the ATV now shows up in Devices in iTunes Library.

So, if you can jettison any 3rd party log in items or preferences etc. that you use maybe that will help. If you put them in Trash for now apparently that hides them from the system and if you restart maybe that will be enough? Good luck.

I just spent the weekend getting the remainder of my stuff from the Windows 7 PC- photos mostly - to my Mac Mini and all I had to do then was re-sync the Apple TV. However, I got the often reported 'port 3689' firewall issue. As many have reported this was without the Snow Leopard firewall being active. Finally, I spotted the recently released iTunes 9.0.3 and installed it. Everything is now working. As I type this Apple TV is now re-syncing with my Mac Mini. Note: I did full download and re-install of iTunes.

... so, if you are struggling to get Snow Leopard to play nice with Apple TV do try iTunes 9.0.3.
PS. I read the iTunes readme's but no mention of an Apple TV fix .. but I'm happy it fixed it for me. I'll let you know if there are any further problems !

Bought an Apple TV last weekend and use it together with a PC with Windows XP on it. Been having the same problem as everyone in this topic. Apple TV is not responding due to problems with port 3689 when I try to sync it with Itunes.

My PC is connected to the Internet with a DCP connection (cable) and my apple TV by WIFI. Tried everything to solve this but nothing worked. Edited router settings to open port 3689, re-installed Itunes, removed all Firewalls and Anti-Virus software. Nothing worked.

Thing that however worked for me was to connect the Apple TV with an ethernet cable to my router (first had a 10M cable that did not work and then used just a 1m cable that did work). I turned off my WIFI first to make sure the ATV connected via the ethernet cable. All of a sudden it synced my entire Itunes library in no time.

Thing is I am still not able to directly stream or sync the ATV with my wireless connection but at least all my music is on it and I am able to use it.
Hopes this helps people who get themselves frustrated over this problem as it did to me all weekend.

Joris

I am convinced that this issue is tied to the use of an external HDD with iTunes. I have a collection of WD MyBook Firewire 800 drives on my Mac Mini. The WD drives are very aggressive about sleeping when unused.

When watching a movie, as you near the end, the remainder of the video is buffered and sent over network (in my case, Wireless N from one Airport Extreme to another Airport Extreme with the Mac Mini ethernet cabled to one and the Apple TV ethernet cabled to the other one - I did this to share the wireless-N connection with my Apple TV and PlayStation 3 across the house).

Anyway, by the time the buffered video finishes playback, the WD drive has gone to sleep. After playback completes, Apple TV goes back to the previous menu and contacts iTunes for a refresh. As many have reported on the IntarWeb, that's when the trouble begins (i.e., complaints from Apple TV about not being able to connect to the InterWebs).

Similarly, when I've been away from my desk for a while, the drives all spin down. I noticed that when I come back, restore iTunes and look at the Apple TV, I can't sync and the get the '3968 Error'.

Restarting iTunes and/or resetting the 'remote end' Airport Extreme (i.e., the one the Apple TV is connected to) always fixes the problem because, guess what?, the iTunes drive is spinning again and everyone makes a fresh connection for iTunes sync.

Note that I am always able to ping the Apple TV when these error occur.

After checking all of the obvious things (i.e., disable firewall, disable IPv6, blah, blah, blah) I downloaded and run the 'Keep Drive Spinning' script on that particular external drive.

So far, so good... I haven't had a reoccurrence of the issue, but we will need to let this run for a while to be sure.

-- Ken

I am convinced that this issue is tied to the use of an external HDD with iTunes.

Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner.

In addition to the drive spin-up issue, I also had to disconnect the Apple TV from the Airport Express Extreme (i.e., the ethernet cable) and go back to using the internal wireless-N connection. The wireless signal is not as good as it was with the Airport Extreme, but it's good enough.

So, Apple support engineers, my belief is that the problem is with the Apple TV. As we software engineers say: "...it's a timing bug...". With the external drive not allowed to spin down, and with the internal wireless connection to the serving Mac Mini, I cannot recreate the conditions that cause the Apple TV to decide that the serving instance of iTunes is not available. But the bug is definitely there and it easy to recreate by simply re-connecting the ethernet cable.

Please, please forward this to the development team and let's get this resolved. I plan to buy a second Apple TV for a second TV elsewhere in the house and I am anticipating seeing this problem crop back up with a 'change in the test environment'.

Thanks, Ken

I have 2 apple TVs....an older one and a newer one.

the newer one always works fine, the older one gets the error all the time. restarting itunes usually works, else i have to unplug the older appletv from the wall and plug it back in to restart it.

external USB drives hold the itunes content.