AppleTV keeps losing connection with iTunes; only solution is to reset it

I did try to do this earlier, with using internet sharing to connect to the AppleTV, but I think maybe I didn't set it up right. Do you mind helping me with how I would set this up in Snow Leopard? I would like to have my Mac and AppleTV both connected by ethernet, but I could use wireless if need be.

Nope, just have an iMac with one ethernet port.

If I do internet sharing from the Mac from ethernet to Airport, does that make sense? I'm a bit confused. Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying. Currently my Mac gets its internet connection from the AirPort router via ethernet. So wouldn't I just be sharing the connection from the router to the Mac and back to the router again to go to the AppleTV? I'm not sure what I would be gaining with that except an extra step. I would just be back to the AppleTV getting its connection wirelessly from the network.

It makes more sense to me to connect the AppleTV to the Mac directly with an ethernet cable, but get the internet from wireless from the AirPort router to the Mac wirelessly. Am I understanding that correctly? Would I set that as "Share your internet connection - From AirPort to Ethernet?"

Okay, that makes sense. I will try it in the morning. I think it's worth testing it that way to make sure the router is not the problem. If that doesn't work, I can't think of anything else to do aside from reformatting the hard drive of my iMac, which seems extreme, especially since reinstalling iTunes did nothing.

Okay, I tried using internet sharing to share the internet connection from the iMac to the AppleTV (sharing from AirPort, to ethernet). That did allow the AppleTV to access the internet. It was not seen as a device in iTunes with that change (which did not surprise me; I figured I would have to reset it). The bigger problem, though, is that I couldn't set up an iPhone/iPod as a remote. When I went to add them, the AppleTV could not see them. I don't know if that's because somehow the remotes and AppleTV didn't see themselves as being a part of the same network? At any rate, that's a deal breaker for me, because our AppleTV/AV setup is in a different room/floor of the house from the actual TV set, so I can't use the remote that comes with the AppleTV.

@capaho - I thought about trying that, but doesn't that take me back to the same place? Wouldn't the ATV be connecting via WiFi from the router, which would mean the router wouldn't be exluded as the problem?

Or maybe I'm not understanding this, and when you use from ethernet to airport, does that make the iMac itself a wireless hotspot separate fromt the actual AirPort router? If I did that, can I keep the SSID/password for the iMac and my regular wireless network all the same? It looked to me like you could set a WEP password, but not WPA2, which is what my regular network is. I've gone to some effort to get my whole house on the same SSID (using an AirPort Express in another part of the house in bridge mode to do that). I would like to keep it that way, since different devices rely on being part of the same network to talk to each other.

(By the way, thanks for all of your responses. I really do appreciate the ideas).

@capaho - Also, if I did internet sharing from ethernet to airport with the iMac (and I am understanding this correctly that it would make the iMac a wireless hotspot), that would be to exclude an issue of connecting the ATV to the main router via wireless. But I think I've already done that by connecting everything by ethernet (the ATV hasn't been using wireless at all over the past week).

The one other thought I have is that I could try syncing the ATV to my MacBook Pro instead of the iMac. That would exclude an issue on the iMac itself (which would have to be something other than iTunes, since I reinstalled iTunes). It's not an ideal solution because the hard drive is much smaller and the MBP would be wirelessly connected instead of by ethernet, but I could try that.

From searching on this topic, it looks like people have been struggling with this issue in one way or another since the ATV came out. On Macs, Windows, wireless, ethernet, all kinds of different routers - it's making me think there is something buggy with the ATV firmware or with the iTunes software. Maybe I've been lucky to have dodged it so long.

A couple of other things I tried - I pinged the AppleTV and it was fine, and also used something called the "Bonjour Browser," which did find the AppleTV.

Does anyone know if the iTunesHelper.app could have anything to do with this? I just noticed that my iPhone wasn't waking iTunes to sync when I plugged it in and found that iTunes Helper wasn't running anymore. Finding it again and reinstalling it fixed that problem, and I had some wishful thinking that it might have something to do with the AppleTV issue. I kind of doubt it, because I think I initially removed the iTunes Helper app from the login items a few days ago as that was part of the instructions for reinstalling iTunes. Strangely, it must not have returned when I reinstalled iTunes, but I don't have any reason to believe it hasn't been running in the past when all these issues started. Still, it seems to have something to do with how devices are recognized by iTunes, so I wondered if anyone had heard of it being related to the Apple TV non-syncing problem.

capaho wrote:
I don't think it was necessary to remove iTunes Helper. If there is a problem related to iTunes on a Mac in relation to ATV connectivity, I suspect it may have more to do with the OS X security scheme regarding application port access. Clearing that problem should only require deleting and then re-installing the iTunes application file itself.

Well, I did it because it was in the instructions on the Apple support page. I have it back now. I was just wondering if it may have anything to do with this - i.e., is iTunes Helper necessary for normal device detection of an AppleTV by iTunes? It's also interesting to me that iTunes Helper is not automatically reinstalled with a reinstall of iTunes.

It probably wouldn't hurt to boot your Mac from the OS X installation disc and run Repair Disk from Disk Utility to clean up any possible file problems.

That's a good idea.