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Itunes 10 homesharing not working

Homesharing was working fine on my PC and laptop, and one day it just stopped working at all! I sign in to the same Itunes account on both computers, they are both authorized, and then when I click the 'done' button, the home sharing goes away, never to be seen again! I have both itunes opened on both computers at the same time, and still nothing. Dont know what to do! Please help!

Itunes 10, Windows XP

Posted on Sep 19, 2010 9:32 AM

Reply
182 replies

Mar 24, 2011 2:06 PM in response to hacker.jon

A bit more fiddling with the router settings and everything works. I can see the iMac via Home Sharing from the iPad, and stream music - cool.

I can't speak for everyone's problems, but certainly mine are down to the home network and are outside of Apple's control. For me, the problem is that I have a complicated network with two wifi routers, only one of which is an Airport - and the other one is dumb. It took a while to get everything routing correctly.

Mar 24, 2011 2:10 PM in response to jk18

jk18 wrote:
Clicking DONE ends your sharing session. DO NOT CLICK DONE. Click create home share and then click something else!


Not true. This is a red herring. Clicking done simply dismisses the configuration screen. If you have another system out there, configured for Home Sharing, and it is on the same LAN, it will appear under SHARED. If you haven't, SHARED will disappear until a sharing system does appear on the LAN.

Message was edited by: hacker.jon

Apr 1, 2011 10:16 AM in response to hacker.jon

hacker.jon wrote:
jk18 wrote:
Clicking DONE ends your sharing session. DO NOT CLICK DONE. Click create home share and then click something else!


Not true. This is a red herring. Clicking done simply dismisses the configuration screen. If you have another system out there, configured for Home Sharing, and it is on the same LAN, it will appear under SHARED. If you haven't, SHARED will disappear until a sharing system does appear on the LAN.


Red herring or not, this "worked" for me. I had been sharing my iTunes library between my Windows 7 and MacBook Pro, but then it stopped working. No amount of deauthorizing/reauthorizing, turning Home Sharing off and on, restarting the Bonjour service helped.

I would enable Home Sharing, the Shared group would show up in the left hand column and as soon as I press the Done button, it would disappear and not work.

The only way I could get it to work again was to enable Home Sharing, *DON'T press the Done button*, quit iTunes, restart iTunes. I did this on both computers. Now it's working.

Apr 5, 2011 1:29 AM in response to ediblecrayon

Incase its useful for others.

Today my Home shareing stoped working. iPad 1, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and Apple TV V2 could not connect or share their content.

I had completed the following steps.

1) Reboot of PC
2) Firewall was already disabled
3) "Repair" Bounjour service in Add/Remove programs
4) Unauthorise/Reauthorise PC
5) Remove/Re add iTunes library for Home Sharing.

Nothing worked. Then saw a comment here about rebooting wifi router.
I could still browse over wifi perfectly on all devices so did not suspect it, however, after rebooting my NetGear router (Power cord out for 5 secs - plug back in and reboot) all is now well.

Hope this helps someone.

Apr 6, 2011 1:49 PM in response to JasonHNZ

Well crap! It stopped working again today. I don't know what is causing this and it's really getting on my nerves. I don't have anything on a wireless network. I don't have a router I can reboot. Everything is on a local network here at the office.

So basically, it was working when I first set it up a while back and stopped one day. I completed the steps in my post a few entries above this one and got it working again from that point until today when it stopped showing up again.

Update:
As soon as I posted this, I thought I would trying repairing the Bonjour service like previous poster said that he tried in one of his failed steps. All I did was repair Bonjour under Windows 7 64-bit in Control Panel > Uninstall or change a program. I then restarted the Bonjour service, although I doubt this part was needed. I opened iTunes back up and now my shared library hosted on my MacBook Pro is listed. So, who knows what's going on. Arrghh User uploaded file

Apr 25, 2011 10:40 AM in response to ediblecrayon

I had exactly the same problem, but soon found this worked:

1. Ensure that both computers allow the library to be shared (in advanced options)

2. Activate home share on both computers, using the same account (do not click 'done', just select 'create home share')

3. The 'sharing' title should now be at the side of iTunes

4. Wait for the shared library to appear under the 'sharing' title on one of the computers

5. NOW click 'done' on the computer with the shared library on it (it may be on both computers)

You should find that even though 'home sharing' has disappeared, you can still locate your shared library and add/extract songs to and from it.

Hope I helped :)

Jul 4, 2011 3:04 PM in response to ediblecrayon

If nothing mentioned above works for you and you are using AVG firewall on your PC, try this solution.


Problem: I couldn't get my PC(Windows XP, wired through ethernet) to show Shared Library from my two other MacBook laptops (wireless) on the left panel in iTunes. I could see PC shared library on MBPs.


Tried all the methods above, but none worked: bonjour repairing/service restarting, ignoring "done", enabling "multicast" under firewall settings in my Asus router with tomato firmware, and choosing "allow for all" for iTunes app in the firewall settings of AVG firewall, etc.


Real cause: AVG Firewall somehow created a communication block. Disabling AVG Firewall works immediately.


Solution: Searched online for hours and found one solution (from an AVG tech) posted by Phil Halton. The following works in my situation.

1. Open the AVG Program.

2. On the Tools menu, click "Firewall settings."

3. In the left tree menu under Profiles, click the profile you are currently using.

4. Click "System services."

5. Click "Manage user system rules," and then click Add.

6. In the new window, select the following values.


- Protocol: TCP

- Direction: Both ways

- Local port(s): (click "User selected ports; check a port in the list or add your own to the edit box") type 3689 and select OK

- Remote port(s): All ports (0 - 65535)

- Remote address(es): select "All Networks," and then click OK.


7. Save the rule by clicking "OK"

8. Select "Add" again to add another rule with the following values:


- Protocol: UDP

- Direction: Both ways

- Local port(s): (click "User selected ports; check a port in the list or add your own to the edit box") type 5353 and select OK

- Remote port(s): All ports (0 - 65535)

- Remote address(es): select "All Networks," and then click OK.


9. Confirm all windows by clicking OK.


Hope this helps your situation.

Jul 9, 2011 12:10 PM in response to ediblecrayon

For McAfee Internet security/firewall the info from Grand42 (Feb 12 2011) is important. I needed to add a firewall/port rule to enable TCP Port = 3689, UDP Port = 5353 and set this for ALL PCs. Setting this for PCs in Home/Work network does NOT WORK.


I suspect people with different routers and PC security/firewall SW have different combinations of problems. Welcome to this millennium's version of the the Tower of Babel.

Aug 16, 2011 9:40 PM in response to zxfiles

You are right!! I was going crazy trying to figure out why the **** I wasn't able to stream to my apple TVs anymore.


They should rename the DONE button to TURN OFF HOME SHARING. I interpreted the done button as a completion of setting up home sharing.


Thanks.




TO ALL: Do NOT click the DONE button when creating HOMESHARING unless you don't want to share anymore!

Aug 27, 2011 4:58 AM in response to ediblecrayon

I have a desktop pc and a laptop both running windows 7, an apple tv 2, and an iphone running the apple remote software.


My apple tv was working fine connected to my desktop yesterday morning, then it just stopped in the afternoon. It hasn't worked since, and I have literally spent about six hours working on it. My laptop is working fine and connects to the apple tv and remote on my iphone, but my desktop is where all my music and photos are!


The only thing that I noticed is that the desktop updated to the latest version of itunes while I was using it yesterday, and its since this point that it hasn't worked. Although the laptop was already on this latest version of itunes and still works!


I have literaly tried everything. Restarted router at least three times. Removed and reinstalled remote app on phone. Reset apple tv twice. Uninstalled and reinstalled itunes twice. Rebooted computer twice. Deactivated and reactivated homesharing numerous times. I'm running out of options here!


HELP!!!

Itunes 10 homesharing not working

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