Itunes 10 homesharing not working

Icegy - thanks for the post, this solved my long lingering (early Dec 2011) problem. I've tried many of the other solutions, including:

1) Don't click 'done' on the homesharing setup screen.

2) Opening TCP 3689 and UDP 5353 bidrectional.

3) Disabling all firewalls

4) Monitoring traffic using tcpview and wireshark

5) Verifying I can connect to the iTunes computer on TCP3689 by running 'telnet <hostname> 3689' and getting a session response.

6) Uninstalling/Reinstalling/Reparing iTunes

7) Starting/Restarting services.

8) Countless others......

So this was my issue. Apparently something in the preferences.xml file nested under your profile App Data directory was corrupted. I moved it to the desktop and started iTunes again, which auto-created the files and the other baseline folders. I had to point my iTunes library to my D:\music folder, so find my files, but also restart iTunes holding Shift so that I could select my *.itl library file, which had all my playlists. As soon as I did this, my library was showing up on my iPad, iPhones and ATV2, like it was 4 months ago. What a relief. Thanks for the tip, I hadn't checked my xml config files.

Glad to hear it worked for you sjholla. Happy to help.

Grrr TK1137 you sounded sooooo sure of yourself ughhh. 1000 percent sure that will do it huh? Well your percentage is about 1000 off. You explained so clear and I have the identical Netgear router you have. I went to the settings, and found them just as you said, and set it to RIP 2M (as you said) the "both" was already set that way. Clicked apply, logged out and tried it... Nothing same issue. Tried restarting iTunes and nothing. Tried rebooting computer and same issue. Now I'm officially convinced that it's just an apple software issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the 1001 crap answers that are posted here. Ughhhhhhh :-(

It appears an obvious software glitch as when you click done the entire screen adjusts and home share disappears. Yes I am signed in the same on both the computer and my ipad2. I can see all my iTunes songs from computer on the iPad, but the homeshare disappears on the computer and can't see the iPad.

There really is no reason to have to tweak routers, firewalls, etc. ... Those are just weak excuses and taking stabs to fix an apple software glitch. Before I installed the recent versions of iTunes the home share was showing up and working fine, and now it doesn't? Really apple? C'mon, you make great products, get a job and fix the bugs. Feel free to fix a bunch of bugs you have in iPhoto while you're at it. Every time I add new photos since I upgraded to the newest iLife, I have to re-do permissions for other users. Really??? Not to mention several other issues. Maybe it's time to spend a little more time fixing bugs and less time working on the iPad version 18 due in 2029.

Burningthedays, I am that sure that what I spelled out was %1000 right for me. Obviously, everyone elses computer is different. It's not just the router that has to be the same. Have you updated itunes & all your devices to the latest OS? Did you close down itunes, reboot the router, repair bonjour, turn on itunes & try it again? Since I last posted here, there have been 2 instances when one of my 2 apple tv's would not hook up with my library. Both times I ran thru those last steps & bam working with no porblems. So, hopefully what I did has helped someone fix their problem or at least get closer to solving their issue. It's free advise, what do you want from me? lol

I agree with TK. Def chk all those things because I think they are the culprit for some people and can interfere with things. Once I did those things my home share worked "most" of the time. Sometimes it would still shut off. But once I turned off "wireless sync" bam home share never had a problem again. In your iTunes properties for each device,iPad or iPhone, you can check whether you want it to wireless sync the apps,music,etc. I strongly suggest you uncheck this. Do not wirelessly sync. It is very buggy and I believe messes up home sharing. Let us know if that works for you. And chill. We feel your pain. We think apple should work the bugs out too but this is networking stuff and a lot if the problems are happening in windows. We have to recognize that there are many moving parts in networking outside apples control.

Should also clarify. You might not be able to correctly turn off wireless sync until you connect each device to your computer. So to be sure connect your iPads or iPhones one at a time to you computer and turn off wireless sync for each device.

TK.... Sorry, but getting very frustrated here. The answer to your above questions are yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.... and ummmm yes. :-) Now, having said that, Ryan mentioned something that I have not tried, and was just about to anyway (before he mentioned it, and holding out a last hope lol). He talks about turning the sync off. Well, I have never physically attached the ipad to the computer, so it was never wirelessly synced. I really didn't think I had to do that for home share, because I have used home share in the past between my computer and my daughters macbook pro, and it worked perfectly, no issues at all. I never physically attached or synced those, and home share worked fine. I have only had the iPad for a couple months, so still learning the tablet nuances, issues, etc. I assumed it would work like home share between 2 computers like I did before, and it kind of appears that it does, because I can see my computer itunes on my ipad2 with homeshare no problem. When I turn homeshare on and off on the computer, I see "home share" open and close on the ipad2, since it closes the option if my computers homeshare isn't enabled. So it's working perfectly on the ipad end, it's just not showing up on the computer, so I can't see what's on the ipad. That's why I didn't think I needed to physically connect, do the "sync", then turn sync off. Logically that makes no sense to me why that would make homeshare appear on my computer, but I've tried everything else on here, why not that? It seems like grasping at straws, and as I said, homeshare worked fine with my computer and my daughters a few months ago, and I think I'm going to turn her laptop on now (since she's home), and see if it still works with that. I haven't tested that and I'm thinking this might be just something I'm missing about ipads.

Ryan/TK, ok, major breakthrough here! LOL.... unfortunately not a solution, but possibly a big step. I think this proves that it has absolutely nothing to do with the router or networking at all (I changed my router settings back to original with RIP device disabled rather than 2M). I just opened itunes on my daughter's macbook pro, and guess what..... THAT makes Home share show up on my PC and I can see my daughters itunes. It also opened the home share listing on my daughters laptop and could see my PC. I then opened my ipad and I could see BOTH my daughters laptop and my PC listed and could access ALL the itunes on both. So, that seems to tell me that networking among them all is perfectly fine. However, I could not see the ipad2 on my PC or my daughters macbook pro. I thought maybe I'd see it on the macbook since they are both apple devices, but the ipad doesn't show up there either? Hmmmm the PC and ipad are syncying wirelessly (have never plugged it into the PC), because I just downloaded a free tune on the ipad to check it out, and I had checked in iTunes on the PC to download anything I download on other devices to download on the PC, and sure enough the PC downloaded it right after I downloaded it to the iPad.

Now I'm wondering if I need to "authorize" the iPad? I've been looking everywhere and even looked online and I can't seem to find how to "authorize" it for my account? I'm wondering if that's why I can't see the ipad? All networking seems to be working properly, it starting to seem to me that there is just ONE setting somewhere with the ipad that I'm missing? (either authorizing it, or something like that). Maybe this will help others, that it's not about the networking, just one more CLICK somewhere? Grrrrrrrrr

Should it really be this hard? Apple is worth an estimated $550 billlion dollars and can't seem to work this software issue out. They can't even provide a decent troubleshooting tool for users. It appears to me that they are content knowing you may or may not be able to fix this and when you want that song on the computer or iPad that won't show up, you'll just buy it again, and add to the Apple bank account. Pretty sad really. It shouldn't be this difficult Apple. Your complacency is really starting to show.

My issue was that my laptop, wirelessly conntect to my network could not see my Qnap NAS Share.

Believe it or not, after trying everything I have seen here.. Here is what fixed it- on my Cisco (Linksys) Router-

Under Security, I found Filter Multicast UNchecked, so I checked it, Apply. BOOM!

Opened Itunes, saw my Qnap NAS Music Share.

Yesterday I bought a new Lenovo Ideapad and being a puely Mac person I have been using home sharing with my Mac Mini, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV without issue for ages.

When I installed iTunes onto the Lenovo I also began having this issue with the shared libraries things disappearing from the sidebar in iTunes on both the Mini and the Lenovo.

I spent hours and hours going through all the suggestions on various threads here and on other sites. I tried switching off firewalls and all that - didn't work.

What DID work was this:

My Mac Mini was connected to the router via ethernet cable and Airport was switched off. As soon as I turned it on the shared libraries appeared in both iTunes installations!

I strongly suspect that the problems everyone is having is related to the way your router is setup, so make sure you simplify things by connecting each machine to the network in the same manner.

Hope it works for you too. 🙂

After trying many different solutions including port forwarding, here is a simple solution that worked for me:

1. Go into your router settings.

2. LAN Section

3. Multicast and IPTV

4. Enabe Multicast.

Multicast option will depend on your router but this is one of the main things that has to be enabled to make Home Sharing work properly.

My router - Asus RT-N56U

Have fun home sharing.

I've been struggling with this since I got my new ATV too. I have a Netgear WNDR3700 and chaning rip to 2m worked for me - but only after I completely unplugged the ATV and plugged it back in.

I have also discovered, that home sharing only works if I am logged onto the PC directly and open iTunes...I kept trying to use RDP (remote desktop) to my PC from downstairs to change and test settings and I eventually discovered that it instantly makes home sharing stop working when I start a remote connection. That's a hassle for me as I like to sit downstairs and watch tv while I remote to my PC upstairs to continute working.

Got it to work!!

I did the SEP firewall exceptions UDP and TCP.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH155340

Then i did the same on my Router under port fowarding and triggering. Once the router was configured to allow traffic on the port, everything was good to go. The key seemed to be to do the same on the router.

*NOT* clicking 'Done' worked for me.