Apple TV is "Loading" from my iTunes library forever

Same problem here, but only for photos (I dont have that many videos).

You are not alone.
I've been on here since I got mine last week trying to get it working - no dice.
Some have found work arounds that get theirs to work.
I've tried everything suggested here numerous times and at best mine only occasionally sees and plays anything from my itunes library. Eventually it will always lock up with the same problem you describe.
Finally I just left my ATV2 off because I'm not going waste anymore time on it - too frustrated.
I'll check for apple software updates or solutions here for a week or two, but if it doesn't get fixed soon, it's going back.
Big disappointment

I see similar issues:

1) Home Sharing:
(a) Apple TV shows my Computer listed, but when I click on it, it just spins forever.
(b) Also at times, it seems that Home Sharing just completely goes down. Using the remote app on my iPad shows no Apple TVs (should show 3) and does not show the iTunes library from my PC either.

I've found that closing and re-opening iTunes on the Computer fixes both of these issues.

2) Selecting photos from my Computer takes a considerable amount of time before anything is shown. It does eventually show the albums, but after a few mins. Unlike (1) where it would just spin forever. **

** Note that I hate how Apple TV does not support sub-folders in albums. For instance I have my photos organized like this:
d:\pictures
d:\pictures\christmas
d:\pictures\christmas\2005
d:\pictures\christmas\2006
d:\pictures\disney
d:\pictures\disney\2005
d:\pictures\disney\2006

** It collapses all the christmas pictures into one album. Same for disney. Wife hates this, as do I. Wish they just had a "folder" view that supported sub-folders and such. Would be awesome then! See a lot of complaints on this around the net.

Message was edited by: SoundForSound

I do not know if this is everyone's problem, but after suffering from this for a while, re-starting iTunes and resetting my Apple TV, I hit upon a solution:

1 - Go to System Preferences
2 - Select Security
3 - Select the Firewall tab
4 - Click the Advanced button
5 - Ensure that (a) you are not blocking all incoming connections and (b) that iTunes.app is set to "Allow incoming connections".

Having done this (my iTunes.app was previously set to "Block incoming connections"), everything worked fine.

I hope that this helps.

I had this problem with apple tv loading movies and everything taking forever. I found it does this when I have my 2 computers,on the same wifi connection, downloading alot of content. The first thing I did was restore it and that worked but it started doing that same problem again the next day. So this time I went to my netgear wifi box and power it off then back on and this instantly fixed the loading problem again. So I logged into netgear and set up a separate wifi connection just for the apple tv and I have not had any problems in the last 3 days.
Hope this helps 🙂

Same problem here, got mine yesterday. the library starts loading/ spinning then gives up and returns to the menu. Any suggestions???

Same problem here. I have a lot of music (300GB) and a lot of photos. Sometimes it's fine but other times it takes forever to load.

I was able to resolve this by changing my firewall settings. I went to the apple icon, system preferences, security tab and firewall. I highlighted "allow all incoming connections." I might pay for this later, but it's the only thing that seemed to work.

Total side note, before I was even able to get my library to show up on the appletv (i was in a circle of home sharing signing in and off), I had to update to the latest version of itunes.

Hope this helps someone out there!!!!

Hi,
I've also had this problem but realised that, in my case, ITunes was incredibly slow on my PC independent of Apple TV. I came across an article that talked about speeding up ITunes on a Windows PC ( http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/5-ways-to-speed-up-your-slow-itunes/). I followed the suggestions and am happy to report that ITunes is now far more responsive and so is my Apple TV (Could still be faster though).
Hope this helps.

I have spent the last hour trying to simply watch a movie in my bedroom. Something that use to take 1 minute by popping a DVD in. This is probably the 20th time this has happened. I WANT MY TIME BACK APPLE!!!! You're not part of the solution any more. You're creating more problems. I've been a fan of Apple for 30 yrs and everything I have is Apple including MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacMini, IMac, Mac Pro, Airport, iPhone, & ipad. The reason you are proprietary is so things work together. WELL, FIX IT! Can you at least tell me while I'm waiting what AppleTV is doing when it says "Loading Library" for up to an hour. Is it trying to make connection? Is it downloading data? Instead I sit there wondering what could be causing the problem. You are obviously waisting thousands of combined human hours that should have been worked out in your R&D. I WANT MY TIME BACK!

I would think it is my configuration or the amount of movies I have in my library but it work fine with the old AppleTV. I could always count on clicking the remote for instant access. Now it's a crap shoot. Please someone from Apple tell me there is a solution that will not waste any more of my time. Is it the new Home Sharing that is causing it? Can I go back to connecting without home sharing?

Same problem: Loading forever - finally comes up but WOW, what a waste of time. It's embarrassing when showing friends my new appleTV. Come on APPLE - let's fix this problem. I wish I never would have sold my old appleTV. Big step backwards guys.

I consider myself a tech savvy guy and I've tried all the options listed here with no luck. God forbid a normal consumer get a hold of this product.

I'm having the same problem. I have a lot of Photos (35K) and it is the Photo library that is painfully slow (10 minutes - I don't usually wait that long so in could be never in many cases and I would not know) to load.

This is really not useful in it's current state.

I'll keep checking for an update from Apple, but for now I'm going back to my WD Media Player.

I have the same issue. I have tens of thousands of phots and more than 10k songs. Takes 10 minutes or so loading my library. Library visible in appletv then does not contain all the pics for photos that exist in same albums in aperture