Apple TV 2 has big problems homesharing - fixes? firmware update needed!

Well, I have done some testings with the itunes XML files.

There are following files in the 2 different locations:

C:\Users\Username\Music\iTunes - iTunes Music Library.xml

C:\Users\Svein\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\ - .iTunes Preferences.plist

Removing (safe copy) the music library file, didnt do anything better.. same result after I imported one movie.. dropped connection..

BUT, when I removed the iTunes Preferences.plist.. chadang.. working like a charm..

That means, allowing itunes to recreate the .iTunes Preferences.plist file, for some reason makes home sharing stable.

This explaines why home sharing from my laptop was working just fine.

Can anyone else confirm this ?

I hope we broke the problem..

Best from Norway

I had high hopes when I received your reply, so I tried it. On my WinXP PC I found my iTunes preferences file (iTunesPrefs.xml) and renamed it and launched iTunes. HomeSharing and AirPlay are back! How exciting!

However, 45 minutes into HomeSharing a movie it lost connection, as always. I went to the PC and tried to continue with AirPlay mode and it errored out. Now HomeSharing and AirPlay are as they were - dead.

If I close iTunes, delete the Prefs file, and restart iTunes, it's the same - dead.

But if I close iTunes, delete the Prefs file, reset the Apple TV 2 unit and then restart iTunes, it's all back again. But for how long this time? I suspect only a short while again 😟

Anybody else have any success with this idea?

Well that was shortlived! It lasted about 2 minutes!! 😠

This issue gets endemically worse. What kind of a software bug gets more problematic with time? It's like an infection!

I tried get rid of the plist and having itunes rebuild it but the problem still occurred after a couple of minutes. So, I have tried about everything list above but very slight improvement. I guess that Apple needs to update Lion, itunes or ATV to get the problem fixed. Hopefully so, because my mac is upstairs and my apple tv is downstairs. Big pain to run back and forth. Never had this problem before. The feature was great.

I have been experiencing the same problem for a few weeks now (itunes 10.6.1, win 7 64bit)... my home sharing would stop working after 3 or so minutes on my apple tv gen2 and the only way I could get it to work again was to disable then re-enable home sharing in itunes, only to have it fail 5 minutes later... I have tried reconfiguring my router, factory resetting my apple tv, everything that I could find on any of these threads but to no avail. until I did the "nuclear option"

Yes, I uninstalled EVERY apple product from my computer, Itunes, Icloud, safari, bonjure, QuickTime... every apple product, cleaned up my registry of any remaining keys relating to apple products. Then after restarting my computer I reinstalled itunes and all associated programs... PROBLEM SOLVED, my itunes and home sharing have been working fine for 6 hours now. I assume that one of the updates relating to itunes didn't go well and that is what has been causing all the fuss... I really hope this works for everybody else

As decogazelle says - "I assume that one of the updates relating to itunes didn't go well and that is what has been causing all the fuss" - then surely it is up to iTunes to fix this problem or at least tell us how to fix it?

This "nuclear option" is drastic at best, catastrophic at worst, and before I try it I want to know what repercussions there may be, like - Do I lose all my previously saved material???

As others have said in previous posts, isn't anyone at iTunes reading the posts on this forum?? If not it is a disgrace and Apple are usually so good at customer support! This is letting them down!!!

Get a grip, iTunes!!!

go to your network adapter, either wifi on computer which hosts Itunes, and disable IPV6.

This solved it for me, and been working for hours now this morning, streaming out the favourite shows to my kids.

I read this in another thread and tried it, and now its been working for as long as I even has had since I got my new ATV3.

"manpowre" - OK, That seems to work! just watched a whole episode of Grey's Anatomy without ATV2 dropping out! Good job!!!

My router doesn't appear to support IPV6, nor my WinXP, so this solution won't work for me.

XP supports IPV6 yes, just turn it off.. then this will work..

my router doesnt support IPV6 either, but still, I made it work after IPV6 was turned off on the host computer only.

When I say my Win XP does not support IPV6, I mean it is not installed. There is no IPV6 to turn off.

Disabling IP v6 on the Windows 7 machine that hosts my photos resulted in a great improvement in speed for all Apple TV3 photo functions. Thanks!

I seriously doubt it is an iTunes issue. When iTunes 10.6 was released with so many bugs, i am one of those who could not even get it to install, and I'm waiting to see how others fair with 10.6.1, so I'm still using iTunes 10.5.3.....have not upgraded.......but this Homesharing issue started for me when I installed the last Apple TV update. I really think that update is the problem. I noticed a couple of other issues with that ATV update as well.

Does anyone know how to turn off ivp6 in lion without using the terminal. There is an option called local-link only. Does that mean "off". No direct option to turn it off in Lion

Oh-oh!! Here we go again! After several uneventful hours this afternoon and evening my ATV2 has now dropped out again and does so every few minutes!

Turning off IPV6 seemed like the solution but evidently, in my experience, it's not a full time fix!!!

I can't offer any ideas on how to solve this but it MUST be an iTunes problem!

So please FIX IT, iTunes!!! SOONEST!!!