New Apple TV loses connection to iTunes 10.0.1

I have just bought an Apple TV 2. Setup everything my my iMac, all updated to latest (iMac Lion v10.7.1, Apple TV 2 4.3, iTunes 10.4, Airport Extreme v7.5.2) as of today. Aple TV is wireless, iMac is wired to AEBS

I enabled Home Sharing, and found my library great. Apple TV went to sleep and under computer "My Library" is there, click it, spinny wheel, but sometimes then list all Movies, TV show etc list, click on moives for example and it says "No movies in library!?!?

I found by chance switching off then on Home Sharing, made it work. Surely this is not right, Ive just bought an Apple TV 2.

Whats going to happen, it no good as is. I upgraded this from an Apple TV 1.

cheers

I'm having the same issue. It started when the ATV2 auto upgraded, without my permission, to 4.3.

I run Windows 7 x64 on my 2 machines. It's not a windows or router issue as rebooting them does nothing. The ONLY fix is to reboot my ATV2. keep in mind, each of my computers have over 3TB in music and video

Normally. My atv2 runs on 802.11n @ 5ghz. I've also tried 802.11g at 2.4ghz and wired at 1gps... Same issues persist. I've also plugged the atv2 into my computer and reinstalled the os. No help

I don't think this is a hardware or warranty issue. I think Apple just oopsed and broke the atv2 os.

Also my iPads, iPhones, etc can still use my ITunes libraries at all times

Also when the atv2 loses home sharing, it works normally otherwise (Netflix, renting shows, all run normally. Just no home sharing)...

I JUST noticed the atv2 was signed out from the iTunes store. Re signing in fixes this, but within 30mins to a few hrs, it times out and home sharing poofs. What's annoying is this can happen while watching a movie... STUPID. The atv2 should NOT need a constant iTunes store connection to use home sharing.

I may have stumbled onto a workaround for the now well known Home Sharing problem that requires turning Home Sharing off and then back on to connect to iTunes.

Last week, I noticed that one of my Apple TVs was reconnecting to my home sharing iTunes account every time while the other two constantly needed to be reset. The difference ended up being that the one Apple TV was set to "never sleep." I have since set all three Apple TV boxes to "never sleep" and now they all reconnect as they should!!! It seems that the sleep state of the Apple TV is causing them to lose their connection to the iTunes library. This isn't ideal since it does use all 2W - 6W of power all of the time 😉, but it has been a time saver. Hopefully Apple will fix this problem soon!

A side note: if you are using a universal remote such as a Logitech in your setup, it may try to put the Apple TV to sleep when switching between devices or while shutting down your setup. You'll need to reprogram the remote to leave the Apple TV on at all times.

Please post if this workaround solves the problem for you.

I've had the same problem. Everything on the ATV2 Works fine, App Store Movies, Netflix, etc. The working of getting my itunes library is intermittent. It works for awhile, the shuts down. The only way I am able to get my itunes library back is by resetting the Time Capsule router and drive. Then it's good to go for a little while.

I tried you idea of shutting off the standby. Didn't work. Woke up this morning the light on the ATV2 was still on, but when I went into see my itunes library it wouldn't come up.

I do hope this is fixed in the 5 software update... This is so frustrating. I can't understand how Apple just can't fix this. Where are all the savy tech guru's. We are ony the loyal supporters of the apple product and as i look back it seem this has been going on since 2010.

We thought the "never sleep" setting fixed it, but after several days the problem reappeared. Again, after several minutes or so into watching a movie that is streamed from our Mac, the ATV2 loses connected and we have to unplug the power cable and plug it back in to let it reboot and then it will connect to our iTunes library again.

What a total pain in the rear.

Unlike what the message string title says, we're using iTunes 10.4.1.

Ok, I have had this same problem since the last ATV2 update. I have a work around that does not involve turning off home shares or restarting the ATV, but it is still annoying and may not work for everyone. I have three PC's (all running Windows 7) with iTunes installed.

When I get the "no movies found in this library" error, I switch to a different iTunes library on a different machine. It may take two or three switches back and forth, but eventually the ATV wakes up and finds the movies on the PC that I was looking for.

Due to the need for multiple iTunes installations, this clearly is not an ideal fix, but it beats restarting the ATV or signing in and out of home sharing.

I'm still looking for an actual fix if anyone has one!

Side note: anyone also start having trouble with the ATV losing their iTunes store sign in information (username password) at about the same time this error started happening?

Just wanted to add a "me too" to the stack. I have four Apple TVs--two 1st Gen, and two 2nd Gen--and all of them intermittently lose their connection to iTunes. When this happens, frequently iTunes is unable to sync the 1st Gen Apple TVs as well (it will complain about firewall settings or just fail with no message). Quitting and restarting iTunes tends to help. Rebooting the Apple TV by holding down+menu is sometimes needed as well. (For the 2nd Gen units, this only takes a few seconds--probably faster than logging out/in of Home Sharing.)

This has to be a solvable problem--Dropbox can maintain a steady connection to an outside server for weeks at a time without needing a restart.

Have both 1st and 2nd Gen ATVs running from Single iMac library and up to date iTunes version.

1st Gen hardwired to network and never loses connection. 2nd Gen (since update) continually loses sync even with new (very stong) wireless router signal.

Holding breath for another update to 2nd gen ATV before biting the bullet and wiring it (which would be a headache and not a guaranteed fix). Never had sync loss issues prior to the update and wondering if it's worth (or possible) to go back to the earlier OS. Anyone with insight - input is greatly appreciated.

So, once post suggested to put the sleep option to off, so having the Apple TV always on essentially. This has been working fairly well for me. I went from having to reboot almost once a day to, well, I can't exactly remember last time I did it. Not great because it use electricity but I do not have the same urge to throw the device out the window.

Really sucky Apple. I am a big fan but this really is bad.

In a couple of weeks this thread will celebrate its 1st anniversary.

I think that is a disgrace and prime example of "a don't care attitude" which will eventually turn people away from Apple TV's.

Needless to say, I have the same "disconnect" problem as everyone else and my equipment is 100% Apple, iMac 27", Airport Extreme, and Apple TV 2. All software is the latest version.

I think I'll go on the Apple online store and write a bad review about this product.

Wow...you're right! One year later and this black paperweight is still a dud!

Even with the sleep mode disabled, our ATV2 can't play one single movie from iTunes without disconnecting at least once or twice now. My kids gave up on it and it just collects dust.

We are convinced that the last one or two firmware updates broke this functionality with most users connected via WiFi. Seems like Apple could have done a quick firmware patch rather than make us wait this long for presumably what will be fixed in iOS5. Maybe they think that their "hobby" product is not worth the attention while they ramp up for the iPhone 5 release. Who knows...but this is ridiculous.

Same issue here... I don't know if this could help but it has been working perfectly for me for the past year.

I'm have 2 apple TV 2

2011 Imac

(ipad and iphones running the remote app)

The issue started happening when I replaced my old linksys router for an Airport Extreme 5th Gen (thinking that having all apple products should only help)...

rebooting the airport extreme seems to fix it also for me... but only for a few hours...

Toasty! wrote:

The new Apple TV requires you to have your Mac or PC on all the time to access content. With home sharing on I am able to do this easily. However, after a certain time, the Apple TV simply "loses" the computer from the "Computers" list or, it just pinwheels forever.

This is not a iTunes or Apple TV issue but a network issue.

Either Apple TV or the Mac disassociates from the network or get disassociated by the server (router) for any reason.

To give useful hints about "how to fix" there are more information about your network infrastructure and settings needed.

Lupunus

PS ... Note to the "me too" posters. Open your own question in the reight branch of the community and give the needed information to get help. -> https://discussions.apple.com/static/apple/tutorial/ask.html

Disrupting others questions and therads with "me too" statements is impolite and not helpful. It also violates the Terms OF Use.

lupunus wrote:

This is not a iTunes or Apple TV issue but a network issue.

I don't think this true at all, this is clearly a ATV2 and/or iTunes issues since so many people are having it. I am also having this very very frustrating problem. My networks works fine, all my computers can see and talk to each other, routers are good, no wireless, same network, iMac, it's just the stupid ATV2 that can't connect to home sharing. Dismissing this problem as a "user error" is letting Apple of the hook. This is clearly a problem and they need to fix it.

My ATV2 has been working fine for months, then one night I tried to play a TV show hosted on my local iTunes computer and it says it was not authorized and I need to reathorize my account in iTunes on my Mac. This seemed odd since it's been work and nothing has changed. iTunes on the Mac played TV shows fine, so I deauthorized the computer and reauthorized the computer, thinking that might clear it up. At this point the ATV2 stopped seeing home sharing and I've never been able to re-connect, despite being able to play movies on the computer via iTunes and being able to watch TV shows on the ATV2 via the cloud, so I know my accounts are fine.