Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

I have been having this problem for awhile now, always been on wireless and it keeps dropping out when I pause and sometimes try and run from the start. I have to fully quit iTunes in order for it to work. Really annoying and there needs to be a fix ASAP!

After working with Apple Level 2 Support , who worked with Apple Engineers. My Apple Tv problems with Home sharing dropping several hours after inactivity was solved by turning off the sleep mode on all my Apple TVs. Apparently one of the more recent updates causes the apple Tv to hose the connections to iTunes when it goes to sleep. So turning it to never go to sleep has fixed my problems. This particular issue is known to Apple and should be fixed in a future update per the engineer.

Its simple, just set the wireless on the router to AES only.

Why would that work if we are connecting by cable?

OK, I missed that this was cable. I would use wireless.

I have 2 ATV. one wired and one wireless.

They both exhibit the bug. The only way to prevent it is to stop them turning off.

I just purchased an ATV3 and after my initial setup worked fine, I experienced several days where I could not connect to my Mac for streaming. Everything else worked. I tried some of the other solutions here but nothing worked.

Then I saw your post or someone else's post about disabling Multicasting in the QoS settings in my Cisco router. I tried it, and it worked. So far (3 days), I haven't had any problems, thank goodness. I was about to go ballistic. I replaced an ATV1 with this ATV3 and was preturbed that I was having so many connections issues. I was about to bring it back to the store when I thought I'd consult this forum. Good thing I did. Saved myself a trip to the Apple Store.

Hopefully, this really solves the problem. I was having another related problem as well. After not using it for awhile, (switching to TiVO or another source), the ATV3 would not come back up. I had to unplug/plug it in to bring it back. I thought about it for awhile, then I went into the settings and turned off Sleep. That seemed to solve that problem. I'm not concerned about not sleeping, because when I'm not using it, I have my TV on another source.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Problem solved.

Gary Nash

Scan the Support Community sites. Apple TV losing connection is prevalent. The many postings point out the problem occurs with Apple TV1,2and 3; with different brands of router including Airport Extreme; from current and past versions of iTunes; after varying periods of working well.....minutes, hours, days; losing connection with Home Sharing and loosing Airplay; whether the router and Apple TV are in same room or separated by distance; after trying innumerable posted 'fixes'; after exchanging for a new Apple TV.

Readers, please don't post a fix until you check it works for atleast a week.

Yeah, same problem - came on here before taking it back to the Apple Store for a replacement, but it seems this is a widespread issue so I might as well stick with it and hope for a software update.

Cuts out even when the video's fully buffered which leads to a room full of groans when watching stuff with friends. I don't think I've got through an entire video without this happening at least once yet.

Even restarting iTunes doesn't work and I have to unplug the Apple TV and plug it back in to get it working again. I'll have to try disabling sleep as a short-term solution.

Also, I sometimes find video takes ages to buffer whilst home sharing without any obvious reason why (same bitrates, pressure on my router etc) and have to leave it to settle in for a few minutes before it's safe to watch without hang-ups. Other times it buffers very quickly. Weird...

All in all this has been a bit of a blot on the purchase as I really only bought it for a smooth home sharing experience but $99 later I'm no better off.

ATV3, my solution; swapped it for a new unit and 5 days now, no issues. The one thing I noticed is they gave me a refurb unit that is still running 5.0 (4099) - shows an update is available but hesitant to do it. The only thing I am missing now is the Hulu app.

I have had rock solid operation for two months with one simple fix. I just had to disable sleep on my atv3. Note, my Mac and atv2 still sleep. For some jacked up reason when the atv3 goes to sleep it kills iTunes sharing for all my devices. I know it doesn't make sense but that was my fix. Had non stop problems before

Karuks- I know this is an old post but I have the same router you did and it seemed to be a miracle router...until I started streaming blu ray movies.....can we talk so I can get your experience with this router through email?

Okay I am posting this on all four threads that describe this issue.

THIS IS A FIRMWARE BUG IN APPLE TV AND APPLE ARE IGNORING THE PROBLEM. WHEN STREAMING FILM/TV FROM iTUNES THE NETWORK STACK CRASHES AND RESTARTS.

• This is not a DHCP issue. Changing your router, network, DNS settings, re-installing iTunes, wearing a foil hat etc. won't fix it.
• Repeated reboots of the ATV unit are a temporary fix, but the issue returns - usuallly after being on standby - because most of the proposed "fixes" involve a reboot at some stage, this gives the impression they've worked, but they have not.
• Using a wired network connection removes the problem, so it is primarily a WiFi issue.
• The last two firmware updates have made the problem worse. I have four ATV 3's and can confirm this, since they are all using the same iTunes and network but have three different firmware versions between them. Although the iOS "remote" App finds all the ATV's faster and more consistently since the last iTunes update (11.0.1.12).
• All four Apple TV's are now all but unusable on WiFi.
• The problem occurs in the first 60 seconds of playback. If you get past that point, in all but a few cases, the film or TV show then plays to the end.

If this isn't a memory leak or similar bug in the network stack, then it is most likely a timeout issue with ATV DRM verify to iTunes. So WHY Apple haven't you admitted the problem and FIXED it?

I hope the info helps someone, but it isn't completely right. I had my Apple TV 2 hard wired and experienced constant issues. Bizarrely, about 1 month ago, I decided to put it on the wifi... no problems since.

I was having a similar issue.

However, I noted that my iMac would go to sleep I would lose the Homeshare connection.

I changed my computer Sleep Settings in Sytem Preferences > Energy Savings to "Never", and I haven't had a problem since.

This fix sounds too easy to be real, but worked for me. I have had a solid connection for 4 days straight.

Give it a shot.