Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

Kind of a tangent but how married are you to your router? If you feel like tinkering, ever looked into custom router firmware like DD-WRT? Not related but I had VPN issues that Linksys swore were supported but didn't go away until I loaded DD-WRT. Your issues may be router related (though my hunch is the ATV). My issues went away after restoring the ATV and running the latest beta. I am also using an Apple router now and all is well.

I have to do that every day (sometimes multiple times a day) and it's getting old (only been 4 days). We "married" ATV and ripped all of our DVDs through handbrake and put them on itunes but now the DVDs are packed up and when my wife needs to get the kids out of her hair and wants to turn on a movie for them, I get the phone call...hence the furstration.

@rvInny., I don't know what DD-WRT is. I'm not opposed to tinkering but also don't want to mess my router up. I paid $130 for is a few months ago. Been working fine with my 2 ATVs for months and now they are unreliable.

Do you think I should do a full restore on both ATVs (connecting to itunes vs. restoring to factory settings)?

Were you having problems with your shared library and ATV?

@joeb

Probably shouldn't have brought up the router comment. It's just something to mess around with. Seems everyone has had a variety of causes and fixes that worked on this thread so there is no.one.answer. A full restore is an easy first step.

I have a similar set up, ripped all my movies to iTunes and share them via a Mac Mini to the Apple TV. I ran iTunes 10.4 for 9 months with no issues. I started having problems after upgrading to one of the early 10.5 iTunes betas. When I rolled back to 10.4 the issues persisted. I did a full restore on the Apple TV, increased my sleep settings to 30min and have not had a problem since (over a month now). I made no changes in my router, computers, or otherwise. I am now using the latest iTunes and ATV betas and it's been stable.

Personally, I think it's either the ATV locking up or a router capacity issue >> my very uninformed opinion and not based on anything other than a hunch. I haven't done enough reading to know which ports or demands Home Sharing puts on a router but router RAM, processor, air interface // bandwidth and firmware have all been sore spots for me in the past. I have a prejudice against certain routers and went with an Apple one, figuring if it didn't work with their equipment, it just wasn't meant to be. The fact that both of your ATV's quit working at the same time would lead me to something they might have in common.

In regards to other media options. I've dabbled with a NAS to boxee, xbmc (on a server and on a jailbroken ATV2), Windows Media and they all worked fairly well. It just required too many steps and changes to be worth my time. Since my issues are mostly gone, I am happy to stick with iTunes and the ATV. If I had to scrap it all and try something else, my 2nd choice would be an Xbox reading directly from the NAS (provided yours supports streaming).

good luck

So, the commoin theme I'm hearing for that that have gotten it to work is updating their software to the Beta build of IOS5 right?

This brings me hope that next week when IOS5 releases it might fix my issues.

I've pretty much tried everything suggested to no avail.

I agree that it's a atv2 problem with how it handles newer network protocols. Since I unhooked the new time capsule and reconnected my old wireless g router I've had NO loss of home sharing connection. (3 weeks).

Fred32837 wrote:

 

I agree that it's a atv2 problem with how it handles newer network protocols.

There are no "newer network protocols" that's nonsense.

The streaming to the APE is based on multicast protocols. Exactly the same as for iTunes streaming to multiple speakers or other streaming media servers for boxes like the WD-LiveTV.

Fred32837 wrote:

Since I unhooked the new time capsule and reconnected my old wireless g router I've had NO loss of home sharing connection. (3 weeks).

That indicates that the trap was in the settings and some indeed strange behavior of your TC.

If you want your fast 802.11n back without drop:

On TC manual setup:

• Give your 5GHz a dedicated name
• Disable "Guest network"
• Set Radio Mode to "802.11n only (5GHz) - 802.11n only (2.4GHz)" or, if you use iPhone or iPod touch use "802.11n only (5GHz) - 802.11b/g"
  (You reach that settings by holding option key (alt) while clicking to the dropdown).
• Switch off wireless on all connected stations before clicking Apply in the TC setup.

Force all 5GHz supporting stations to use only the 802.11n 5GHz network, by deleting the other SSID from the list of "known networks" and disable "Ask to join new networks"

Set the ATV to use the 5GHz SSID

To make that running smooth also check:

• that the TC is not located flat at the wall, on the floor, in a corner, behind a furniture and so on. Imagine the radio field of the TC is similar to a flat lying Mentos with the TC in its center.
• the TC is located as high as possible (optimum: ceiling mounted)
• that there are no obstacles in the radio beam like high voltage wire, metal frames, metal plating's, humans. (humans contain a lot of water and water is a big bar for radio)
• That the ATV is as much free line of sight to the TC as possible
• The ATV is not behind or in a furniture or close to magnetic fields like bad shielded speakers, power lines and so on.

Lupunus

Message was edited by: lupunus (typo's fixed)

Bump...

I updated iTunes to the latest version and home sharing dropped 4 times in 20 minutes. Ran a full restore before ios5 hit. Still dropping. Have not installed ios5 yet as it appears to create new issues.

I'm so tired of the apple tv not functioning properly. I'm done with apple. Sold my ipad yesterday and apple tv goes back to apple this weekend. To many other options to deal with this BS and apples stinky attitude.

I dont get it. You dont install iOS 5 and complain about it because "it APPEARS to create issues" ??? - and you're selling your iPad because.... What's the reason? To punish Apple?

I solved my problems by getting rid of buggy network software that I was running on my computer causing the problems in the network, and haven't had a -single- problem since. And, my AppleTV is jailbreaked running XBMC without a hitch.

Plenty of good reports in this thread to give you a hint of what might be wrong.

For most users, AppleTV is a great piece of hardware which works flawlessly.

Sorted! I've just bought myself a £20 network switch! Now my ATV2 connects straight away and so far no dropouts! The problem is obviously with the router but by putting a switch between the ATV2 and the router seems to have solved the problem. An extra £20 but I've now got an ATV2 that I can watch and enjoy!

Disable Guest Network on Airport Extreme!

The Guest Network feature on my Airport Extreme seems to cause disconnects when using Home Sharing from my MB Pro laptop to Apple TV (2nd Gen).

1. For months I've had no problems using Home Sharing (ATV is wired, laptop is wi-fi connected).
2. I just turned on the Guest Network on my Airport Extreme (note: my laptop is connecting through the "main" wi-fi, NOT the guest network). Immediately I had problems with Home Sharing: ATV doesn't "see" the laptop immediately (could be a 2 min. lag). When it does "see" and connect to laptop it disconnects after a few minutes.
3. I disabled the Guest Network ... ATV/Home Sharing is working beautifully again!

To test that this wasn't a fluke. I repeated steps 2 & 3 above and had the same experience.

Guest Network ==>> Home Sharing disconnects

NO Guest Network ==>> NO disconnects

Bill_L wrote:

 

Disable Guest Network on Airport Extreme!

 

As I wrote in my last post.

You can improve the AP-Extreme wireless even more if you set a dedicated name for the 5GHz 802.11n and eventually change the radio band to "802.11n only (5GHz) - 802.11n only (2.4 GHz)" or -if iPhone should get connected- to "802.11n only (5GHz) - 802.11b/g"

If you connect the Mac choose the 5GHz and delete the 2.4 GHz name (SSID) from the list of "known networks" in the system settings.

Lupunus

I had to set Timecapsule manually --advanced--portsharing---set port 123

Tried another way; I reset my Airport capsule, and downloaded Itune 10.5 after updated to 10.5--if something went wrong.

Well tried a movie and AppleTv2 and Itune 10.5 worked during the movie time without problem.

I donot know--but timecapsule found all clients after reset and new set.

So far it seems to work--also no issue that airport does not find any clients--anymore.

It works

My IMAC has the most recent Lion, IPAD2 is IOS 5 with remote, IPHONE3GS is IOS 5 with remote, AppleTV2 is updated.

Was the reset of timecapsule--the thing?? at least today

Message was edited by: Dufomac

Same problem here,only way it works is if I go into itunes & turn off home sharing & turn it back on...Then it works for anybodys guess...