Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

My problem was this: when streaming music from my MacBook thru ATV the audio would drop out almost exactly every 15 seconds for a second. Highly irritating. I tried all kinds of fixes/updates etc. It would work sometimes then not.

Most of the time my wife and I are logged in (on the same computer) simultaneously. When I logged her out--(so it was just me logged in) it stopped dropping the audio! I can't say exactly what the issue was (she had Mail and Chrome open in her account) but it worked. Everybody has their own theories and ideas about what works/might work but I figure this is so easy it's worth a try (assuming of course you have the same cause and effect as me).

Random dropping of the Home Sharing connection is my experience too.

It's just so disappointing.

I purchased Apple TV 2 expressly so I could listen to the music I purchased from iTunes to play through my home theater system, the best system in my house, as I'm sure many of you are set up.

But how can you listen, relax or entertain when iTunes on your Mac is dropped by your Apple TV2?

I have tried many of the fixes offered throughout this thread but to no avail.

I was going to surprise my sister with an Apple TV 2 after giving her an iPad 2 for her birthday.

Sadly, I will be purchasing her something else unless this issue is fixed before Christmas.

Home Sharing fixed!  I tried all of Apple's suggested solutions to no avail. On a hunch, I removed a line disabling multicast advertising that I had added to System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist  (based on Apple's KB note http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3789). In other words, I restored the file to its original version and now Home Sharing seems to work fine with ATV2.

Well I've been fighting this SAME issue recently. I have a ATV-2 and a original ATV both WIRELESS. Originally were running iTunes on Windows 7 machine via wireless connection. Then recently I started having drops outs forcing me to:  #1 restart home sharing and #2 reset the wireless setting on the ATV's to resolve.  I originally  thought it was latest build of iTunes 10.5 causing the issue so I downgraded iTunes to 10.4.X which didn't help. (BTW good luck with downgrading 10.5 to 10.4x on a Windows machine cause the uninstaller doesn't really "uninstall" everything so you have to manually fiddle with some files to make that occur).   I purchased a different router which didn't help. I switched to my Mac Laptop running Snow Leopard - same issue. Finally (and I was afraid of this).... I ran a Ethernet cable directly to one of me ATV's from router and so far its working fine.

....

Bottom line - I believe its a iTunes/home sharing/wireless issue. I'm gonna try some different WEP settings, turn off mixed mode on router per a suggestion I received on another thread  and see what happens. Note that streaming Netflix on my ATV2 works flawless on wireless... period.

This product HAS to work cause my non technical WIFE  doesn't have the patience for fiddling with restarting iTunes, resetting routers.... etc etc. In her mind... if doesn't work after 30 seconds  then she's done with it period and pulls out a DVD. IP addresses, routers. WEP passwords, restarting iTunes etc etc etc .... she's not interested.

Man I would prefer NOT to run hard Ethernet lines, drilling holes in walls and climbing my attic to resolve. Argh...

Apple needs to step in on this and address cause based on my trolling around in other forums and it appears this is happening allot!!!!!!  I suspect there's several little black paper weights sitting round right now in other peoples homes that don't have the patience for this.

Similar story. My ATV2 was regularly losing Home Sharing connection to my Win7 PC--never in the midst of playing a stream, but in between uses. Restarting iTunes was necessary to restore the connection. (Note that the ATV can always reach the Internet--for Netflix or YouTube--even when it can't find the PC. Note too that my iPad and iPhone can always find iTunes for Home Sharing, even when the ATV cannot.)

Tried setting both my PC and the ATV to never sleep. This seemed to fix the problem for a while--I went almost a week without ever losing the connection. Now, however, I'm seeing something new. The ATV can always see my shared library, but when I try to access it, it gets stuck on the "Loading Library . ." screen seemingly forever. Again, restarting iTunes immediately fixes it.

Incredibly frustrating.It's especially baffling that the other iOS devices easily locate the Home Sharing library any time, while the ATV consistently fails.

That said, now that I've moved my music library into the cloud with iTunes Match, the ATV never seems to have a problem finding that.

I just bought my ATV2 yesterday and it can't stream a complete movie without me having to reset homeshare on my win 7 lap.

Ive had it for less than a day and I want to hurl over the fence.

Sarzie,

I would start by looking at two things... your router, and the connectivity between your computer and the router.  If all wireless, try connecting an Ethernet cable between your router and laptop, for troubleshooting purposes.  Movies take a lot of bandwidth.  If you are wireless, Apple recommends 802.11n, but .11g will work - but buffering can occur. 

I'm just a consumer, I doubt the problem is your Apple TV.  The dropouts that people are reporting are rare, and I have experienced non after my last update.

Your problem does not seem related to this.  With that said, I'm not saying that it isn't a pain, nor important.  Try those troubleshooting steps.  If they don't work, I would encourage you to start a new thread with a description of your setup.

I'm a mixed Mac and Win house... no problems.

IMHO ... It has something to do with Home Sharing and iTunes(not the Apple TV itself) is all I can say. I can stream Nexflix, the Apple TV iTunes store movie trailers all day without a hitch but when streaming MY personal content from iTunes, its the same old rountine, Connections drops, restart iTunes, restart home sharing in iTunes, This problem has recently manifested itself cause I ran my original Apple TV for 2 years without hiccups. 

Dusters711

Connection worked ok, but, for some reason, it stopped the Remote app on my iPhone working properly. I assume that is managed through one of the other Bonjour rules, but I'm not enough of a techo to know which.

Back to the ethernet wire.

Regards

Cormanus

I don't really use the Remote app so I quickly tried it tonight and I have no issues with it. So far, with my fix that I posted last week, I have been up and running with no Home Sharing drop outs for a week on all three ATV2s. AirPlay and WiFi Sync all work flawlessly as well. Sometimes when I choose my Library from the ATV menu it might take a few extra seconds to find it, but it always does load. Also, I noticed that when I first start iTunes if my PC was shut down, I have to immediately restart iTunes. Not sure why that immediate restart is needed but it's the only restart of iTunes I've had to do all week.

Dusters711

That's interesting. Before trying your fix, when I was streaming music to my stereo via the ATV (which is what I use iot for most) I could load the remote app and connect either to the ATV or my iTunes library. After the fix, I could see only the ATV and didn't have any real control over what was happening. I couldn't stop or start tracks or search the library.

When I've run the ATV wirelessly in the past, I've had drop outs with vaying fequency and have had to reset the ATV to restore the connection. I've given up and now run it with an ethernet connection from the router to the ATV (the connection from my Win7 PC is wireless) and it seems to work fine. I'm happy enough to live with that for the moment!

On the question of time to load, I suspect that has to do with the size of your library and whatever else is in the ATV's memory--although, if I'm honest, I wouldn't have a clue!

Glad your set up is working.

Just to qdd to my previous comment, since the latest updates to ATV(4.4.3) and iTunes (10.5.1.42), I've developed a curious problem: when I try to get iTunes to play through the ATV there is no sound. I then have to turn off the ATV and turn it on again, whereupon all is well.

This is explored in another thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3391154.

I wonder why I couldn't edit my last post to include this?

Message was edited by: Cormanus

add me to the list of beffudled users.....

Isn't the whole point of vertical integration of devices and software by the same company to make them work seamlessly and in harmony? If so, why is there 34 pages of people saying it doesn't work?

I'm a bit disapointed.

I do however agree with one of the poster that it seems to be an iTunes thing as I too can stream (wirelessly) hours of netflix without any interuptions. It's really just when I stream content from iTunes (wirelessly once again).

Here's hoping for an iTunes update... Apple? anyone?

I too (34 pages in this thread, and still no resolution?) have the drop out issue with the Apple TV...it has only been recently (within the last month or two), so either the new Apple Airport I installed, or a software update to either itunes, or the Apple TV has set this off....but the streaming content (only movies so far) just stops abruptly and my iMac just disappears from the "Computers" menu in Apple TV. I have reset the connection using several methods in trial and error, and the fastest so far has been to turn wifi off on the imac, and turn it back on again...This re-establishes the connection and we can resume watching our movie...until it happens again...grrr. I am using all Apple products here...2010 27in. iMac i5 (OS Lion) with the latest release of iTunes, the newest version of the Airport Extreme Base Station, and (obviously) the Apple TV with the latest update. I live in a small apartment, all devices are in the same room (well, Mac is in the kitchen, but its an open plan, so they all have unimpeded line of sight to each other). You'd think that using all products from the same company would make everything run smoothly. Apple, please fix this issue soon. There is nothing worse than watching your favorite flick only to have an intense action sequence cut off abruptly by a dropped connection. My wife is about ready to start replacing this technology with a solution that actually works like it is supposed to...After investing this much money into these products, I hope it doesnt have to come to that.

I'm not sure there haven't been resolutions... numerous, in fact. Users (including myself) have found ways to make this work.

I would be interested... fascinated, in fact, to have everyone with problems try it NOT over wireless and see how it goes. Run some ethernet cable, temporarily, and see if your symptoms are the same. I'd bet a lot of the problems go away. Wireless *****... I can see 20 wireless networks at my house, and I live in the 'burbs, not a ton of density around. Add to that your cordless phone possibly operating on the same frequencies, and things get very congested indeed. Then fire up your microwave and watch the straw house blow over.

I work on professional audio, and believe me we avoid wireless whenever we can. Wires work. Wireless frequencies are a quagmire.

Every time you fire up the Remote app on your iphone or ipad, it establishes a connection. Every time you select a Netflix movie, it establishes a connection. I wonder if the Home Sharing connection just doesn't re-establish itself often enough, so when your wifi network has a hiccup the connection is lost and requires a reboot somewhere in the system to find itself again. Definitely something that can be fixed in software, if Apple knows about it.

So everyone, if you're willing, try running wires, at least as an easy troubleshooting step. AppleTV to router and computer to router, try both and either. Then pop over to http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html and let Apple know what your situation is, because they aren't listening on these forums. The more information we can give them, the faster and more effective will be the solution.