Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

Several people, including me, have tried wired connections -- I had both my iTunes computer and ATV wired to the same router. There was no noticeable difference for me.

Add me to the list of Win7 64 users for whom Home Sharing stopped working approx. a month ago, immediately after iTunes and AppleTV update. I have tried most of the proposed solutions and the problem still exists. I look for a new update each time I start up the device in the vain hope that there will be a fix.

There seem to be people who either don't believe this problem exists, or that the problem is the Apple TV device can't find the library on the computer. The library can be found just fine, the ATV device just loses track of the library after approx 10 minutes. Internet connectivity is not lost in these cases, Home Sharing is what quits.

Testing with wired ethernet is not a desirable option. I bought the device so I could stream my local iTunes library (computer on another floor) to my home theater system wirelessly. This was perfectly functional for almost a year until the same round of updates others are referring to. It is not a problem with my router, or at least the router is not solely the problem. Another possibility of course is a Windows update broke Home Sharing, which will make this very difficult to troubleshoot.

The bottom line is, there are now 35 pages in this thread and quite a few independent threads addressing the same problem. I'm glad I'm not alone with the problem, but it would be nice to be able to use this great device again.

Someone else mentioned this but is appears that the Apple's Home Sharing isn't smart enough to recover from a interruption of streaming. My suspecion is it has something to do with the recent iCloud intergration.  I have same issues on both PC(windows 7) and my Mac (though appears to occur less frequent on it). I want to remind everyone that Netflix or ITunes store movies/trailers on Apple TV don't appear to have these issues.

I'm not interested in running hard ethernet cables either. Not practical for my situation.

If anyone has any suggestions on a alternate steaming box platform that has a great user interface (like Apple TV) please let me know. This so called "hobby box" appears to be going the way of the old Newton fast.

Has anyone tried setting ATV2 to never sleep?

I've tried setting the ATV2 to never sleep.

After that point the ATV can always see the Shared Library on the network, but it sits forever on the "Loading . . ." screen when you try to access the library. Need to reboot iTunes again to get everthing working.

I'm still baffled by the fact that all my other iOS devices always access the Shared Library just fine, even when the ATV2 gets into this state.

I have EXACT same problem as well. Reboot iTunes, re-enable sharing ....repeat......repeat.

I have not read through all 35 pages on here, so I imagine that there are different problems requiring different solutions.  This will not fix everyone's issues, but hope that it will make a positive contribution to the discussion here.  I work in IT and was assisting a client today with this issue:

Client has a Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit desktop (i7 920 CPU, 12 GB of RAM) with iTunes 10.5.1 installed on the machine.  This is the computer hosting the iTunes library (videos, music, etc.) to the other devices on the network (Apple TV, iPads, and iPhones).  The devices are able to see the library, but intermittently lose the ability to see the iTunes library on the desktop.  For this client, Home Sharing was working perfectly prior to updating to iTunes 10.5 (for the iOS 5 update).  However, closing / re-opening iTunes on the desktop restores access, but only temporarily. 

iTunes is updated to the newest version (10.5.1).  Apple TV is updated to the newest version (4.4.3).  All iOS devices are updated to the newest version (5.0.1).

Client had contacted AppleCare - they replaced the Apple TV free of charge and attempted troubleshooting the issue with the client, but were not able to provide a resolution for them.

Client replaced their router with a new Apple AirPort Extreme.  This did not resolve the issue for them.  However, other users have reported a resolution by switching/upgrading their router.

The power settings on the desktop were set to 'Never' go to sleep or hibernate.

All applicable Services on the machine were turned on.

For Apple TV users, the issue persisted whether it was hard-wired or using the wireless radio.

I have seen several posts stating that ports need to be opened up.  The Apple support site for the Apple TV states the ports the device uses for automatically updating the time on the device and for Home Sharing.  You will have two conditions where this can potentially be a cause of an issue (ports being blocked):

1.  You own a security appliance (i.e. SonicWALL, Cisco, etc.).  This family of networking devices are primarily used in a business setting and start at around $500.  Most residential users are using routers that will not restrict traffic within the internal network.  In most cases, you should have not have to make a change in the router's firmware for Home Sharing to work properly.

2. You have third-party security software installed on your computer.  Certain security products will contain an anti-virus component and a firewall component.  Any security product labeled "Internet Security" (i.e. Norton Internet Security) will come with a firewall component.  The ports are listed so that you can create custom rules for the software firewall installed on your computer if it is blocking the ability to share over the network.  An easy way to determine if this is the problem would be to temporarily disable the anti-virus and firewall. 

The client had Microsoft Security Essentials installed on the machine and was using the standard Windows Firewall.  I checked the rules for Windows Firewall and saw that it was configured correctly - set to allow iTunes traffic.  This was a longshot, but I disabled it anyway as it was the last variable that I could think of at the moment to provide a resolution for the client.  This restored all functionality.  I had three simultaneous streams of different video from the desktop to an Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone. 

I just wanted to update all that my fix I posted a few weeks ago and a few pages back is STILL working for me. My sister, however, just got an Apple TV and I applied the fix for her, but I had to change it slightly. For her setup, I had to UNCHECK both "Public" and "Domain" and only leave the "Private" checked because of the way her network was set up. Now she is working flawlessly like me. I know others said that the fix might not have worked for them, but maybe slight changes will get this to work.

I can say it definitely has to be a Windows Firewall / iTunes / Bonjour issue for Windows 7-64 bit users like myself and my sister. When I had her set up Home Sharing on her Vista laptop... NO ISSUES!

Dusters

When you say "UNCHECK both Public and Domain" ....are you referring to WIndows firewall settings?  Cause in my case even if I completely disable all Windows firewall settings I still had intermittent drop outs.

One other thing I want to mention.... I WAS previously running Windows XP with no issues (for a long time I might add).... with my Apple TV but then I bought a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled about the same time as Apple released iTunes 10.5. Now it makes me wanna put that old  XP machine back up and try updating it with iTunes 10.5 (if 10.5 supports XP?) then see what happens.

Well, here is what I have:

imac 27" with 10.7 OS, connected to my Apple Tv using wifi, with the ATV2 connected to the internet by ethernet.

I have suffered for weeks, as many of you all have, with the dropouts of ATV2 not keeping the home sharing connection and stopping to play from itunes after a few minutes ot, for me, on the 4th song.

I followed a suggestion to change the IPv6 setting:

System Preferences > Network > Advanced > TDC/IP > Configure IPv6 > change this setting to "Link-Local Only"

AND IT WORKED!!!!

Make this change and tell me if it works for you. Sorry, I have an imac and do not know the settings to change for a PC although I'm certain it's quite similar.

mhall1138...

Yeah, if you follow my step by step procedure that I did to solve my problems (I think it is on page 33 of this thread) you will see how I did it. I'm assuming this is hit or miss for everyone. My sister's setup had to have "Private" checked, while I needed only "Public" checked in my setup. For example, once I got my sister up and running, she actually had it stop working for a day for some reason. In order to get hers back working, I tried disabling the "Private" firewall in Windows but nothing happened. So under the "Private" firewall, I chose to allow all incoming connections and it started working again. Then, I flipped it back to Block (default) and everything was fine. This ATV / iTunes Home Sharing is so glitchy and buggy it seems like everyone needs to do something different or slightly different. It should just work....

I may have spoken too soon.

My "solution" worked for about an hour, then the ATV2 became disconnected from Home Sharing and I had to restart itunes on my imac to get it running again.... ****.

At least it lasted longer tan the usual 3 songs

;-(

I must say Apple TV2 is a huge disappointment. My wife and I have replaced every computer and handheld device in our home with apple products. We have never had a problem and I have never once complained about the price of any apple product because it has always worked. This Apple TV2 does no justice to the apple name. I have had this product for several months now and It has done nothing but cause issues on my network. It not only drops off my network and constantly restarts, it will cause my router to have conflicts with other devices on my network and I have to restart it on a daily basis.

I realize this is nothing but a big complaint, however I just don't see how Apple can continue to allow this product to bring down their name. I truly hope sometime soon who ever is in charge of the Apple TV2 will realize what a huge mistake they are making and will provide a stable OS that will restore my faith in Apple; before I have crawl back to Windows.....

Very frustrating. I just got it about a week ago, hooked it up over this past weekend, and can't get but maybe 2 1/2 minutes of music before it just drops.

Windows 7 64 bit, firewall off, router in as much DMZness as I can get the ATV2 into. It just stops streaming.

I wondered if at some point it had to do with wi fi sync, but disabling it on the iPad 2 didn't make a difference.

Running iTunes 10.5.2.11. Have the ATV2 hardwired into the router right now. No Wi Fi.

It is still attempting to pick up the music again as I type this.

The computer that is hosting the media should be configured for use with DMZ, not the Apple TV. This (DMZ) should not be a requirement to have Home Sharing working though.