Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

Yeah. Especially frustrating when you have multiple systems with iTunes libraries.

Duster's changes actually got the streaming to work for a long period of time (almost 8 minutes!), then the streaming stopped. I still had access to my library (it usually drops too), so I tried another song - nothing.

I hope they are investigating this. Seems like a widespread issue.

I have this same problem.

I have the same problem... It drops at EXACTLY 10mins into a movie, I have been waiting forever for an update to fix this. I bought the apple tv to replace streaming with my PS3, I told my girlfriend (who didn't understand why I needed the apple tv), that all I had to do was plug 2 cords in and it would just WORK. Well that hasn't happened, and you can imagine how much flack I get from her now when for whatever reason a movie drops out or netflix becomes suddenly unavailable. Also when apple tv tells me that netflix is unavailable, I turn my PS3 on and netflix works flawlessly  and even has a better interface imo. Uhg apple get your head out of your butts and fix this problem already!

I did exactly what you did......I got the whats wrong with the PS3 schpeel....Im like its apple tv, its going to rock...WRONG!!!!!!!  I have had thrown in my face non stop about how crap the Apple tv 2 is. I have to reset homeshare 3 times on average every movie and when I change content my library just dissapears.

APPLE...YOU GUYS F*&^IN ROCK!!!!!!

Doesnt work....

I Fixed it hahahahahahahahahaha............APPLE TV LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  IT LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHAHAHA.........

I have AVG running on my win 7 laptop. I disabled the firewall on my router and then went into my firewall settings in AVG and opened up the following ports  (TCP port 3689) and (UDP port 5353) and selected bothways.

How to do this

Firewallsettings>system services>manage user system rules....

Step

1. Click Add rule

2.Click TCP

3.Local port = 3689

4.select home network as SAFE

5. save

repeat for UDP port

Done

This is so f%<&ing annoying.  I can't stand it.  I have had an ATV2 for over a year now.  Home sharing has been a CONSTANT problem, and that was they main purpose for buying these units.  Wether it's the hour glass spinning forever trying to load the home library, or playback stopping, now Home Sharing disapearing completely every few minutes, it's a horible user experience. 

I so want to love these things because they can be so awesome when they work, but this is ridiculous, it just shouldn't be this hard.

I have 2 units in the house.  One on a wired connection, the other on Wi-Fi.  The Wi-Fi unit has always been dodgey, the wired one has worked most of the time.  Now niether will stay connected.  I also have a GoogleTV and while it won't play DRM protected iTunes content, it plays non-DRM movies from my home collection without issue.  Netflix, YouTube etc.. all work fine, Home Sharing craps out constantly.  I have tried turning off Win Firewall completely, no difference.  My router blocks noting whithin the home network.  I have factory reset, I have "restored", and I'm really close to pounding with a hammer to see if that fixes it.  At least the hammer option might relieve some stress and stop me from waisting anymore time trying to figure this out.  Shouldn't that be the developers job?

If Apple can't fix this problem once and for all, and soon, I'm going to ditch the ATV2s and find something else.

I have just recently started having this issue also. I dont use wi-fi, only hardwired ethernet. I have a brand new WRT54GL router that I just purchased.

I've tried every configuration I can think of, but it keeps dropping homesharing after a few minutes. This is a huge headache.

Agent1019's post and solution were helpful. I'm not thrilled about having to turn off my firewall and Microsoft security essentials, but it worked. Going on a solid day of watching videos on the ATV2 with no issues.

My setup:

Win 7 64 bit wired Ethernet, wrt54gl router

Was having homeshare drop out every 5-30 minutes.

After disabling Microsoft security essentials and the windows firewall, I've had no issues.

New updates are available for ATV2 and iTunes. Let's see if that does the trick -- not holding my breath.

My ATV2 just received the latest and greatest software update; it seems like it may have resolved my issue with the home sharing drop off. BUT now it has affected my Netflix. So am I to understand that you will only fix the original problem without looking at what you did affects what is going on around it? Just please fix everything. As I stated earlier in this board, my ATV2 operated just fine over wifi before all these updates.

Ha! I have the same problem. Home sharing works -- ATV stayed connected overnight -- but now Netflix isn't so robust. I've been having a lot of problems with Netflix maintaining a connection over the past couple of days. My workaround is to use my Netflix-enabled Blu-ray player, but that's not how the ATV is designed.

I guess we need a new discussion thread.

With new version 4.4.4 -

I haven't tried punching play and just letting it work through a playlist yet. I actually started just by listening to one song and then picking another. It didn't work. The first song played, I selected a second song and got a content not found message. I tried other songs and could not get it to start streaming any of the other ones. For those that didn't give me the content not found message, it simply sat there trying to start streaming the song without any luck.

(This is under Win7 64-bit, firewall on, MS Security essentials on)

I have a very similar setup - i.e. Windows 7 x 64 and Microsoft Security Essentials / Windows Firewall.

I also disabled the firewall (I'm behind a hardware firewall on my LAN anyway) and this also rectified the problem. On digging a little further (time sync) I found that adding 2-way rules to the windows firewall for TCP port 3689 and UDP port 5353 (control panel -> network & sharing center -> windows firewall -> advanced settings, add inbound and outbound PORT rules for both TCP 3689 and UDP 5353 - ie 4 rules in total)

I dont know why the iTunes update removed the previous firewall settings (or changed its behaviour) as this all worked fine prior to the 10.5 update

At least it's working now

Well, I've updated ATV2 and iTunes to the most recent ersions and now it seems that instead of not working from the get go for streaming local content, it plays for an hour and then stops and starts every 5 minutes. Frustrating as heck.

It just either looses the homesharing connection or for some inexplicable reason just stops streaming and brings me back to the main menu of ATV2....

I'm glad there's 36 pages of comments.... at least I'm at least pretty sure it's not my own setup but rather a bug in the software, somewhere.