Q: Home Sharing drop out with Apple TV2

The trouble with this fix is that iTunes 10.3 won;t recognise my iPhone running iOS5.

That's right!  That's the trade off.

I have 2 PC's, 1 dedicated for Home Sharing streaming, the other one is for all of my iPhone/iPad devices.

What you can also do is to run VM (virtual machine) inside of your current Windows, then install the latest and greatest iTunes (10.5.x) inside the VM Windows XP or 7.  So, you can have the native (host) Windows with 10.3.1 to do the Home Sharing Streaming, and use the iTunes (10.5.x) in VM to sync your iPhone/iPad.  Both can still share (use) the same Media Library.

Your VM doesn't need to be running all the time, your only need to wake up (turn on) the VM whenever you need to sync your iPhone. 

As to how you keep both Media Library in sync.  Hmm...  that's going to be little manual.  What you can do is to always import songs or buy songs in your native (host) iTunes in 10.3.1 and make sure this iTunes 'organize' the folder for you in Advanced tab.  After that, you can copy all 6 files under iTunes directory such as "iTunes Library.xxx' (ex:iTunes Music Library.xml & iTunes Library.itl) into your VM's iTunes' directory.  Open iTunes in your VM, your iTunes will automatically convert (update) library database from older version to the current version.  You shall have the same number of songs or videos in both iTunes.  (Note:  it's best both iTunes Media Folder Locations are mapped to the same drive letter, for example, both are pointing to D:\My Music\MP3).

It's not perfect, but workable!

You can Google "VMware Player", it's free.  I am also running 2 different versions of iTunes in 1 PC.

rogsf, thanks for the tip but why should we need to resort to going back to 10.3.1 when it should be apple who get their act together and sort this out. It's a total joke that they are selling a product that is obviously not compatible with their own software!!!!

I had the same issues, but rather than start bashing Apple I read the Apple TV troubleshooting guide. Under network it tells you which ports need to be forwarded to Apple TV. Login to your router and forward the required ports. Problem solved.

I had this problem too, it seems pretty common. I read the troubleshooting guide here:http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972?viewlocale=en_US

Under "Check Firewall Settings" the ports required by Apple TV are listed. I changed the settings in my router to forward TCP ports 123 and 3689 as well as UDP ports 123 and 5353 to the Apple TV. Problem solved.

DP06,

This might seem like a stupid question, but what IP address did you use to forward the ports? The IP of the computer running iTunes?

My connection goes straight from cable modem into Apple Time Capsule. No router inbetween. Is it possible to set the ports to forward on my Time Capsule/Airport Extreme like you are doing on your router?

Mosley1, the ports are forwarded to the Apple TV ip address.

Addjames, I have no experience with time capsules but I'm pretty sure you can set up port forwarding, see here: http://must-know-mac.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-port-forward-time-capsule.html

I hope this helps!

DP06,

I would like to clarify some of the basic networking concepts here.  In Apple's Troubleshooting guide you were referring to, it says "make sure the firewall is not blocking communication between your computers."  If your computer and Apple TV sit on the same LAN (same subnet), majority home routers do *not* block communication/ports between devices on the same subnet.  Therefore, you should not need to modify the firewall/port forwarding setting in your router. 

What you are doing is telling the router to forward port 5353 to your Apple TV, which means you are telling the Outside world (public Internet) to reach your Apple TV via port 5353.  There is a potential security threat.  In many home routers, port-forwarding/firewall fuction is to tell how router filters or forwards traffic from outside world to inside of your LAN, in most cases, not how router filters or forwards traffic *between* devices on the LAN subnet segment.

I personally don't think what Apple means by checking the firewall setting on your router, I think what it means is to check the firewall setting on your PC and make sure your PC is not blocking UDP port 5353 or TCP port 3689.

You may also probably not to worry about opening or forwarding port 123 either.  Because, most home routers by default do not block any traffic initiating from 'inside' of the LAN subnet.  So, when Apple TV needs to sync time via NTP port 123, Apple TV initiates the NTP traffic, most of the home routers would allow the NTP (port 123) reply to come back to originator, in this case, your Apple TV 2.

Hope this helps.

newgolddream,

Totally agree.  But, this issue has affected many people here for many months, and it has fallen to deaf ears in Apple.  I have not seen any action or any bug fix from Apple to address this.  Rather than waiting for Apple to fix it, I just had to deal with it with all possible alternatives.  And...I am happy with my alternatives (solutions).

So far, the Home Sharing has been working without any problem past 6 days.  Yesterday I even did the Home Sharing (streaming) my entire iTune Library and 9,000+ Photos for 12 hours non-stop without a drop of connection.

still crossing my fingers.... 

rogsf, I am not a network expert but I do understand and agree with what you are saying, however the Apple guidelines do state to check the firewall settings of your computer AND router.

I checked my computer firewall settings (and even disabled it) which did not solve the problem so I then moved on to the router. As soon as I forwarded the ports everything worked. I have had no problem for 12 weeks.

Maybe my router does block communications between devices on the LAN?

As a test I will disable the port forwarding on my router when I get home tonight and see if the problem returns and will report back here.

I have to agree, port forwarding is usually put in place to enable communication between the WAN (Internet) and the local LAN (Home Network) - the local LAN PC's & devices should communicate freely subject to the device based firewall rules (usually software on local PC etc.) however it seems some people believe port forwarding is helping in some way. I am not convinced this is the answer and suspect the issue lies between the ATV2 firmware or the iTunes software communication. I have opted to enable port 'triggering' on my netgear router which is an alternative to port forwarding and open and closes the 5353 and 3689 ports and directs responses back to the device that initiated the communication - that way I do not have to state the ip address of the ATV2 or any pc on my network. .. I am still testing to see if this makes any difference.

As for those in this thread that blame the ATV home-sharing 'drop out' on 'interference' I can say that is certainly not the issue in my case, as I have a wired 'fully tested' connection between my ATV2 and PC's and it was still losing the home sharing connection.. Switching ATV2 to wireless made no difference. I have no issues with any other device so i think this is probably a software issue - I am just not sure if the fault lies with apple

rogsf and DP06,

This is the part I am missing...

Step 5 in the link mentioned above refers to another link that recommends Testing specific port communication between two computers or devices (at the bottom, under Advanced Steps). When I test the ports on my local computer, as well as test port availability on a different computer on my network (steps 1 sand 2) the results I get only show that port 3689 is open, not 123, not 5353, not 80, not 443. Isnt Apple aying these ports should be open?

Your thoughts...

I have just  used some free software called nmap and got it to do a full TCP/UDP scan on my apple TV and it shows the following ports open (This is without any router port forwarding or triggering in place):

Discovered open port 3689/tcp on 192.168.7.33

Discovered open port 62078/tcp on 192.168.7.33

Discovered open port 7000/tcp on 192.168.7.33

Discovered open port 7100/tcp on 192.168.7.33

Discovered open port 49152/tcp on 192.168.7.33

Discovered open port 5353/udp

Despite the above ports being open/available and the fact I have a 'tested' WIRED network the apple TV still drops home-sharing every now and then - so I am starting to suspect it is either iTunes software (v10.5.2.11) or the latest firmware within apple TV.

Mosley1, I will give that a try tomorrow and see what results I get.

For the people suggesting that iTunes is the problem: I have the latest version of iTunes and apple TV os working fine. When I had connection issues it wasn't just home sharing that lost connection. I also lost connection using AirPlay direct from my iPhone. Give AirPlay a try and if that loses connection at least you can rule out iTunes as the cause of the problem.