Apple TV homesharing keeps dropping out ...

Thanks Dundas, that's a really user friendly and helpful set of instructions. I'll definitely give it a go this weekend.Not got a lot to lose!

Glad you're enjoying your tunes again.

Hi Beatmunga & other apple dwellers!

Todays' experience in this imprefect Apple world - I fired it all this afternoon laptop, modem, apple Tv, and sound system - with the internet open and connected doing my email whilst listening hopefully to my music - surprise surprise Apple Tv stopped being able to connect after just 2 songs

Rather than shut downong iTunes, I reconfig Apple TV with my modem - it started to work again

By this time I had almost finished my mail - and praise the lord it has continued to work uninterpruted

To all all the Apple boffins watching - Can I as a non-tech head suggest that it seems that Apple TV is acting an impaitent person when in a queue - rather than continuing to poll the modem it may be switching off it's request - hence my TV displays the song it was attempting to poll or download but the time is 0:00 at both ends of the timer

Anyway I'm going back to George Thoroughgood while I can - see you next time

I am experiencing dropped homesharing connections to ATV2 about every 5 minutes. This started since installing the last iTunes and ATV2 updates. I just watched 2 TV shows on Apple TV sourcing from iTunes homesharing on a home computer and lost the connection about every 5 minutes. To reconnect, I just turned off homesharing in iTunes and then turned it back on again. Solved the problem quickly every time, but very frustrating. I also notice that if I wait a bit longer without doing anything, the ATV2 "sees" the itunes again and is ready to accept orders again for itunes homesharing. But how do I stop the drops?

I'm seeing the same problem, but in my case it's clear that the Apple TV itself is dropping the connection. This is not a problem with routers and ports. When the Apple TV drops the connection, and I go to Settings, it doesn't see any of the networks in my home, nor those in surrounding homes that are visible on my Macs.

I've documented this on my blog: http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/03/18/new-apple-tv-constantly-dropping-network-con nections/

For others with this problem, does your Apple TV see your network, or others, when you go to Settings > Network?

I've had an ATV2 and just swapped it for an ATV3.

The 2 routinely dropped Home Sharing connections after having been awakened for new use. About 2-6 minutes it would no longer see my iTunes collection.

The fix was easy but ANNOYING: whenever awakening ATV from sleep, reboot it with the remote control two finger trick.

(What's even more annoying is that I find it necessary to do this with ALL the Apple products I own. My iMac will drop the Airport connection RELIABLY once or twice a day, and a reboot is all that saves it. My iPad (even the brand new one) will fail somehow after hours of use. Last night it was sound -- sound wouldn't play unless I reboot.)

After the latest iTunes and ATV updates, my ATV2 has been dropping homesharing too. I have used my ATV2 for over a year without any problem. My modem is about 6 months old and has worked fine. Apple I am waiting on you to this problem!

I am in the same boat. I have an iMac, Time Capsule and two Apple TV 2 and all are running the latest updates. I rented and fully downloaded a movie to my iTunes account on my iMac. When I tried to watch it my ATV2 would drop home sharing after 5-10 minutes. I restarted my computer, router, ATV2 and that didn't fix it. I logged out and signed into home sharing again. None of this fixed the situation. The same behavior is showing up on both ATV2. If I disable and re-enable home sharing on the ATV2 I can get another 5-10 minutes before it boots me out again. Clearly an issue with the latest updates and makes watching a movie near impossible. I hope they fix this quickly!

Interestingly, Apple have been careful to make NO MENTION OF HOME SHARING WHATSOEVER on the UK store's new Apple TV3 details.

They have obviously quietly dropped promoting this feature in light of the fact that they have screwed it up, big time.

Thanks a bunch, Apple. Game over.

Not impressed.

Hey all, I don't know what to say. I was having the same issues with home sharing and finally changed my wifi channel to a less crowded one and also created a direct connection to my apple tv and Mac in my airport express (entered the mac address of each ) into DHCP Reservation slot under the network tab of Airport Utility and even though I don't know which change ( or maybe both together) fixed it. I haven't had a single drop for more than 2 weeks. But ever since the ATV update my TV shows no longer appear in a logical order ( movies are fine) anybody have a fix for this??

kirkmc, For me, when my ATV2 homesharing connection drops, it is dropping only the homesharing computer that ATV2 is playing content from. The ATV2 can no longer "see" the dropped computer, but still "sees" the other homesharing computers (I have 3 ATV2 sets running, and 3 home computers all homesharing on the same homesharing account), and the ATV2 can still access internet content. I can solve the problem by (1) waiting - ATV2 will eventually see the dropped computer again (takes about a minute) and then I can start the content again, or (2) restarting iTunes.

I got a response from Apple support. They pointed to this thread and told me to "do the solution on page 44", https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2776955?start=630&tstart=0 There are a bunch of solutions on this and removing and installing Bonjour and iTunes 64 bit version seem like Windows things. I'm on a Mac but I'm willing to try anything. How do you easily delete bonjour and itunes without losing all your data? I'm fairly new to this level of mac debug...

BTW, I'm not sure I mentioned this. I rent on my iTunes/iMac account and play on my AT2 as I like to rent a few ahead of time.

I was hopeful that re-booting ATV2 would be the fix, but unfortunately it has not worked for me. I just completed that and attempted to watch a TV show on ATV2 via homesharing in itunes. Same problem - ATV2 dropped the connection about every 5 minutes. I gave up and connected my PC to the TV monitor with a VGA cable to watch the show.

Have you tried applying any of the other configuration changes that people have presented other than:

1) Cycling your power to the ATV

2) Rebooting the ATV

Neither of these work.

Other recent suggestions which appear to have merit are:

1) for windows users, uninstalling iTunes and Bonjour then re-installing

2) turn off sync wirelessly for iPhone/ iPad and re-install ITunes.

For me, making changes to my router fixed the problem.

Everyone have read/ experienced the same issues being repeated over and over again.

I tried restoring ATV / resetting to factory settings on at least six separate occasions, reinstalling itunes and bonjour and then resetting / restoring ATV, and various combinations of the above. It's probably the first thing I tried -- if in doubt, restart / reset.

None of it worked.

Adding another voice to the crowd.

Bought a brand new Apple TV 3 on the 16th, and am also experiencing the homesharing issue. Homesharing between an early 2011 Macbook Pro and the ATV3 over wifi. Latest version of Lion/iTunes, etc. Exactly as others have described, will work for 5-10 minutes and then my computer disappears from homeshare. All other services work (Netflix, streaming movie straight from iCloud, Photostream, etc). Turning off and on homesharing in iTunes doesn't seem to work. I've restarted iTunes on the Macbook and it'll come back only sometimes. Other times I've needed to restart the ATV but that isn't consistent either. Some combination of rebooting programs/homesharing/hardware is needed for it to work.

I've also tried the ATV on three different networks with the same Macbook Pro (home, work and at my dad's house) and I've experienced the problem on all three networks.