Q: Apple TV homesharing keeps dropping out ...

I am done with apple products. ATV2 was a waste of $$. It's a brick under my TV. I bought it for seemless homesharing which it stopped doing a year ago. I can't spend the time teching the situation everytime I want to watch something. Can you imagine if Apple ever came out with an apple television? After a year your TV would be 'Updated' into obvlion.

I have been battling this issue for months now too. Last night I fixed it, finally. My problem was in how I had Home Sharing turned on. I didn't. I had Sharing turned on, in the Preferences>Sharing tab, and that enabled my Apple TV to see and play my TV Shows, Movies, and Music. But, like most of you here, it would disconnect all the time. It always bothered me that it wasn't labeled Home Sharing, but rather, just Sharing.

Last night I read another post that mentioned going to the iTunes File menu to turn Home Sharing off and then back on. So I went there and mine was NOT turned on! Yet Home Sharing WAS working, albeit with the frequent disconnects that were driving me crazy.

So I turned Home Sharing on from the File menu and it has been rock solid since. I'm sure many of you already have yours turned on there, but for the rest of you, check and make sure. Because like I said, just having it turned on in the Sharing tab of Preferences will work, but with many disconnects.

Hope this helps some of you. I feel pretty stupid for not checking this earlier.

Well that "fix" lasted less than 48 hours. Now it's back to the same damned frustrating need to have iTunes relaunched after EVERY video watched.

Clark

Try this.  It worked for me.

1)  Go to System Preferences

2)  Under Hardware select  "Energy Saver"

3)  Make the following adjustments in Energy Saver

4)  Set "Computer Sleep" to "Never" all the way to the right

5)  Put a check iin "Wake For Network Access"

Exit System Preferences

Should work. 

No, that setting has been set that way all along, the problem persists.  Thanks, though.

I just worked with a senior technical advisor and we successfully restored my AppleTV to 5.0.2 and now everything works fine again.  He did mention this was the first time he had been successful in making this roll back work.

Is it possible to share how you got back to 5.0.2 in some easy steps? :)

Here is how we did it.  You may need after the restore finishes to unplug from power and then can go in and re-do your settings like to WIFI ect

Here's how to do it:

1) Connect your ATV to your computer via a Mini USB (not included with ATV but included with many other electronic devices) - in order for your ATV to appear in iTunes you must FIRST plug the USB cable to your computer and ATV and only THEN plug the power cable.

2) Download your ipsw restore file from Apple.

5.0.2 (ATV 2): AppleTV2,1_5.0.2_9B830_Restore.ipsw

5.0.2 (ATV 3): AppleTV3,1_5.0.2_9B830_Restore.ipsw

3) In iTunes select yout ATV, hold SHIFT and click on Restore

4) Find and choose the downloaded IPSW file in the Open Dialog Box and hit Next

5) As long as Apple still signs that version the Restore process will begin and will take a few minutes to complete.

Has anyone tried the new 5.2 update that came out today?  Does it solve our issues?

bsherden, thank you very much!

I'm going to try it this week and report back the results.

Hi all.  I updated to version 5.2 yesterday and finally home sharing was working properly again.  Unfortunately today all the same old problems are back.  As far as I can tell 5.2 does nothing to resolve the ongoing home sharing issues.

Mine has been OK for a few days now and this is what I did, but it might be purely coincidental so take it with a grain of salt.

Before I bought Apple TV 3 I used a Roku and Plex/Plex Media Server to watch my movies and TV shows. When Apple TV started being unreliable I launched Plex Media Server again and would switch over to Roku to watch stuff. Well, ever since firing up PMS, the Apple TV has connected perfectly.

My media is on a separate hard drive than OS X, but it's an internal hard drive. PMS monitors my Movies and TV Shows folders for changes constantly, so my theory is that this monitoring is somehow keeping some sort of connection awake, some connection that Home Sharing also uses.

Of course, it may stop working any day now, but as of right now, with PMS running, Home Sharing is working perfectly. I'll report back if that changes. Also, I updated to 5.2 on the Apple TV last night. After a few days of working well I'll quit PMS just to see if 5.2 fixed anything, and report my findings.

I am storing my iTunes lib on a Drobo which is connected via FW to my Mac Pro - from there it should be accessable via Home Sharing. Unfortunately either my (Apple Extreme) Network or the Apple TV's (or...?) are slowing down the stream to an extent where loading the video either takes forever or is not recognized anymore.

1. For some reason (other than verifying one's ID) Home Sharing requires to stay connected to the internet...

2. Both Apple TV's have to be restarted quite often (showing Home Sharing on but no library available)

3. the Apple Network throughtputs are below the possibilities of Airport Extreme Stations (between a couple and 400 KB/s; peak 1.3 MB).

I am not sure what is causing the delay of the data stream - it just doesn't work...(most of the time)

Seems mine was a simple fix and an oversight on my part, just didnt have the time to be thorough and try all recommended solutions till now.

I have had zero issues for 8 days straight. I had my network set to a "public network" in Windows 7 "Network and Sharing" Center. Under public networks I did not have Bonjour Services "allowed" through the firewall. I switched my computer to a "home or private network" and since then have had no issues regardless if my computer was sleeping or not. We have used our Apple tv2 4-6 times a day for 8 days.

Seems like unchecking "Share my library on my local network" (in the IT prefs sharing tab) made Home Sharing stream "faster"...