My Apple TV is set up and working nicely with home sharing on, but what happens when my MAC(Which has my music and movies) goes to sleep?
AppleTV does not show my mac on the computer list. Under System Preference I have Wake for network access checked, is there another setting somewhere else I need?
That computer needs to be sent a magic packet to be woken up remotely.
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Helpful Answer, Thanks for the reply, but I still don't know if my AppleTV can wake my sleeping mac via wifi.
How does one send this "Magic Packet"?
It's not something the Apple TV can do.
Later macs don't need the magic packet, but that's another matter.
I have a later Mac, it's 6 months old, but if it's something AppleTV can't do anyway I guess it does not matter.
Can AppleTV wake a Mac if it's wired directly to the Mac with ethernet cable since it wont't do it via wifi, or is it something it will not do at all?
What do most people do then, just leave the Mac on 24/7 without sleeping?
Some macs using snow leopard and in conjunction with an airport can be woken over wifi without such magic packets. Obviously in other circumstances a magic packet is required.
I have my mac on 24/7 so I couldn't say for sure whether the Apple TV is able to wake a mac that has wake over wifi, snow leopard and an airport, I believe some have said they can, but I'm not sure how when the library of a sleeping mac isn't available to initiate a wake from.
SOLVED!!!
Yes you can wake up a sleeping Mac with the AppleTV via wifi or ethernet.
There are a few qualifiers which luckily I met. Best explained here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774
Hopefully this will help others looking for a solution to the sleeping Mac.
Ozzy, can you confirm whether the Apple TV can wake the mac or is it just other devices.
Yes AppleTV can wake a sleeping mac, I have done it myself, and the link above explains how to get it to do it.
The link seems to be down now for Apple Maintenance, but it is a good link and I am sure it will be working soon again.
Yes I've seen the link before, I was aware of how to set up wake over wifi, I just wasn't clear if it would work with the Apple TV as some have reported that the library disappears when a mac connected by wifi goes to sleep, obviously it doesn't. Thanks for keeping us updated.
I am afraid you are Correct. AppleTV is without a doubt waking up the sleeping Mac over wifi. I have done this several times now. However the "Library" does not always load. It seems to be hit or miss but not consistent on loaded the library.
I have found that if you wake the sleeping mac with the Apple TV and then turn Sharing on the AppleTV OFF then back ON the library loads again.
or
Wake up the Mac directly and CLOSE iTunes the OPEN iTunes and AppleTV will load the library.
Why it works sometimes and not others I have no clue.
Is this a known bug that Apple is working on or is it the way it was designed to work is the answer I am seeking now. I did email Apple and hopefully they respond back.
Fortunately, if you can look at that way, I think you might be seeing the issue that many others are seeing in regard to the library not loading. With a bit of look the issue you are seeing may not be anything to do with wake over LAN and could hopefully be addressed in a future update.
Look ???
Ha, being on an iPad I have no way to correct it.
And no way to add a smiley face either :-)
I can add it for you then. 🙂
Thanks for your replies, and I do have a case ID being worked on with Apple, I sent them tons of information they needed, so I hope this will benefit everyone else as well.
Winston A new iTunes update came out just now, 10.2.2 and I did the update signed out of home sharing did a reboot and signed back into home sharing on the AppleTV.
Then I put mac to sleep and woke it up with AppleTV via wifi and the library loaded with no issues!!!
I hope this is not a stroke of temporary good luck, but I did repeat this three times and it worked every time.
The update says it addressed home sharing issues, so hopefully this is the cure we have been looking for.
I updated to 10.2.2 last night, I haven't used the Apple TVs much since but as yet the library has always been there when I went to use it. Let's hope it's resolved, but I did notice sometimes it would take days before the library wouldn't load.
How do I get my Apple TV to wake my sleeping MAC?
