Why Does Home Sharing keep dropping out?

Intermittent problems are often a result of interference. Interference can be caused by other networks in the neighbourhood or from household electrical items.

You can download and install iStumbler (NetStumbler for windows users) to help you see which channels are used by neighbouring networks so that you can avoid them, but iStumbler will not see household items.

Refer to your router manual for instructions on changing your wifi channel or adjusting your multicast rate.

There are other types of problems that can affect networks, but this is by far the most common, hence worth mentioning first.

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, I'm glad that worked for you, but it does not explain why a lot of people (including me twice) have had perfectly functioning systems that stopped either for no reason at all, or (apparently) following an TV OS or iTunes upgrade.

True, but why not give it a try? Maybe the ports were not required before the update?

I am at my son's for an extended holiday season break and do not want to mess with his router! However, since I have had the sequence: bought TV2, worked, stopped working, replaced, worked, stopped working, with NOTHING done between the "worked - stopped working" phases, I am not holding my breath!

But I will try pinging the various devices attached to the network, and also play around with the wireless channels.

Steve, my problem wasn't with firewall settings on the mac, it was the settings on the router. You need to log into your router and forward the correct ports to the Apple TV.

You could temporarily disable the firewall on your router first to see if it solves the problem before you mess around with port forwarding.

Sorry, I don't have an airport extreme. I did find the following article though: http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-port-forwarding-on-a-airport-extreme-time-capsule /

Steve, and everybody else with connection issues!

I don't know if you have been following the other thread about these issues but it appears that the issue is related to time zone settings. Apple TV and the computers running iTunes have to be on the same time zone setting and periodically synchronise time zones over the network.

Try going into Apple TV settings and set the time zone manually and you should be up and running. It has worked for a user on the other thread and my time zone is set manually too.

I disabled port forwarding on my router and everything still works. On the day I set port forwarding up I also changed the time zone setting to manual!

Let me know how you get on.

Been following the recent posts with interest. Have done all the basic things (turn off and on the tv and home sharing in iTunes, reset the IPv6 to link-local only etc) to no avail. I tried pinging the TV and got "host is down" ... Any ideas?

One comment though, this does not look to me to be a homesharing issue since AirPlay is down and it does not need iTunes.

PS: Port 3689 is open.