Apple TV 3 disconnects from home sharing

I'm also having this same issue. It's an all Apple environment, and home sharing will stop functioning at random intervals. Other iTunes functions continue to work, though. Stopping/restarting home sharing and/or closing and reopening iTunes will restore connectivity.

I also observed that this behavior started with the 10.6.1 update of iTunes.

I've opened a ticket with Apple and the tech support folks were less than helpful. All they would tell me is there are no known issues and it's a network problem. THey also suggested completely rebuilding the OS from a clean install (not even using my time machine backup) and seeing if the problem persisted. I refused to do this 'clean install' as it is not, in my opinion, a valid troubleshooting approach.

I did ask them to open an issue with the dev team, but they fought on that too.

Same issue here. All Apple environment.

I'm losing connection to ITunes Library every now and then - from Apple TV 3 or Remote app on iPhone and iPad.

Connection is restored when turning iTunes off and on. No other issue with my network.

Not exactly sure when it started happening. I'd say a month ago.

Not normally a 'same here' post person, but 'same here.'

ATV 2 - wireless

ATV 3 - wired

iMac i7 (main iTunes library - library is on an external drive)

Apple Time Capsule - main router

Apple Airport Extreme - wired to ATC and ATV 3

iPad '3'

iPad 2

iPad 1

iPhone 4s

iPhone 4

All with latest versions of software. Tied every permutation of resets, power cycles, some reinstalls, etc... And the problem persists.

Extremely frustrating. Only things that seem to be consistent are all devices lose access (AirPlay, remote apps, sharing) and the only way to recover is to restart iTunes.

I've noticed lately that my home sharing drops are less frequent. Some things that I've done that MIGHT have had an impact:

1) Consolidated my iTunes library so that everything was on a single location. In my case it happens to be a NAS device

This seemed to make an immediate improvement

Just for giggles, I also changed my wiring on my home network a bit and put my iMac on the same switch as my NAS device, which happens to be the wifi device as well so now all devices, excpet my ATV3 (which is wired to a different switch) all come into the same hosted network device.

I didn't notice anything here as the improvement from consolidating hte library seemed to make a difference.

I still see drop outt of home sharing, but not at the ridiculous interval I was seeing them before - once every couple of days now versus multiple times an hour.

Another thing I've been tinkering with on my iPad and iPhone is force quitting hte VIDEO app before connecting to the home share. Seems to "refresh" something on the device.

Just for possible diagnostic help:

• screen saver / energy settings have no effect on my setuy.
• Topology clarification - Airport Extreme is set to 'bridge' mode
• Using DHCP reservations for all items connected to my network instead of static (tried this those) or 'random' DHCP
• iTunes library is consolodated on a single 3TB USB drive directly connected to iMac
• iPv6 set to "link-local'
• DHCP on Time Capsule set to refresh every 365 days (unlikely, but just in case this was part of problem)
• ATV's and all devices have continued access to the local network and external internet so problem seems to be isolated to only iTunes.
• If actively connected and playing content from my home share/iTunes/AirPlay, no issues. Problems only happen when the link goes idle.

Major, major frustration though. We have a 4 year old and "DocMcStuffins" and related content are all in iTunes library. Luckily, the streaming version from iTunes seems to usually work fine. But system is almost unuseable especially because wife and 4 year old either aren't capable or aren't willing to go to my office and quit/restart itunes.

😟

Problem happens multiple times per day - not sure of actual frequency - less than 8 hours but more than 1 hour.

Here is my info. I have eliminated all of the variables with everything pointing back to an iTunes bug.

1) Changed iTunes from running on a Mac to a PC (Both running 10.6.3) - Result: Connections still time out

2) Moved the network from wired to wireless and vice versa. - Result: Connections still time out

3) Replaced the underlying network switch to a Cisco 3750 which is a non blocking $10,000 network switch - Result: Connections still time out

4) Turned off IPv6 as right now clients are getting a valid internet routable IPv6 address. Result: Connections still time out

5) Moved the movies and music from a network share to a locally attached USB disk Result: Connections still time out

6) Changed the NAS sharing protocol from AFP to CIFS and vice versa. Result: Connections still time out

7) Problem remains on iPhones, iPads, AppleTV 2s both 720p and 1080p versions.

8) Debuged with Wireshark and Bonjour Browser. It appears that the Bonjour advertisements are fine but connections from the clients to the iTunes server are what time out. It appears tha the iTunes server just stops responding to requests.

9) Turned off screen savers, sleep, hard disk sleep, etc. Result: Connections still time out

10) Tried Mountain Lion Preview 4 Result: Connections still time out

11) Moved iTunes server to OSX Lion Server on a Mac Mini (Clean install) Result: Connections still time out

The only variable which I can't change is iTunes itself. So it does look like an iTunes bug. I just wish Apple would at least say acknowledged or looking in to it.

Add another to the list. I'm in an all-Apple environment as well. My iTunes library is all on my iMac and I'm using an Airport Extreme Base Station and an ATV3. I noticed weeks ago that if I simply navigated to iTunes preferences and clicked "ok" on the home sharing tab again, it would be fine. I didn't even need to restart iTunes.

I'm seeing the same thing. In my case it happens at least once a day so I've added a crontab script to restart if iTunes gets in a bad state.

#!/usr/bin/osascript

set HowManySessionsDAAP to do shell script "netstat -n | grep .3689 | wc -l"

set HowManyiTunes to do shell script "ps -e | grep 'iTunes ' | egrep -v grep | wc -l"

if HowManySessionsDAAP > " 60" then

say "There is a problem with iTunes. I'm restarting it now."

quit application "iTunes"

delay 5

tell application "iTunes"

activate

end tell

end if

if HowManyiTunes = " 0" then

say "iTunes is not running. I'm starting it now."

delay 1

tell application "iTunes"

activate

end tell

end if

Great Idea! However, sometimes iTunes has a dialog that other users are connected and asks if you are sure you want to quit.

I am not proficcient in Applescript. Any idea on how to click that dialog if it shows up prior to the iTunes quiting.

Right now I modified your script to:

do shell script "killall TextEdit"

But I'd rather shut iTunes down gracefully if possible.

As a side note, it is pretty sad that users are having to come up with scripts to solve this obvious bug in iTunes. Would be nice if Apple at least acnowledged the problem.

I have the same troubles, but my Time Machine backups have also stopped working and the problem started around the same time that issues with home sharing appeared.

Setup: iTunes running on iMac with Apple TV3 and Airport Express connected to Time Capsule via wifi. Also, have a MacBook Pro that uses the Time Capsule for backups.

Symptoms:

-iOS remote app will not connect to iTunes (won't work until iTunes is restarted OR home sharing is turned off and then back on)

-Apple TV3 will not connect to iTunes (won't work until iTunes is restarted OR home sharing is turned off and then back on)

-Time Machine backups fail (the Time Capsule drive dismounts and is not avialable again until Time capsule is reset)

-AirPlay from iMac to Apple TV3/Airport Express always seems to work

-AirPlay from iOS to Apple TV3/Airport Express always seems to work

I think there is something wrong with Time Capsule and maybe one of the recent Mac OS updates. iTunes may also be involved, but I don't think its necessarily iTunes.

I have the same issue. I have used ATV2 without any problem at all for 18 months but in the last week it has stopped working. We are an all Apple household (Imac, Iphones etc) and connect wirelessly via a bt home hub. Nothing on our setup has changed except for software updates from Apple.

When using home sharing to play purchased TV shows or music from my iTunes library the ATV loses its connection every few minutes. I have reset and done full restore to factory settings on ATV - has made no difference. I also tried switching off home sharing entirely and streaming directly to ATV from Itunes Match for music etc. This seems to make the drop outs 'slightly' less frequent but that's the only difference.

I seem to have gone from having something that I really loved as the hub of our home entertainment system to a completely useless brick for no abvious reason. Incredibly frustrating. Have Apple even acknowledged that there is a problem?

Also people seem to be saying this is an ITunes bug rather than ATV - is there an easy way to load an earlier version of iTunes to see if this cures it? (Sorry if this is a dummy question but I'm not used to having to do anything technical to Apple stuff as it usually works! :-(

Thanks for any advice

J

Signing up to add me to the list of affected. I am on another thread on here where a ton of people are having the same issue, I've done it all etc.

In the end it all seems like an iTunes timeout issue. This seemed to happen to me on the 10.6.3 update, I shouldn't have done it. I did find a tutuorial on downgrading and found an old version of iTunes but it just seems like a royal pain to do. I may have to downgrade and see if it fixes anything.

We have 4 apple tv's and loved them, now it's just a royal hassle...... "Someone reboot iTunes on the Mac please"

I am interested in the script that JasonACox has put together but am not sure where to store and execute it.

Hi all, I am having the same issue of ATV disconnecting from the LAN once or twice a day. However, I am not even using iTunes or Homesharing. Both my iPad 3 and ATV 3 are brand new, I have restored the ATV 3 and updated to the latest software but it still disconnects. Currently I only use the ATV to mirror my iPad or stream TV programmes from FilmOn so I don't use iTunes. Surely this would suggest that this is an ATV problem

Okay - I have no idea about the technicalities of this but it appears to have worked for me so I will share in case it is of use to others.

I have only experienced this problem in the last week (after using ATV with no problems for a year and a half). I went into my time machine backups and copied the iTunes app from a month ago (10.6.1 instead of 10.6.3).

I copied the old version to my desktop and ran it from there (not overwriting 10.6.3 in the applications folder).

And everything seems to be working. 10.6.1 recognised the library with no problems, as did ATV and I watched ATV for 3 hrs straight last night with no dropouts (previously it was dropping out every 5 minutes).

I have no idea why or how but this appears to have worked for me.....