Home Sharing Stops Working After a Few Minutes

Disregard.

Message was edited by: MadMacs0

Hi everyone,

I want everyone having problems here to read my questionnaire in your head, but crucially, please do due diligence in obtaining accurate answers to the questions. The questionnaire will lead you to determine if you are creating a LOOP in your network that was the cause of my home sharing woes for over a year (which I solved today). If you've been suffering like I have, just give this one last go before giving up - I wrote this post to help you, and I think a lot of people will benefit (because I believe lots of you have fairly similar set ups to the one described below). PLEASE, just give this a chance....

Please answer - when you get a moment and have the info/config settings to hand - the following questions:

1) Are you using powerline somewhere in your network? if yes, move to 2)

2) Are you using an Airport (Express/Extreme) in your network? if yes, move to 3)

3) is one of the Airports attached to the Powerline network via an ethernet cable? if yes, move to 4)

4) is that Airport also set up as "Extend Wireless network" (and possibly Join - not sure)? if yes, move to 5)

5) is the OTHER end of your Powerline connected to your router via ethernet cable? If yes, move to 6)

6) Is the Airport in 4) ALSO extending the same wireless network served by your router? If yes, your in trouble.

Before you think I'm just interjecting here, see my other posts to see my woe with home sharing. I've been suffering, as I said, for a YEAR.

If you draw out the architecture above, you will see that there is a LOOP in the network that goes router to airport (via wireless), to powerline via the ethernet on the airport, and back to the router via the other end of the powerline via ethernet cable. You only need a router, airport, two powerline modules and two ethernet cables (with the config detailed above) to get this loop and cause network mayhem (so you can see why its widespread - I can imagine a lot of people with just this setup). The loop is usually experienced in the main computer (in my case a Macbook Pro), because it can connect effectively in TWO directions - if the computer switches between the router and the Airport wireless, there are two paths between both of these base stations for communication and home sharing gets confused (as do other services - I suspect you are seeing slowness not just in home sharing). I don't know how - I would have thought the Airport would stop this in extend mode, but apparently it doesn't.

If you answered YES to all the above, unplug the cable in section 5). Doing this will give you a network hierarchy that is more like what you want, but not quite there yet (see below) - but this at least has your router, sharing its connection with your Airport (whichever one), and your entire powerline network underneath the airport. I know you probably want the powerline wired to your router, and I'm coming to that right now.

The key thing about unplugging the cable in 5) is you shut off the loop. However, you obviously want the powerline network connected to your main hub/router. To set the whole thing up properly, you need to:

a) change the mode of the Airport to "CREATE a wireless network" (see below), and

b) set the network capability to Bridge Mode (router off) - you want the main hub/router to be your router, and the airports as satellites

In creating the new network on the airport(s) that replaces the EXTEND mode setting, I find it best to:

a1) name the network with EXACTLY the same SSID as your router, and

a2) use the same password.

Do this for each Airport that is in extend mode.

This means there is just ONE network name to deal with (but you'll have to put in your password for each base station), BUT the Airport is NOW in Wifi (in)/Ethernet (out) mode (effectively a wireless access point into a fast powerline ethernet network), BUT without ALSO having the wifi connection on top of that to the router (eradicating the loop).

Setting the Airport into bridge mode stops it interfering with DHCP and NAT from your main router/hub.

NOW, once all of the airports are as you ACTUALLY wanted them (presumably you were using them to share music/printers etc. - that will still work)

b1) PLUG the cable you unplugged in 5) BACK IN

b2) reconnect to your wireless networks, putting each password in in turn.

b3) power cycle your router (unless its a time capsule)

b) RESTART iTunes!!!!!

And once you've done that, enjoy!

I'm really loosing it. We have 3 apple tv's, 5 Macs, 3 PC's, along with additional iPhones/iPads and other devices on the network and it is served through a home server running directly to the router. It all worked perfectly until I updated to the latest itunes & iOS and updated the firmware on my router. Ever since then the ATVs work for a few minutes and drops offline. If I reboot the router everything comes back temporary then drops off again. This has been working for a few years now but its completely frustrating for the last week or so. I deleted and rolled back the itunes on the main MAC that shares the itune library among the others, rolled back the firmware on the routher, erased and rebuilt the server but it all works for 20 mins or so and then it goes down. I can interface with the server directly from any of the computers all of the time but only the 20 mins or so through itunes or the Apple TV. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what is your network topology? i.e. have you got other wireless base stations... or is everything just connecting to your router over its wifi network?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to post a follow up to my rather mengthy email, which I nonetheless hope some of you have read and found useful.

I posted that two weeks ago, and ever since then I have had ZERO problems with my home sharing. I have almost instant access to my library on two apple TVs, an ipad, iphone and ipod touch 4g.

Also, I worked out that actually, you would NOT need powerline to have the problem I was having. You just had to have a secondary wifi base station EXTENDING the main router's wifi network that ALSO is attached to that base station in some way via another connection, such as directly with an Ethernet cable, or as I mentioned via a powerline network (for example). lots of people have set ups like this, so it will be quite a common problem.

I think you are ALL having this same problem, and would again urge you to read my email and see if the fix applies to you.

Hi. I had this problem a while back but it has now been completely solved.

I pretty much tried everything here to no avail (Ethernet etc). I was using a bt router and was getting intermittent dropouts in Apple TV 2 and on the iPad and iPhone. One day the router just stopped working and I got bt to replace it and since then I have had no problems whatsoever and a very speedy service on all my devices. I would maybe think about, if you have non apple equipment, whether that might not be able to handle the job adequately. I think that my router just couldn't deal with the job.

I don't think that it's a hardware problem because the connectivity and functioning of the clients never stops working. I can access the itunes store from any of the atvs, access the media server independently, communicate as always between any and all clients. The only functionality that stops is what is reliant on itunes, i.e. the home sharing function of the apple tv's or streaming to the iPads/iPhones. Everything functions except that. I can access the media server directly and play through other programs but the home sharing function on the itunes account of the apple tv's drops off but not the device. They remain connected and functioning as a streaming device through all applications except the connected computer function that feeds the apple tv's.

The iMac that is connected via wifi to the media server works fine and everything can be streamed as it should but for some reason just the home sharing component of itunes drops off. The computers and other clients remain networked together and function correctly just not that aspect of their connectivity.

Possible fix coming

I had a similar problem where I would be able to watch a video but when I tried to watch a second video the ATV would hang with the spinning wheel. I am running itunes on a windows PC, connected via ethernet cable to my wireless router, and ATV is using wireless.

The solution I found was to allow specific iTunes ports in my Windows Firewall:

tcp 3689

udp 5353

Got this solution from other blogs and this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972?viewlocale=en_US

May not work for everyone, but it was a godsend for me as I had tried evvverrrythhhinnng from switching between wired and wireless connections, different routers, ipv4/6 settings, burning incense and sacrificing small chickens.

I'm in the exact same boat. MacBook and Apple TV stream fine. If I restart router, home sharing works great. I go to work, come home, and home sharing doesn't work anymore. Even the remote app from my iPhone doesn't work anymore. Restart router and it's good again.

I still don't know why it is but I definitively know how I fixed my problem and hopefully it will work for you. Oddly enough it happend again LAST week but I was quickly able to confirm the problem and fix the damage in 4 or 5 days. Bottom line have you upgraded your router lately? For me the problem was my router software. I have an ASUS RT-N56U (close enough) that was running 1.00xxx software and the latest available was 2 versions. A 3.000xxx and a 1.00xxxl, I updated it to the latest 3.0.... which is COMPLETELY incompatible with itunes. I say itunes because all the clients in the house work perfectly fine individually with no problems whatsoever but anything shared with itunes didn't work at all or just for a few minutes. The components themselves (ATV, computers, etc...) never stopped working but the sharing functionality stopped working. Now this was back in May,,,roll forward to last week and I checked the ASUS website and saw that there were a few addional versions of the 1.0xxx and the 3.0xxx that had been released since my last headache so I tried to install the 3.0 (latest version) and not only did the same problem occur but it CRASHED my hp ex495 server connected via an ethernet cable directly to the router. I'm not an IT guy but I do a pretty decent job of solving system problems. Now what didn't make sense to me was how did router firmware crash my server. After not being able to get the system back up I elected to wipe the 7tb of stuff and bring my server back on line. I really wanted the 3.0 software because it offered a different interface and a lot more control of the router. I looked everywhere to find out why ASUS had released 2 different version of firmware at the same time but I didn't find out why. Let me be clear the 3.0 worked great and exactly as advertised except with itunes. If I didn't need to run ATV or itunes it would be the firnware on my router right now. In any case with a blank server I installed the latest 1.0xxx and it worked fine, apple tv's and all. I then reloaded the 3.0 software and again my itunes went down and my server CRASHED. I then took the time to upgrade the server from whs 1.0 to whs 2011. I read a lot of pros and cons about the upgrade but the reason I elected to upgrade to 2011 was simply because unlike whs 1.0 where data is spread across the entire network of drives like one big drive 2011 stores and reads data from individual drive. There is a lot that you lose by going to 2011 but there are 2 main disadvantages with whs v1.0 that made me take the leap. One, if the system OS crashes and need to be reset/reinstalled it will require all the data drives to be formatted inorder to be recognized again. Secondly, if any of drives fail then it corrupts all of the files since they are spread loaded throughout all of the installed drive. I imagine the system could be salvaged by cloning the damage one to a new drive and get back up but just sticking in a new replacement drive doesn't work with whs 1.0. Now that I was faced with having to reinstall a ton of data I took out 3 of the 4 drives from the server and threw them in an old desktop collecting dust in the garage and a "server" at least with the movies and shows was able to go into service. I then loaded all the info stored on backups to the drives in the desktop and turned to repairing the HP server. Figuring out how to get whs 2011 to load on a headless unit caused some issues but once I get it up and running and after the 3 days required to get all the data back on the drives I took them out of the desktop stuck them back into the HP and viola back up!!!!

Running the latest 1.0 software and itunes installed on the server.

If you have not recently updated your router or changed routers try some different versions of the firmware to see if that provides you with any positive results. I see that another user found results with port configuration changes and although I did not try that last week, I did try changing the ports back in May but NADA and at least with the latest firmware versions that wouldn't have helped the crashing. I'm sure with the wealth of knowledge on this forum from those of us that have been faced with this repeated issue and found a patch your solution is not far away!