Q: Home sharing not showing all songs and albums

Interesting, chippy. So what you are saying is that in your experience the iOS does initially create the album view correctly but then it gets corrupted?  In my own (admittedly limited) experience it is corrupt from the Get-Go. I experimented with a new empty library. Imported one CD ..classical music..by Berlioz.  It appeared correctly in my iPod. Imported another CD (this time with three works by three different composers) and these three new composers appeared but Berlioz went. Imported a third CD ...a different work by Berlioz..and that did not feature.  I should add that I populate my iTunes database differently due to the limitations of the iPod and use the Artist field for Composer.  So in my case, the missing Berlioz means that it is missing from the Artist 'list'.

I need to find a bit more time to play around with a small library and try different composers (actually I think I could just as easily rename the existing iTunes data if my theory is correct rather than import any more)...but leaving all that aside you would think that Apple would have tested this out.

Your comment regarding the tracks being visible is entirely consistent with my own research in that the trackj information is always available in the .itl or .xml files unelss they get corrupted...in which case you would be aware of it in your actual iTunes library.

I might also play around and corrupt deliberately the .xml file and see what affect that has on the iPod.  Be a pain if the iPod uses the .itl file as that is definitely human-unfriendly.

Looking at the thread title, if songs are missing then that suggests either a corrupt .xml or .itl file (in which case you would be aware of it in iTunes) or supports my theory on data corruption during transfer from iTunes to the iOS. Here is an extract from the .xml file

<key>83</key>

                    <dict>

                              <key>Track ID</key><integer>83</integer>

                              <key>Name</key><string>Requiem Et Kyrie</string>

                              <key>Artist</key><string>Berlioz</string>

                              <key>Composer</key><string>Berlioz</string>

                              <key>Album</key><string>Berlioz : Grande Messe Des Morts</string>

                              <key>Genre</key><string>Classical</string>

Track = Song

and there are two permanent default Playlists 'owned' by the iTunes application and certainly one of them is what is used to display the Music list

<key>Playlists</key>

          <array>

                    <dict>

                              <key>Name</key><string>Library</string>

                              <key>Master</key><true/>

                              <key>Playlist ID</key><integer>111</integer>

                              <key>Playlist Persistent ID</key><string>167FC17483D7BEFE</string>

                              <key>Visible</key><false/>

                              <key>All Items</key><true/>

                              <key>Playlist Items</key>

                              <array>

                                        <dict>

                                                  <key>Track ID</key><integer>83</integer>

                                        </dict>

                                        <dict>

                                                  <key>Track ID</key><integer>85</integer>

                                        </dict>

                                        <dict>

                                                  <key>Track ID</key><integer>87</integer>

                                        </dict>

                                        <dict>

                                                  <key>Track ID</key><integer>89</integer>

                                        </dict>

This playlist is the only way that the iOS can determine if it has read all the track data since there is one entry in the playlist for each track.  Be interesting to know if the iOS part actually checks this.

As a supplementary, some of the problems that folk are seeing could be down to duplicate IP addresses.  I had a heck of a problem which lasted for a long long long time and was unresolved until I used Fing and saw that I had an IP address conflict.  For background, I have my Time Capsule located in a separate building from the house and connected by Ethernet. Out of the Time Capsule is fed a Netgear Wireless Access Point that feeds the iPod. I discovered that both the Time Capsule and the Netgear had the same IP address.....DHCP not working as I expected.

Yes, that's my experience.  I start out with a library of 522 albums and they are all there in Home Sharing on the IOS device, all sorted perfectly into albums.  It works perfectly for a while - a few days perhaps.  What seems to break it is when I go into More>Shared>"shared library name" in the IOS Music app.  It does some kind of handshake with iTunes and sometimes that is almost instant - which means it will be working fine.  Sometimes it takes perhaps a minute, and then I can bet all the album views are corrupted.

Logging out of Home Sharing on IOS usually (maybe always) fixes it.  It rebuilds the indexes and reloads the artwork and everything is fine again for a few days.

Had a peek using Packet Sniffer. You can see the 'database containers' being sent in clear at the start..but there are also a lot of files sent using gzip which given enough time I guess one might be able to unravel (but little point IMO).  You can also see the artwork data being sent across.

Not really sure where to go from here.

Well you've made more effort than Apple appears to be doing ;-)

Actually it works for me! It seems the library gets updated only when you sign in both devices, iTunes and iPhone/iPad

ocombita wrote:

 

Actually it works for me! It seems the library gets updated only when you sign in both devices, iTunes and iPhone/iPad

What exactly do you mean by "sign in in both devices"? and it works? What did/does?

I never sign in into iTunes.

iTunes is open on my host system when it starts. It currently has 580 albums.

iPad 3 iOS 6 and in the Music app I get about 110 albums, randomly vs. close to 600 in Remote app. Through song view one does get access to more albums and artists though, but it is tedious.

Whereas on the iPad 1 iOS 5 and in the Music app I get certainly over 500 albums. No issue. Same for Remote.

And I just double checked the Music app on the iPad 3 and signed into the iTunes app (which I never use) and going into the Music app I now get no album art (lol). I've got 19 albums that start with A. The Music app on the iPad 3 gives me 3.

Did the Apple ID sign out and sign in trick (once again) under Settings for Music ... it sits there spinning and grind for a few minutes and then gives me access to the whole collection. Which will last for a couple uses.

I don't know if this will work for anybody else, but  . . . It worked for me.

Click on the music icon in your iTunes

Select Edit

select preferences

Select Advanced

Check "keep iTunes media folder organized"

Check "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"

After doing that, all my music finally showed up on my iPad and iPod where before it didn't.

Check "keep iTunes media folder organized"

Check "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"

I've had both those options checked since I first have used iTunes, way back when. Including when I started my new library with iTunes 11.

Like icerabbit these options have always been checked and I do sometime get the scrammbled artwork on some devices.

As an aside I noticed something this morning that Itunes says I have updates for 48 Apps, next to my Films there is a 20.

Anyone know what this means?

I have a quite large library and have been fighting this problem going on years.  I host my iTunes on a Mac Mini and have this problem from other iPads and iPhones, but, incidentally, NEVER from my Apple TV.

I suspect Apple TV uses a completely different mechanism for sharing the library.  I wish they'd use this mechanism for iOS.

I download every new update hoping for a fix, but alas, there is none.  Adding to this thread to help do my part to alert Apple that this must be fixed.

I've had some success by doing the following on the iOS device:

1. Go to Settings, Music and turn off home sharing.
2. Double click the Home button and close the Music app.
3. Go back to Settings, Music and turn home sharing back on.
4. Open Music, and select More, Shared, and my iTunes host computer.
5. Do nothing and let it finish.

Usually after I do this one or two times, the library finally fully loads.  I suspect communication issues between the devices, although I have no network issues and the music and movies stream w/o issues from that point on.  It seems to just be a problem in loading the content lists.

Come on Apple Techs, you guys are good and I know you can fix this.  Just need you to pay attention!

Guess what, I too have a problem with home sharing. Basically, my iPad shows the wrong album illustrations for the wrong albums, it mixes wrong album names/artists with the wrong albums, it doesn't show all the albums or artists I have on my Mac, but interestingly, the song list does seem to be complete. Mixed up and unorganised, but way more than the number of albums/artists would suggest.

I experience the same problem ( only a handful of albums showing up) on my iPhone using Homesharing. My feeling is that this is never going to be fixed, since if it could have been it would have by now. When my iPhone needs upgrading I'll by buying an android de ice because I'm so annoyed by this fault, but in the meantime does anyone have any recommendations for other iPhone apps that can read an iTunes library and ply the music stored their over a wifi network. Thank-you

I have just purchased a Mac Mini as decided it was time to move over to Apple.

So far I have many quirks and things not quite right which is disappointing when you feel that things like Home Sharing make life so much easier.

I found this same issue and followed KnarlyKarly's advice and now works, but seriously Apple sort it out as surely it can't be that hard a bug to resolve ... your concepts are meant to be simple, don't lose that and invest some time in resolving some simple things!

Thanks KnarlyKnarly for your "workaround".