New iTunes 11 & Apple TV firmware don't play music reliably

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Level 1

5 points

New iTunes 11 & Apple TV firmware don't play music reliably

I just updated to iTunes 11 and my Apple TV2 to firmware the new 5.1.1.

Now when I try to play music from my homesharing library on the Apple TV it stops playing after a couple of songs. I find I have to restart the ATV & iTunes on my iMac because if I simply try to start replaying it trys to load my library for an eternity. When I do get it started again it only lasts a short time before stopping again.

Prior to the updates it had been working perfectly. I have everything connected via WiFi on my Airport Extreme.

Is anyone else having this problem also (buggy iTunes 11 or ATV firmware Apple?) or can someone suggest a fix? My perfectly usable & awesome music system has now become useless! 😟

AppleTV 2, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Nov 30, 2012 1:50 PM

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Answer 1

NathanG2 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 30, 2012 2:06 PM in response to NathanG2

I just tried selecting the ATV for airplay from iTunes (to get around the problem), but the ATV is still "dropping out" while the iMac keeps happily playing. Interestingly it still shows that the airplay is connected to the ATV.

I'll try streaming from my iPhone to the ATV next...

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Answer 2

NathanG2 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 30, 2012 4:28 PM in response to NathanG2

I have been streaming music from my iPad for a while now and no problems. This suggests to me that the root of the problem lies in the new iTunes 11 and not the Apple TV firmware update.

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Answer 3

PQC

Level 1

9 points

Nov 30, 2012 5:11 PM in response to NathanG2

Same problem, that spinning wheel is starting to look like a target to me :-) Seriously, what's the deal? Updated to iTunes 11 and updated the Apple TV software and NOTHING is working, except, of course, for the spinning wheel. I'll read a book until Apple sorts this out. Or someone here has an aswere.

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Answer 4

Dec 1, 2012 12:10 AM in response to NathanG2

After upgrading to iTunes 11 I have a problem that the music stops playing on my apple tv when my mac goes into screen saver mode.

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Answer 5

Dec 1, 2012 1:27 AM in response to NathanG2

+1 - same problem with iTunes 11 and AppleTV 3. General problems (a) finding the home share, (b) playing the content of the shared library and then (c) continually dropping out after a small number of songs. Rebooting, restarting and resetting hasn't fixed it. The phrase "it just works" grates a little at the moment...

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Answer 6

Dec 1, 2012 5:51 AM in response to NathanG2

I've got the same as Equinox & Ding. It's very annoying, especially as it used to work so well :-(

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Answer 7

tc1953

Level 1

0 points

Dec 1, 2012 11:47 AM in response to equinox12

Exact same problem. Any soulutions?

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Answer 8

NathanG2 Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 1, 2012 12:06 PM in response to tc1953

Hi, I'm not aware of any solution yet but my work around is to play music from my iPad to the ATV via airplay (and leave iTunes 11 out of the equation all together). That is still working reliably and now you can skip or pause with the little silver remote when you are doing that. (I don't think you could do that before the update if you were playing from an iPhone/iPad/iPod via airplay)

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Answer 9

Dec 1, 2012 1:26 PM in response to NathanG2

Thanks for the heads up about the new remote capabilities. I've also resorted to music on my iPad to the ATV direct. Mental note, next round of updates to be ignored for a minimum of 7 days + a thorough search of these forums. Fingers x'd there's a fix sometime soon. :|

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Answer 10

Dec 1, 2012 2:47 PM in response to NathanG2

I haven't updated my ATV yet but have upgraded to iTunes 11 and having the same problem but with films. Keeps dropping out after a few minutes, it's a total pain and making my library useless. Happening on all 3 ATV's in the house. Amazed this wasn't picked up during testing.

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Answer 11

jonshoe

Level 1

0 points

Dec 1, 2012 4:15 PM in response to NathanG2

Same issue for me - video drops after a few minutes when on home sharing. Will try streaming from my iPad for now 😠

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Answer 12

alasta22

Level 1

10 points

Dec 1, 2012 4:20 PM in response to NathanG2

From my observation when the dropouts occur my Macbook Pro is not in 'sleep' as such (i.e. the front LED is not blinking), but it has gone into a suspense mode where the display has gone blank and the user password is required to regain access.

Despite the fact that that the machine does not appear to be in sleep mode I have found that going to system preferences and setting the 'computer sleep' option to 'never' is an effective temporary solution to this problem (see below).

When I was using the previous version of iTunes it would never allow the machine to go to sleep when the Apple TV was accessing the shared library. It appears as if the new iTunes has introduced a bug whereby the system thinks it's going to sleep and cuts off the shared library access as a result.

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Answer 13

Dec 2, 2012 2:27 AM in response to alasta22

alasta22 solution did also work for me!

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Answer 14

Dec 2, 2012 3:58 AM in response to StefanPapp

It is a sleep issue for me as well. Setting sleep to "never" (or some other longer period) in Energy Savers is a fix, a cludgy fix and not an energy efficient one. Apple TV 3, iTunes 11, Mac OSX 10.6.8.

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Answer 15

Dec 2, 2012 6:09 AM in response to alasta22

Thanks guys!

But anybody got the solution for same problem in iTunes for Windows ? (cannot find Energy Saver in iTunes for Windows...)

Wish somebody help!

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