iTunes and Windows 8 Home Sharing (Possible Fix)

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Level 2

366 points

iTunes and Windows 8 Home Sharing (Possible Fix)

If this fix has been posted elsewhere then I apologize, but I wanted to share what I stumbled on as a possible for for iTunes Home Sharing and Windows 8. I did a lot of port forwarding, both on my router and my Norton firewall, but nothing seemed to help. After a few minutes my Apple TV and iOS devices would stop seeing my iTunes library. The only way to fix it was to reboot the router.

On a whim I looked in my Device Manager and found under Network Adapters a device called Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter. I disabled this, rebooted my computer, and have since no issues with Home Sharing. It's only been a few hours, but that is the longest I've gone since installing Windows 8. I'll look in the morning to see if it still works.

So give this method a try and see what happens. Hopefully it will fix your problems.

Windows PC-OTHER, Other OS, Windows 8 - 16GB - nVidia 560 Ti

Posted on Dec 26, 2012 8:12 PM

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Answer 1

ChrisP32

Level 1

4 points

Dec 26, 2012 8:24 PM in response to Marc Buhmann

Worth a shot!

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Answer 2

ChrisP32

Level 1

4 points

Dec 26, 2012 8:30 PM in response to ChrisP32

No suck luck. After reboot I lost my iTunes library after a few minutes, same as always.

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Answer 3

Marc Buhmann Author

Level 2

366 points

Dec 27, 2012 6:36 AM in response to ChrisP32

Sorry it didn't work for you. Did it actually generate an error message, or did it get stuck trying to load? If it got stuck trying to load I'd suggest letting it go a little longer. For some reason, on occasion, it appears it gets stuck and takes 2-3 min to find the file, but then it starts working again.

I did test Home Sharing on my iPhone, iPad and ATV v3 this morning and they all still work, so it appears the probablem has been resolved, at least for me.

Another thing I did was remove all port forwarding in the router since my software firewall does port triggering. That's something else you might want to try.

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Answer 4

ChrisP32

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4 points

Dec 27, 2012 6:50 AM in response to Marc Buhmann

it worked for a few minutes after i disabled it and rebooted, but it always works briefly after a reboot.

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Answer 5

ChrisP32

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4 points

Dec 27, 2012 6:50 AM in response to ChrisP32

No error messages, just stopped working.

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Answer 6

Marc Buhmann Author

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366 points

Dec 27, 2012 3:51 PM in response to ChrisP32

Well it was fun while it lasted... almost 24 hours, but Home Sharing disappeared again. *sigh* Darn you Apple.

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Answer 7

Marc Buhmann Author

Level 2

366 points

Dec 28, 2012 11:48 AM in response to Marc Buhmann

Alright... another possible fix. When I couldn't get Home Sharing working properly I tried to connect my system to my PS3 using PlayOn. However, when I tried I kept getting DNLA errors. One person suggested running .NET Framework Cleanup. I did this and it got the PS3 going, so I checked and, low and behold, the ATV was working again. Waiting to see how long it goes without stopped, but so far it's been 2 hrs. Might want to give this a try.

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Answer 8

Marc Buhmann Author

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366 points

Dec 28, 2012 2:02 PM in response to Marc Buhmann

Nevermind. *sigh*

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Answer 9

Dec 28, 2012 5:41 PM in response to Marc Buhmann

@March Buhmann. My sister got a new laptop with Windows 8 for Christmas and we've been trying ever since to set her up on homesharing with my Apple ID & password. I googled "Windows 8 issue with itunes homesharing" & came across this discussion thread. Your suggested fix by going into the device manager & disabling the Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter worked like a charm. Hoping this fix sticks. Thanks so much!!!!

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Answer 10

Marc Buhmann Author

Level 2

366 points

Dec 29, 2012 9:26 AM in response to D.Shapley

Hopefully this stays working for you. It did for about a day for me and then stropped again.

A new suggestion I saw posted elsewhere was that one should try disabling UPnP on the router. I did that and that jump started Home Sharing again. This time it never crashed out saying it couldn't find the library, however about 50%-75% of the time it does take a looooooooong time for it to start video.

I do think this has something to do with DLNA since I have trouble with sharing from my computer to my PS3 too. I'm trying to narrow down where the issue is though.

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Answer 11

Jan 3, 2013 6:03 AM in response to Marc Buhmann

i have tried all of these suggestions and none of them are working:-( home sharing is working on my iphone, ipad, ipod, from my library on my old laptop. I am trying to move my library to my new hp omni desktop running on windows 8 and get rid of my old laptop. with 5,000 songs, there's no way I want to try anything other than homesharing....if someone has any other ideas please help!!!!

I've disabled all firewalls, network adapters, rebooted, etc already.....

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Answer 12

Marc Buhmann Author

Level 2

366 points

Jan 3, 2013 6:13 AM in response to litamarie

Here are the three steps I took to get Home Sharing working successfully on Apple TV. This has worked for the better part of a week so hopefully it will work well for others.

In your software firewall create two new Inbound Rules. Open port 3689 (TCP) and port 5353 (UDP) to All Programs.
If your hard drive goes to sleep after a certain period, be sure to change to something greater than 30 min. (Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power Settings -> Hard disk -> Turn off hard disk after -> Setting)
On your Apple TV change when it goes to sleep. I changed mine to 10 hours.

This seems to keep the connection alive. On occassion it will look like it gets stuck loading, but just let it go. At some point it wil kick on. If you generates a connection error just try loading the media again and it should start.

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Answer 13

Jan 3, 2013 1:36 PM in response to Marc Buhmann

Thanks for the fix! I disabled the MS Kernel Debug Network Adapter and now my homesharing works! Although, I haven't tried using homesharing a second time yet. Hopefully, it will work the next time I try.

Just a quick question......what does this kernel debug network adapter do? Will it cause any problems because I disabled it? I'm not very tech savvy, and I am curious as to what it's purpose is. Thanks!

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Answer 14

sudobear

Level 1

0 points

Jan 3, 2013 8:47 PM in response to Marc Buhmann

Hi Marc. Thanks for starting this thread and especially for following up as you progress. This is, I believe, my first post ever. I wanted to chime in because I too have this issue. I've been fighting with power settings, rebooting etc all night. I will give your suggestions a try tomorrow and report back, hopefully with good news.

I'll just add here that my workaround so far has been to turn home sharing off and then back on again in iTunes preferences. That seems to work consistently, although it is only a short term fix.

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Answer 15

gangwon

Level 1

8 points

Jan 5, 2013 8:30 AM in response to Marc Buhmann

After lots of messing about, (including a call from Apple tech support who knew less about iTunes than I did,) I think I have mine working now. I have followed the port rules as listed in Marc's post earlier, as well as adding an exception for /programs(86)/itunes/itunes.exe in windows defender. As soon as I had done both of these home sharing suddenly appeared on my phone without having to restart iTunes which was my normal work-around. Fingers crossed this will last....

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