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Apple TV will not play my iTunes library movies?

I have two Apple TV's (3rd generation) and they have been working great until about two months ago. I have all my movies on my main iMac itunes library that is in a different room then the Apple TV's. I have home sharing turned on and I have a great internet connectiong of about or around 12 megs - 13 megs. The Apple TV's will connect to the local network and play Netflix and Hulu and YouTube just fine.

But when I go to the computers app and try to reach my iTunes library it will take quite some time to actually connect. Then when it does connect and I go to watch a movie that I want that's in my library. It will just show the thinking spinning circle for about 20 minutes before it will start to buffer. When I let it spin it can take an upwards to 20-30 minutes before it will even start playing the movie. That is if it will even start to play, sometimes it will just say, "Cannot connect to your library."

I have tried keeping the iMac on, and resetting the iMac and iTunes. I have even restored the Apple TV's to factory settings and then reconnected them through homesharing. But still the same thing. I have even purchased the AirPort Express and that has not helped either? I've reset the router a couple of times and still no luck?

Again, it worked great a couple of months ago and then it just stopped? I don't know if I'm missing a setting or if I'm missing a step. But I can't find anything that it has been happening to anyone else. I have been looking at forums and I feel like I am the only one out there with this issue. All of my software is up to date. I check on an almost daily basis.

It just seems like my Apple TV's and the iTunes library are not reading each other properly. I'm about to through these through the wall.

Please Help..... 😢

Apple TV, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Mar 3, 2013 2:59 PM

17 replies

Feb 9, 2016 10:04 AM in response to mcdowesj

I have also noticed that this works sometimes. Certain Movies I add to iTunes Library will not easily play on ATV. I also discovered that starting them on my computer, in iTunes gets them going, then I use AirPlay to AppleTV and they play just fine (during that session). They are mp4 or m4v and play just fine from iTunes on my computer screen. Not sure why this has started happening but it is very frustrating when the clock spins for 10 minutes on my TV and I finally have to give up. Never used to have any problems at all.

Feb 15, 2016 11:10 PM in response to Peter Mars

Update and clarification:

My reply above was regarding another post about "fast forwarding" for a second. This does indeed help to get movies playing thru iTunes to AppleTV.

As I mentioned starting a movie directly in iTunes on the computer, and then sending it to AppleTV via AirPlay, also works well. Not all movies require either of these work-arounds. In fact pretty much all of my previous movies play fine on AppleTV with no push needed. El Capitan has indeed brought a few headaches!!

Apple TV will not play my iTunes library movies?