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Level 1

14 points

Home sharing on iDevices not loading large library

I store my entire music library (3TB of ALAC files) on a Mac Mini connected to my Time Capsule. I can home share the library flawlessly on my laptop, but it absolutely refuses to load the library on my iPhone or iPad. I'm using all the latest software (iOS7, iTunes 11.1) with an iPhone 5 and iPad 3.

When I try to share my library, the circle starts to load, but never gets past halfway. I've tried EVERYTHING, i.e. signing out of home sharing and quitting iTunes, restarting the Mac Mini, restarting the iPhone, unplugging the Time Capsule and plugging it back in, and several other tips I've found around here and elsewhere online, but nothing seems to work!

I have other apps (such as Audiotap) that will do the trick, but they leave a gap between tracks, so I would prefer to get home sharing working properly. Thanks in advance for any help.

iPhone 5, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 10:44 PM

Best reply

Getting Tired

Level 1

44 points

Posted on Sep 27, 2013 9:09 AM

Hello Lee,

I have the exact same problem. I have two iPads, one running iOS6 and the other iOS7. iOS6 is able to load the library as expected but not the iPad running on iOS7. The problem has to do with the size of your library.

Have a look at your "iTunes Music Libary.xml" and the "iTunes Library.xml" files on the machine running iTunes. Most likely they are over 20MB in size. Therein lies the problem. Somehow the Music and Video app's both have problems parsing large xml files and in turn will timeout before completion.

You can easily test this. Sign on as a different user and create a new iTunes library, import a few items and start the Video/Music app on your iOS device. There is no need to restart, unplug etc. Home Sharing works as advertised when dealing with small libraries. By the way, the sorting problem is fixed in iOS7.

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148 replies

Lee Farber Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 12, 2015 2:05 PM in response to Chris CA

Doesn't work for me. I've got a 3.6TB library and it fails to load every time. All OS/iOS software is up to date,

kghastie

Level 1

0 points

Dec 13, 2015 6:31 AM in response to Chris CA

Didn't Getting Tired say it was working as of IOS 7? Why would that point to IOS 9 having a fix?

Chris CA, did it fail to work for you in IOS 8?

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Dec 13, 2015 2:55 PM in response to kghastie

It was flaky with iOS 8.

Feb 2, 2016 9:07 PM in response to Lee Farber

I had the same problem, what I found was that I had to require a password to get it to load. I was able to turn off the password after it I was successfully loaded it for the first time. I have 2TB of videos and iPhone 6 with latest version. I think there is a bug with the password and somehow that is blocking the load. Not sure, but that is what worked for me.

rdegraaf

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2016 7:48 AM in response to Lee Farber

Possible fix!

For me it works (temporarily) when I log out of Home Sharing and log in again:

-> Preferences -> Video -> Home Sharing account -> Log out -> Log in -> Enter credentials.

When I do above procedure, I can use 'Shared' in the Video app again.

However, when I use 'Shared' at a later moment, it freezes at 15% and I have to re-do the procedure (log out, log in) to get it to work again.It looks like Home Sharing has problems with caching the (large?) XML file.

In my case it takes approximately 40 seconds to load a 22MB iTunes library on a iPad2.

Coluch

Level 1

12 points

Apr 3, 2016 9:38 AM in response to rdegraaf

THANK YOU!

This workaround temporarily did the trick for me and my large shared library!!!

Log out of home sharing and log in again:

Quit MUSIC or VIDEOS apps. Go to SETTINGS>Videos>Homesharing account - select account and log out - re-enter account and log in. Launch MUSIC or VIDEOS app and select desired Homesharing library.

Major caveat:

The first time I tried this, loading the library loading stalled at about 50% progress and would not continue after waiting for many minutes, so I force-quit my Videos app. I immediately made a second attempt (Logging out and back in via Settings app, then reloading the videos app) and Homesharing loaded the shared library SO QUICKLY. Under 20 seconds! Wow. This has NEVER worked before since I've started using iDevices in 2008!

Major Caveat 2:

After your device goes to sleep, or the app is in the background for too long, this process needs to be repeated all over again unfortunately. I guess the loaded library data isn't persistent in memory, and so the 'fix' is not permanent. This is a 'do it every time' workaround, which is extremely annoying, but at least there is SOME WAY to make Homesharing work on an iPhone/iPad.

I'm blown away that Apple hasn't fixed this, given their "it just works" sales pitch for their ecosystem. It also quite perplexing that my aTV2 and aTV3 have always loaded my shared library nearly instantaneously, yet the iPhone and iPad have always had this issue.

I highly recommend this workaround until (if ever) Apple fixes this!

Apr 26, 2016 12:47 AM in response to Coluch

RE your Caveat 2.

I have a thread running currently in this forum similar to this under my username Steviebobs.

Basically, I have had similar probs connecting my shared library from my PC to my Ipad, but this seems to work now. But, after that connection, I go back into Music sometime later to find the library view has reverted from my connected shared library to the default Artist view, so shared library reconnection is required

Is this what your caveat 2 refers to? If so, at least my issue is confirmed, if not resolved !

SjH

May 8, 2016 3:22 AM in response to rdegraaf

This fix worked for me as well, thanks

May 9, 2016 12:32 AM in response to nikthegreek

This has never worked for me. Tried logging out and back in to no avail. I really wish apple would produce some more reliable software. The iTunes eco system really is a mess. Home sharing seems to be especially fragile.

Ade2

Level 1

8 points

Jun 24, 2016 3:41 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

Home Sharing never works first time for me on my iPhone 5, it first gets stuck so I have to log out/in as outlined above, then it looks like it's going to work but crashes (usually half way through), it will now keep crashing until I reboot the phone, then it finally works

Satchmo

Level 4

1,290 points

Sep 30, 2016 7:31 PM in response to Getting Tired

I have 78,000 songs in my iTunes library. They will share to Apple TV (2nd gen up) instantly, but not to any iPhone I've tried, including an SE with iOS 10.0.2

Oct 2, 2016 2:16 AM in response to AutoZuLaut

macOS 10.12 + iOS 10.0.2 have changed nothing for the better. This is an ongoing problem. Apple is not apple to get it's own serives to a working state it seems.

Maybe that's one of the reasons they disabled Mac AppStore ratings for macOS 10.12 Sierra.

RTW's

Level 1

45 points

Oct 15, 2016 9:36 AM in response to Lee Farber

This is an old question, and I'm on iOS 10 now, but I discovered something today about loading a large library into Home Sharing on an iPhone (6S).

My phone simply would not load my large library (xml file is about 118 MB) without timing out. "The circle starts to load..." etc.

So I put it in Airplane mode. Turned the wi-fi back on, leaving data etc. otherwise off. This worked. It still loads slowly, but at least it doesn't time out or interrupt itself.

Home sharing on iDevices not loading large library