Home sharing on iDevices not loading large library

I Got about 5500 songs at 300 albums ....

As interface I'm using iHomeserver (with license) and worked well till about 4000 songs at my iPad 2.

But now it start to load and it after 15 minutes still loading.

At a iPad Air 2 it's going faster ... I got a feeling my old iPad 2 got a cache problem and is not capable to load a small library of music.

I tried also to load directly from iTunes via homeshare but also total no luck...

Also noticed if more than 2 apps are open at my iPad 2 my iPad having issues to start up.

So i'm affraid my iPad 2 can be throown away after 3 years of use ...

ios 8.1.3 fresh as new installed.

Hi Appletje

We all have the same issue. Apple Homesharing don't seem to be able to do what we want it to, and Apple claims it does.

No need to through out the iPad though- I have 4 iPads of various model. The oldest one is still running iOS5.xx and with Plex installed as media server, it works and deliver movies swift and consistent.

I still use iTunes as media library, i use iFlicks to get the meta data and then Plex (reading the Itunes folder structure+meta data) and serving out the media. It works flaw less for me.

This May be just something that worked for me, but I found that if I had the remote app running while trying to use the video player my iPhone would choke on my large video library. If I closed the remote app (double push the round button to bring up open apps, then swipe up to close the open remote app) my phone suddenly had no problem loading my library.

Maybe this is something to try before buying Plex. Frankly they should stop these two apps from clobbering one another, but until they do - try that.

My guess is that the Remote app, because it also uses homesharing, was interfering with the video app. In other words the problem doesn't seem to be with the remote app, it has to do having another application that uses homesharing being "open" when you attempt to use the video application.

What I had to do was shut the phone all the way off (hold the power button till you get the slide to shut off bar), then turn it back on, close all apps, and try the video app again. If it loads your library lickety-split - the problem is that something else was interfering with the Video apps ability to use the homesharing properly.

When you say "turn off normal sharing" I assume you are turning it off in iTunes not on the Mac right?

If so once you uncheck "Share my library on my local network" it is no longer being shared and nothing pops up,

so how does this resolve the problem?

I went into the Mac Mini System Preferences > Sharing then went ahead and changed the computer name.

No I go to my iPad and select the "Video" app then select "Shared" then select my list the iTunes library name

and it begins to load my library on the iPad as normal.

When I see the cover art is loaded on the iPads first page I start to scroll thru them and then as usual the app crashes.

Am I missing a step here?

I'd been having a similar problem running the latest iTunes on my Win 7 PC with my iPhone 6+ and iPad air 2.

Upon logging out of Home Sharing on both devices, then putting my Apple ID and password back in under Settings, I'm consistently able to connect to Home Sharing-even when the PC has gone into Sleep mode. The sharing checkmark appears in about 5 seconds

I am using 802.11n WiFi for all devices on an Asus router. My Apple TV also has been running consistently well on this WiFi network and readily connects to grab my Home Sharing library. (Over 35gigs music and 80gigs video)

No, sadly nothing has changed. Did you setup your device as new? Also, to what extent is it resolved? Does it load your library instantly now, like the Remote App does, or does it still take long, but just does not hang anymore?

By now I'm seriously worried that Home Sharing might be broken in tvOS as well, where the current AppleTV works flawlessly.

Nope i updated to ios 9 on my 5c worked okay for the first couple of days still took a while to load my library but it stilled worked. but now it dosent even make it to half way to loading my itunes library and just gets stuck every time now.

Getting Tired, you stated at the beginning of this thread that the issue seemed to be fixed. Now you state as fact that IOS 9 "has finally resolved the loading large libraries issue." Do you have a reference or some indication of why we should expect 9 to fix it? I realize you are trying to be helpful, but claiming that an issue is fixed isn't super helpful without some supporting evidence or reference.

Anyone try 9 and have it work?

kghastie wrote:

Getting Tired, you stated at the beginning of this thread that the issue seemed to be fixed. Now you state as fact that IOS 9 "has finally resolved the loading large libraries issue." Do you have a reference or some indication of why we should expect 9 to fix it? I realize you are trying to be helpful, but claiming that an issue is fixed isn't super helpful without some supporting evidence or reference.

Anyone try 9 and have it work?

Sounds like Getting Tired tried it and it works.

It works here for me (1.07 TB library).

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.

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.

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!

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