Home Sharing (photos) not working

*** I just tried loading some much smaller albums (4 photos, 50 photos) and these worked just fine. It looks like the Apple TV is choking on the larger albums (1000+, our main album of 8000+) during the pre-load stage. These exact same albums (not a single photo has been added or deleted in the past few weeks) would previously load within 10 seconds of choosing them on the Apple TV.

**** And now the 8000+ album finally loaded before a return to the main menu screen. I'm pretty baffled as to what is going on with all of this.

Well, it's good to hear I'm not the only one, thanks Guy.

BTW, I did the old "hold down cmd+option while starting iPhoto" trick, and have so far repaired permissions, rebuilt thumbnails, and repaired the database on the iMac. No change. I'll probably try rebuilding the database today after doing a backup.

I managed to get the 8000+ album to load again yesterday, but it took a solid two minutes to do so, and didn't look like it wanted to (a screen with the thumbnail boxes, slideshow and screensaver buttons outlined, but nothing filled in and nothing updating as time passed).

I'll send in an official Apple complaint once I try the database rebuild. Any other opinions on this issue are welcome.

OK, I might have a little work-around that might help you for the time being. I went through the same steps as usual, and had the long delay while the photos loaded. Finally, I got kicked back out (in my case, to the screen showing what song was playing on Airplay). At that point I clicked the menu button ONCE very briefly, then waited. And waited. Then the preload screen with all the thumbnails of the photos in the album appeared. And then I waited some more. Finally, the Slideshow and Screensaver buttons at the top of the screen appeared. I was allowed to choose Slideshow, and then start the slideshow without a hitch.

It might have been a fluke, and I hate having to jump through all these hoops, but it might get us through until an update (hopefully) fixes the issue.

Guy: "kicked back to the main menu" in my case is back to an active display of what song is playing over Airplay, NOT the main menu screen showing Movies, Music, etc. The quick Menu click brought me back to the preload screen with all the photo thumbnails.

If I was describing this to a tech, I'd say it looks like the Apple TV software is taking way too long to buffer the photos before allowing them to be played. The software times-out because of the delay, which never used to occur.

Greywarg, how are you contacting Apple support? By phone, etc, and please share the specific contact number/address with us if you wouldn't mind. Thanks!

OK, I'm in the midst of a call with Apple support (Canada, case ID 590103665). They had me do a restart/cache cleanse by holding down menu+down on the Apple remote for 6 seconds, then letting go. The first time through, the large album successfully loaded, but very slowly (60 seconds vs the expected 5 seconds or so).

I asked the tech to wait while I tried again, and the Apple TV proceeded to hang on the thumbnail loading screen. She then had me run an iOS restore command from the settings menu, and they will be following up with me in the next hour or so. I'll post the results.

The restore required a bunch of re-submitting of user names and passwords for iCloud, Home Sharing, Netflix, and so on. I'm not noticing any chnage, other than I can still finesse my way in with that quick Menu button click once the first try at loading the photos has timed out.

The follow-up call was with a different person, who wanted me to start messing with my Network and/or computer settings. I was in the middle of stating that I believed the iOS update was responsible when we were disconnected. I'm not inside of the 1 yr support period, so I suspect they might be cutting thier losses at this point. We'll wait and see if they call back.