Songs won't play in Home Shared music library using Music app

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Songs won't play in Home Shared music library using Music app

I have gone through forums all day looking for a solution and I have not seen anyone post this particular symptom. I have connected to my home shared music library from my Windows 7 PC to my iPad 2. The library is seems to work fine until I actually choose a song to play.

When I try to play a song, the title indicator at the top of the window quickly flashes each song on the album then goes blank and does not play the song. If I choose a song in the middle of the album, it runs through the remaining songs on the album, then goes blank. The Music app doesn't lock up or anything, I can do this all day long, but I get no music. By the way, it works fine when I use my laptop to stream my Home Shared library.

One thing that I might mention just in case it becomes relevant. My library contains over 60,000 songs, almost all of which were ripped from my CD collection. When I initially connected to the library, it took about 45 minutes to complete. ( I can't imaging that my library size is all that uncommon. ) Some other facts that might help determine what's going on:

I'm running iTunes 11.1.5.5 on a Windows 7 PC
The iPad 2 is running iOS 7.1
The iPad 2 is a 16GB with 11GB free
The music is stored on the local machine, though not on the same Hard Drive as the operation system.
The music is all MP3 at 192 kbps or higher; Mostly higher. I've tried playing different bit rates.

One more thing. I just set up and tried to use Home Share on my iPhone. It's doing the exact same thing as the iPad. *** ! !

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to try to help me with this. :-)

iPad 2, iOS 7.1

Posted on Mar 16, 2014 12:26 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 16, 2014 10:30 PM in response to Jollyman444

I have this exact same problem and also have a large library. Before installing os 7.1 I would select the shared library. It would "load" the library and then I could see all the albums and artists. I would select the song from an album I wanted and sometimes it would just skip through each song. For this, I would reselect the iPod library, quit iPod, restart iPod, select the shared library, it would instantly "load," and then I could select the song from an album and all would play and go on as normal. After installing os 7.1 I go through the same initial process only to have songs skip through. Then, I try to do the second process of exiting iPod and then restarting and etcetera but this no longer fixes the issue. VERY frustrating now. Also to note, when I perform the second process of exiting, reentering iPod, and selecting the shared library again, the status circle instantly goes to about 75% and then VERY SLOWLY continues "loading." I could perform this exit/enter process over and over again and it always goes to 75% instantly and the VERY SLOWLY "loads." Before, when doing this second process, it would instantly load the library, like I said, and all was well. A fix? Known issue?

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Answer 2

Jollyman444 Author

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Mar 17, 2014 5:37 PM in response to AaronnCas

I feel like it has to be something with the app because like I said, the iTunes that's installed on my labtop performs this function like a champ. I bought the iPad thinking it would be easier to handle. Very frustrating.

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Answer 3

Mar 17, 2014 7:42 PM in response to Jollyman444

I agree! Some might say it is the network hindering buffering, i.e. router, but I can assure that there is no bottle neck or speed issues going on with my network. Whether dealing with a small library or large library, home sharing should work without issue.

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Answer 4

Jollyman444 Author

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Mar 18, 2014 7:30 PM in response to AaronnCas

I was able to talk to an Apple support tech and they helped me resolve this issue. These are the steps that fixed my problem.

In itunes, turn off Home Sharing.
On the iPad, reset all network connections. Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings
On the iPad, reconnect to your network.
In itunes, turn on Home Sharing.
On the iPad, open Music app and connect to shared library.

I know I should have thought to do all this, and I did some of it, but I guess it took doing it in the right order.

A couple of things to note for those of us with huge libraries.

It takes quite a while to connect to the library. The iPad has to build a mapping file. The larger the library, the longer it takes. Mine takes about 20 minutes.
Even after you connect and can see your library in the app, each command will experience a significant delay. This will only last a few minutes, (depending on the size of your library) because the ipad is compiling the song lists and rendering album art. It's best to continue to wait another few minutes.
Even though the music isn't stored on you're iPad, the mapping information takes up storage. For me, it was about 1 GB.

I hope this helps somebody.

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