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Resolving Apple TV 2 & 3 Home Sharing Issues

I see that there are many users reporting problems with home sharing.

Unfortunately the problems are there to stay home sharing is actually not functional in full in certain scenarios so I thought I would give a summary of my experience

First of all airplay and home sharing have nothing to do with each other so the fact you have issues with airplay or that airplay works does not warrant any behaviour for home sharing

My set up is as follows

Apple TV 3

iMac

Set of iOS devices iPhone 5/5s/6 iPad 3/Air

Netgear NightHawk 7000

I have the largest iTunes library on the iMac running the latest Mavericks OSX.

In general everything works fine when all devices are awake however the moment the iMac or AppleTV goes to sleep this start creating problems

For who does not know the Apple TV 2/3 has a functionality called bonjour sleep proxy, the AppleTV is always visible on the network and retains and IP address even when it is in sleep mode. The other devices like iMac or MacBooks instead may disconnect from the network and loose their IP going to sleep. So before going to sleep the register with the AppleTV so that the apple Tv can wake those up if needed.

This is the theory so if you then launch remote app or go onto the AppleTV menu and look for computers you should see the shared libraries.

But you don't!

In the remote app the library disappears and when you go into the AppleTVand press computer it starts loading it and then fails or even better tells you home sharing is not active on other devices

Solution:

There are two solution to the problem

1, Set the iMac or other computer power saving to never go to sleep. This is not eco friendly but means the network card stays on and so does the link to home sharing

2. Uss standard power saving settings and use an application like Moka WOL. Register your computer MAC address on this app. When you need your home library go into this app and wake up the sleeping computer. The link to computers will go back to working on the apple TV and all will be normal

I am sorry to say that home sharing just does not work because contrary to what apple says the apple tv (and the extreme routers) fail to wake up any sleeping devices with home sharing on the network although they are aware of the existence once those devices loose an IP address is basically dead end

AppleTv3-OTHER

Posted on Oct 11, 2014 2:01 AM

37 replies

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 12, 2014 12:46 PM in response to Interceptor121

mDNSresponder has several jobs, among them unicast DNS name resolution & advertising Bonjour services to the network (see for example OS X: How to disable Bonjour service advertising without disabling DNS). Like the first mentioned Apple KBase article said, this will occur periodically, at or near scheduled times. This is where the "PM scheduled RTC wake event" part come into play. (You probably already know that PM is the system power manager, a.k.a. the SMC.) When you see "RTC" in wake events, as mentioned here, it means the SMC, in conjunction with the real time clock in the Mac, was responsible for the wake event.

I see entries in my Macs' system logs very similar to your second one; however, they do not occur at the times I try to wake the Mac from the ATV, an iOS app, or another Mac. Like I said before, they occur about every two hours. I do not see any log entries mentioning the word "Clients" at all, whether at the time I try to wake the Mac from the ATV or at any other time. When I try to wake the Mac from the ATV, at those times I see a "Wake reason = GIGE" entry, indicating that the ethernet connection from my Mac to my Time Capsule caused the wake event.

Note that my setup is different from yours. I'm using a Time Capsule, so it is the Bonjour Sleep Proxy server on my network, not my ATV. I also usually connect the Mac to the network via an ethernet cable plugged into the Time Capsule, although I have not noticed any difference in its wake behavior when using WiFi instead. The MacBook is running OS X 10.6.8, not Mavericks. I also have no difficulty getting the iOS Remote app on my iPhone 5S to show my ATV & any of my Macs running iTunes on the devices screen, or waking any of those devices (including the ATV) using the app when those devices are asleep.

It may be that the Time Capsule works more reliably as a sleep proxy than the ATV, & that's why we see such different results, but I can only speculate about that because I don't have another wireless router to test with. But regardless of that, I don't think your log entries are proof that the Bonjour Sleep Proxy in the ATV is the cause of the wake failures, although of course I can't completely rule that out. However, at the least, to point to that as a cause those entries should appear in the log with time stamps very near the time you try to wake the Mac from the ATV. Do they?

Oct 12, 2014 2:04 PM in response to R C-R

those events are not periodic they occur exactly when I try to wake up the mac I have no recurring even of any sort in the console

And the issue is that the iMac DID NOT wake hence there is a problem with bonjour proxy implementation

Your 2008 iMac possibly does not even support wake on demand but only wake on ethernet and the BIOS works correctly with the machine waking it up

Instead on the newer machine on the newer operating system this fails miserably

I have to add that I had a time capsule ac that failed to wake a wireless printer and I have a case open with apple. In fact bonjour sleep proxy seems all over a mess in terms of interoperability. The same printer works fine with an airport extreme 4th gen and with my current net gear\

It is possible that this will wake up a different machine with a different software however as I have the latest version of all operating systems it should work full stop instead it does not and this is a disappointment

Again if you find the system does not work the only options are disable power save or proper magic packets. That your specific constellation works with hardware 6 years old and does not with newer models only shows how fragile the software is.

Oct 12, 2014 3:26 PM in response to Interceptor121

I have gone over the whole power managent log

contrary to what I thought those rtc event are triggered for maintenance by the sleep itself and then dark wave wakes the machine up two hours after the last sleep

so the appletv calling for home sharing or remote app don't result in any wake on demand whatsoever

the imac itself does support wake on Magic packets as I can succesfully wake it up from other apps

so I have to conclude the issue lies with the appletv itself

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 12, 2014 4:28 PM in response to Interceptor121

Your 2008 iMac possibly does not even support wake on demand but only wake on ethernet and the BIOS works correctly with the machine waking it up

{...}

That your specific constellation works with hardware 6 years old and does not with newer models only shows how fragile the software is.

Just to keep things straight with this puzzling issue, my 2008 Mac is a white MacBook, not an iMac, & it does support wake on demand both from ethernet & from WiFi. One way I know that is as mentioned in the first KBase article mentioned, about setting up the Energy Saver prefs:

Note: The "Wake for network access" option's text may differ depending on the capabilities of your Mac:

Wake for network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over both Ethernet and AirPort

Wake for Ethernet network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over Ethernet only

Wake for Wi-Fi network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over AirPort only

The MacBook's pref text is the first one mentioned above, "Wake for network access." Additionally, System Profiler shows "Wake On Wireless: Supported," another indication mentioned in the article. But of course, the real test is (as I have said more than once now) that I can wake the MacBook when it is connected to the network only by WiFi or only by ethernet.

Also, as I said earlier, I see the same kind of wake & network behavior, RTC log entries, & so on on my 2012 iMac running Mavericks, & I see it on my wife's 2008 iMac running Mavericks, too. All these Macs support wake on demand over both ethernet & WiFi. When they have iTunes open, they appear on the iOS Remote app on my iPhone, on the sidebar of any of the other Macs running iTunes, & on the ATV when it is awake. (We use family sharing tied to my Apple ID so my wife's Mac can see the iTunes libraries on the two Macs I maintain & so that all three libraries are available to the ATV.)

IOW, all Bonjour services that these Macs support are available across the network, & everything wakes up as expected, except that sometimes the ATV did not wake up the MacBook. Now, just to drive me crazier than I already am, I can't even get that to happen again. I don't know if all my experiments with different settings, sleep times, or network connections had anything to do with that, but everything is working exactly as advertised now, & has been for over 48 hours.

I guess I should quit while I'm ahead but I would really like to know what causes this issue in case it happens again.

Oct 12, 2014 10:53 PM in response to R C-R

Have 3 machine imac and macbook air 2011 2012 2013 and none worod reliably

they wake up 2 hours after their last sleep and reconnect to the network for the 15 they are back on

during this time all works fine however when they go back to sleep they all disappear from the network and can't be woken up By the apple tv

using a real mafix packet wakes them all up

so clearly the computer support wake on demand but the Apple TV fails to wake them properly unless of course they are already awake is my conclusoon

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 13, 2014 9:25 AM in response to R C-R

NOTE: This probably won't help much but I thought I would include it for completeness & because it might provide a clue for someone.

I wrote:

I guess I should quit while I'm ahead but I would really like to know what causes this issue in case it happens again.

Like I said in my first reply to this topic, my particular 'no wake' problem was that I sometimes just got the spinner & 'loading' message on the ATV & the MacBook would not wake up. Sometimes, but not always, pressing the Menu button to get to the home screen & then going back to Computers woke the MacBook up & everything worked fine after that.

That happened again early this morning after the power briefly went out. Both our iMacs are on APS battery backup AC supplies & of course the MacBook has its own internal battery, but the Time Capsule & ATV have no backup supply so they went down & restarted when the power came back on. For reasons unrelated to this or any other wake issue, I have set up on the T.C. a number of DHCP reservations for the MAC addresses of most of my network devices, but I had not done that for the ATV or MacBook.

So because of that, the MacBook's IP address was changed on the Time Capsule when it rebooted. I discovered that when I woke the MacBook using its keyboard & there was a notice on its screen that its previously assigned IP address was in use (by the ATV, as it turned out) & that it had been assigned a different one. After dismissing the notice on the now awake MacBook, I checked the ATV but it was still stuck showing the spinner & 'loading message' -- even though the MacBook was now fully awake.

This time, after pressing the menu button & then going back to Computers, the ATV immediately displayed the MacBook's iTunes library categories & everything worked as expected. I have since set up DHCP reservations for the MAC addresses of both the MacBook & the ATV so they won't change, which hopefully will eliminate this problem in the future.

Anyway, the point of all this is apparently under some conditions the IP address of the Mac serving the iTunes library to the ATV can change without the ATV knowing that it has, which I surmise could result in it trying to wake or communicate with the Mac using the wrong IP address. If this is true, it might help to set up DHCP reservations for the MAC addresses of the Mac(s) serving iTunes libraries to the ATV on your network router.

Coop0815

Level 1

14 points

Oct 13, 2014 11:29 AM in response to R C-R

I'm having the same issues that everyone else has described. I'm using Windows 7 Thought and not a iMac... I have done everything, even added static addresses for the iTunes Machine and Both my Apple TV's. I have a Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3. Both have been having the same home sharing issue since the update iTunes a few months back. Basically they are unusable unless I am streaming from HBO, HULU or Netflix. If I stream any movie or show from PC.., It gives the home sharing error after about 10 minutes. I made sure that none of the Power options were a issue. However I do see a error in the Event Log with Bonjour Service that seems to coincide with Home Sharing error.

All I can say is this issue is frustrating me. Especially since my wife bought the new amazon Fire TV and it work without any issues.

Oct 13, 2014 12:08 PM in response to R C-R

I tried IP address reservation it makes no difference everything fails

I am now thinking that this has to do with bonjour sleep proxy to be honest. The AppleTv itself does not know the MAC address of the machine to wake up otherwise the packets would arrive to the destination iMac or alternatively it knows them but it fails to produce valid magic packets

I am tempted to try a firmware downgrade to see what happens

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 13, 2014 12:15 PM in response to Coop0815

If you are getting a home sharing error after about ten minutes of working properly, it isn't really the same issue that this topic has ended up being focused on.

Because of that, it might be better for you to start a new topic, one that is titled in some way to indicate the 10 minutes in error is your specific problem. If you think anything in this one is relevant to that, you can include a link to it in your own topic, or in this one to that topic.

Oct 13, 2014 1:21 PM in response to Interceptor121

Downgraded to firmware 5.3 no changes no wake all failing

So maybe this issue has been lingering there forever

remote app also shows the home shared library disappear as soon as the computer goes to sleep (instead in theory the Apple TV should remember those devices and present them as active)

So I think bonjour sleep proxy is screwed up the Apple TV does not know which mac address to send magic packets and this is total fail

Oct 18, 2014 6:57 AM in response to Interceptor121

Today my Apple Tv3 that I had downgraded to 5.3 and then it upgraded itself to 6.2 updated to build 6897.5

I immediately noted that I can see my home sharing library from remote app even with the iMac asleep and I am pleased to confirm that now the iMac wakes up fine from remote app (iMac running mavericks 10.9.5 and iTunes 12.0.1).

I then tried waking up the iMac from the Apple Tv and instead I get a spinning wheel and the iMac does not wake up

What seems to be doing the trick is the restore to factory settings that occurred when I downgraded to 5.3

If you have 7.0 and your home sharing is playing up try a restore to factory settings.

I had a similar experience with the time capsule ac but this will then fail again after a few days so I will keep an eye on it

However the fail from the AppleTv is still disappointing though wake through remote app is good enough for iOS users

Oct 19, 2014 4:27 AM in response to Interceptor121

One day later the home sharing libraries are back to not being visible same pattern of the time capsule AC

So the conclusions are pretty much the same

Either get yourself a proper WOL app to wake your computers

Or disable energy saving

Or go and hit the keyboard of the sleeping computer

Otherwise no home sharing

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 19, 2014 5:57 AM in response to Interceptor121

So the conclusions are pretty much the same

Either get yourself a proper WOL app to wake your computers

Or disable energy saving

Or go and hit the keyboard of the sleeping computer

Otherwise no home sharing

Except that I have done none of those things & home sharing works fine for me.

I have no idea why we see such different behaviors. 😕

Oct 19, 2014 10:32 AM in response to R C-R

Probably because the solution is not reliable otherwise there won't be so much narrative on it on the web

i have looked at other developers network and similar and pretty much nobody has has bonjour sleep proxy to work fully unleas manually implemented on a server

not the end of the world just painful

i would be interested in a video clip where you show me how after manually putting an imac to sleep you go onto the Apple TV and wake the sleeping and any console outputs of the related wake

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Oct 21, 2014 2:26 AM in response to Interceptor121

Interceptor121 wrote:

Probably because the solution is not reliable otherwise there won't be so much narrative on it on the web

I'm not sure what you mean if you are saying the reason home sharing (& everything else that relies on the Bonjour sleep proxy) works fine for me is because it is not reliable. Could you elaborate on that?

And after asking other people I know with ATV's & checking a variety of topics in this forum with reports from various people saying something else doesn't work for them but home sharing, waking Macs, & the iOS Remote app works fine for them, I know it is not just me. There has to be some explanation for why it all works fine for some but not for others, & I don't think "not reliable" explains it.

I don't have the time or resources to post a video to a public site, but it occurs to me one reason this might not be working for some users is if the power manager settings have gotten messed up somehow. The only Macs that should go into a "hibernate" mode that turns off the circuitry listening for the "magic packet" wake up signal from the Bonjour sleep proxy are Mac laptops, & that should only happen when they are on battery power. All desktop Macs & all laptop Macs plugged into AC power should not turn off that circuitry even when left sleeping indefinitely.

To check the hibernate mode, users can open Terminal & type in "pmset -g" & press return. (Do not enter the quotes around the command & make sure there is a space between the t & the dash.) In the output this command produces, look for a line beginning with "hibernatemode." For all Macs running on AC power, it should say "hibernatemode = 0" where the last character is a zero. Any other number indicates an unusual & potentially problematic power management setting.

Resolving Apple TV 2 & 3 Home Sharing Issues