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User profile for user: SoonerLater
SoonerLater Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apple TV 4K - Screensaver - Home Sharing - Refresh

Q. - How can I force a refresh of the photos to be used by the Apple TV 4K screensaver (where the source are photos via Home Sharing)?


BACKGROUND:


I own an Apple TV 4K. The screensaver is set in the Apple TV to use photos from Home Sharing.


I own a PC running Windows 7 which has iTunes installed on it. iTunes on this PC is setup to share photos through Home Sharing.


The folder of photos to be shared by the Win7 PC running iTunes is on a server on my network \\myserver\sharephotos\. That is, the photos are not on the Win7 PC.


This is working. The Apple TV is showing my photos in the screensaver.



PROBLEM:


The Apple TV does not seem to be aware when the content at \\myserver\sharephotos\ has changed (either by deleting photos or adding new ones. The Apple TV continues to include photos in the screensaver even after they have been deleted (by several days) and does not include photos which have been added (after several days). The fact that the Apple TV does not seem to "notice" the change in content even after several days leads me to surmise that there is no process that monitors the source folder for changes. Never.


iTunes on the Win7 PC apparently made a folder called \\myserver\sharephotos\Apple TV Photo Cache. That folder contains only two files: Apple TV Photo Database and Photo Database.

I'm sure that I could just delete those two files and that would cause the Apple TV (or iTunes on the Win7 PC) to recreate those files, thereby refreshing the screensaver's content. But that would be a kludge of a work-around. That's not a real solution.
I also imagine that if I switched the screensaver selection from Home Sharing to something else (e.g. Aerial), then switched it back to Home Sharing, that it might force a refresh of the content of the screensaver. This too is merely a work-around.


What we need - and I hope exists, although I cannot find it - is a command we can issue in the Apple TV menu system to force a refresh of the content and a system that monitors the source folder for changes. Even if it only checked once every 24 hours, it would be enough (so long as we have the command for an on-demand update also).

Posted on Jul 31, 2018 10:23 AM

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User profile for user: Urquhart1244
Urquhart1244
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
142,890 points

Posted on Jul 31, 2018 12:38 PM

Apple TV caches copies of the photos on its own disk, until you set Apple TV to change the screen saver. I think your work around is currently the way to go, for people that want more variation.

The screen saver is far from the core functionality of the media player, so this may not get the priority that you may think it should get. But if enough users want it, they will listen to feedback.

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User profile for user: Urquhart1244
Urquhart1244
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
142,890 points

Jul 31, 2018 12:38 PM in response to SoonerLater

Apple TV caches copies of the photos on its own disk, until you set Apple TV to change the screen saver. I think your work around is currently the way to go, for people that want more variation.

The screen saver is far from the core functionality of the media player, so this may not get the priority that you may think it should get. But if enough users want it, they will listen to feedback.

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User profile for user: SoonerLater
SoonerLater Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Jul 31, 2018 4:24 PM in response to Urquhart1244

After further research, I found that switching to another screensaver (Aerial), letting it run, then switching back to Home Sharing screensaver did not cause the cache to refresh. The filedate and filetime on the Apple TV Photo Database file does not change.


However, going into the iTunes which is sharing the photos (in my case the Windows 7 PC described above) and opening the menu item which lets you pick the photos you are going to share over Home Sharing (File \ Home Sharing \ Choose Photos To Share With Apple TV) then just click the "Done" button (without actually changing anything) will cause the cache to be refreshed. The The filedate and filetime on the Apple TV Photo Database file changes within seconds.


This is not what I would hope for, but at least I know now how to work around this issue.


Based on what I found (or think I found), I don't see a way for the Apple TV hardware to implement a command to cause a database refresh. It would require the Apple TV to be able to send a command to the instance of iTunes which is hosting the photos. That may be more complicated than it is worth to Apple for this issue. At least, that's my WAG.

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Apple TV 4K - Screensaver - Home Sharing - Refresh

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