Big Sur (20A5343i), Home Sharing and Apple TV

[Argelius]

I'm not sure if this issue is with TVOS or MacOS, but since the last beta update to Big Sur, I can no longer access my computer via the "app" on Apple TV.

I consistently get one of two error messages on the Apple TV -- either "turn home sharing on your computer on" or "make sure your computer and Apple TV are on the same network". (Home sharing is on and everything is on the same wifi network).

I have tried turning home sharing off and on for both the Mac and AppleTV, as well as logging out of my Apple account. This may have "worked" once, but the problem recurs and only rarely is "fixed" by these maneuvers.

Anyone else experiencing this and are there any workarounds?

 

[drunkenspyder]

I've been wrestling with for some time now. Home Sharing sure was nice while it lasted. It's not that it's gone; it's moved to SysPref under Sharing and it's hobbled. I don't think that mentioned on the support page is that Home Sharing is now counted in the number of authorized devices that can access your material. So, if you've already maxed out the paltry five authorized devices to access your library, you'll not have the ability to activate Home Sharing.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

Yup mine is not working either and I just brought an Apple TV. Any solutions yet?

 

[drunkenspyder]

Actually, I’ve had some good success over the weekend. Deauthorize for all devices, and then turning on Media Sharing in the “home computer’s” SysPref made all the difference. All the AppleTV devices in our house can now access that library. It’s still very annoying to no longer have a “master control” for the media in the main computer, the way that iTunes was. I find it clunky to manage all this through both Music and TV. It’s also a pain because apparently (I haven’t fully tested this), movies that are Apple-DRM’ed won’t play through the Computers widget. Seems stupid. And annoying. What it means—at least, it seems to—is I need to go through and identify all my video that is non-iTunes-sourced and put it in a separate media file that is made available through Media/Home Sharing. Not a huge deal, but really Apple? If ATV is supposed to be this uber-hub that is supposed to rationalize and disambiguate my media choices, why do I have to keep separate libraries like this and replay them in such a clunky fashion?

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

Well I have only had it a day, and its clear what is bottom rung on the QA priorities at Apple lol.

 

[drunkenspyder]

Well I have only had it a day, and its clear what is bottom rung on the QA priorities at Apple lol.

I actually love my AppleTVs. We have 2 of the 4K and three of its immediate predecessors. I’ve been using ATVs since they were first released in 2007 or 08. Times have changed, but, yeah, the ATV always seemed to be “hind tit” for Apple. Yes, it needs to be further updated—I was disappointed it was not part of the three rollouts this fall—and the software requires continued evolution to even get close to the dream of a unified entertainment portal. But it’s so much better than its competition. We also have in the house a couple of Roku Ultras, Amazon Fires, and an Nvidia Shield. Not one of them gets used by anyone in the house except for me when I use them to compare with the ATV for testing purposes, or when their software gets updated. My wife prefers Amazon Prime on the ATV over the Fire. I do, too. The Roku isn’t bad, but dang its screens are ugly. The Shield is good for running Plex, which is great for streaming and watching my Blu-ray rips. But the Apple auto-4K upgrades are gradually making most of my BR library unnecessary. The Shield is mostly gathering dust. Still, I like Plex.

The ATV actually does what none of the other devices can do: aggregates all our media inflow into one basic portal—Hulu, Tablo, Amazon, Plex. And of course, Apple. It doesn’t do it as well as Apple does everything else, but it’s still better than almost everything else. I’ve tried multi-thousand dollar media servers like Baetis, and some other small shop brands. Sometimes they offered a more powerful feature, but never as overall good experience as Apple. And they always relied on Windows or Google software. Just yuck. So for me, in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is still king. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed for seeing that M1 processor in the next gen ATV.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

I actually love my AppleTVs. We have 2 of the 4K and three of its immediate predecessors. I’ve been using ATVs since they were first released in 2007 or 08. Times have changed, but, yeah, the ATV always seemed to be “hind tit” for Apple. Yes, it needs to be further updated—I was disappointed it was not part of the three rollouts this fall—and the software requires continued evolution to even get close to the dream of a unified entertainment portal. But it’s so much better than its competition. We also have in the house a couple of Roku Ultras, Amazon Fires, and an Nvidia Shield. Not one of them gets used by anyone in the house except for me when I use them to compare with the ATV for testing purposes, or when their software gets updated. My wife prefers Amazon Prime on the ATV over the Fire. I do, too. The Roku isn’t bad, but dang its screens are ugly. The Shield is good for running Plex, which is great for streaming and watching my Blu-ray rips. But the Apple auto-4K upgrades are gradually making most of my BR library unnecessary. The Shield is mostly gathering dust. Still, I like Plex.

The ATV actually does what none of the other devices can do: aggregates all our media inflow into one basic portal—Hulu, Tablo, Amazon, Plex. And of course, Apple. It doesn’t do it as well as Apple does everything else, but it’s still better than almost everything else. I’ve tried multi-thousand dollar media servers like Baetis, and some other small shop brands. Sometimes they offered a more powerful feature, but never as overall good experience as Apple. And they always relied on Windows or Google software. Just yuck. So for me, in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is still king. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed for seeing that M1 processor in the next gen ATV.

It is better than my Crome for sure. I just want it to "just work", the main reason for getting it was photos it's the one thing not working. Airplay is working, and I am screen sharing the computer at the moment to get photos showing. Its not ideal but a work around.

 

[drunkenspyder]

Weird. I didn’t have a problem with Photos when I tried it once, but then I don’t use it regularly.

 

[cardfan]

It just works.