Finding music on ATV 3

[Tilpots]

I have a Mac Mini with all of my ripped CD’s connected via Home Sharing to my ATV3. I can find this music under “Computers->Music.” I have also purchased many songs from iTunes and those songs and albums are listed under “Music->Purchased.” Is there a way to find all my music under one header?

 

[mpainesyd]

Create playlists for each album on your Mac (i.e iTunes). Then select playlists from Computers> Music on your ATV

In iTunes album view you can command-click on an album and select Add to playlist>New playlist

 

[priitv8]

You can also subscribe to Apple Music and enable library sync to cloud in iTunes (essentially iTunes Match).

 

[starkmj]

I have a Mac Mini with all of my ripped CD’s connected via Home Sharing to my ATV3. I can find this music under “Computers->Music.” I have also purchased many songs from iTunes and those songs and albums are listed under “Music->Purchased.” Is there a way to find all my music under one header?

Well, if you download all your purchased music, then you can access all of it with the Computers app on your Apple TV, using home sharing.

 

[Tilpots]

Create playlists for each album on your Mac (i.e iTunes). Then select playlists from Computers> Music on your ATV

In iTunes album view you can command-click on an album and select Add to playlist>New playlist

Thanks for responding. I have hundreds of albums, so creating playlists for each one sounds like too much work.

You can also subscribe to Apple Music and enable library sync to cloud in iTunes (essentially iTunes Match).

I’ve heard this could work, but I don’t want the monthly expense. Good idea, though.

Well, if you download all your purchased music, then you can access all of it with the Computers app on your Apple TV, using home sharing.

I believe all of my purchases are downloaded to the Mini. They can be played when the computer is not online but connected to the WiFi through Home Sharing. Am I missing a step?

 

[mallbritton]

I have a Mac Mini with all of my ripped CD’s connected via Home Sharing to my ATV3. I can find this music under “Computers->Music.” I have also purchased many songs from iTunes and those songs and albums are listed under “Music->Purchased.” Is there a way to find all my music under one header?

You have a few choices. You can subscribe to iTunes Match for $25 a year which will put all your ripped music in the cloud. Or subscribe to Apple Music for $10 a month which will do the same thing plus give you access to all music in the Apple Store for streaming. Either of these choices will give you access to all your music in the cloud. Your third choice is to download all your purchased music to iTunes on the Mac Mini and you will have access to all your music through the Computers app.

 

[mpainesyd]

Thanks for responding. I have hundreds of albums, so creating playlists for each one sounds like too much work.



I’ve heard this could work, but I don’t want the monthly expense. Good idea, though.



I believe all of my purchases are downloaded to the Mini. They can be played when the computer is not online but connected to the WiFi through Home Sharing. Am I missing a step?

Consider Dougs Applescripts for automating the task of creating numerous playlists
https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=droptoaddnmake

There are many other utilities on his website that might be useful. I have asimilar task. I accidentally subscribed to Apple Music on my Mac and it deleted many of my playlists so I now need to recreate them. I will let you know if I find a suitable utility.
[doublepost=1517716682][/doublepost]

Consider Dougs Applescripts for automating the task of creating numerous playlists
https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=droptoaddnmake

There are many other utilities on his website that might be useful. I have asimilar task. I accidentally subscribed to Apple Music on my Mac and it deleted many of my playlists so I now need to recreate them. I will let you know if I find a suitable utility.

This is the one to use (use the “album” tag)
https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=makeplaylistsbytag

 

[Boyd01]

They can be played when the computer is not online but connected to the WiFi through Home Sharing. Am I missing a step?

That is a little confusing. Do you mean you can play the music on your computer when it isn't connected to the internet but you can't play it on the ATV? I have two Apple TVs and use a Mini as an iTunes server (just sits in a cabinet runnning iTunes 24/7). I can access all my music (purchased and ripped) via the Computers icon on the Apple TV's. So something is clearly wrong with your setup.

If my computer is not connected to the internet, then most things just don't work on my AppleTV's. Evidently it needs to be able to connect to Apple's server to make sure you are authorized to access your iTunes library. So for starters, make sure that your computer is connected to the internet.

If that doesn't help, then perhaps your purchases really aren't stored on your computer. The suggestion about creating playlists doesn't make sense to me. I can access all my music through the AppleTV3 computers icon without doing this.

One possibility is that your iTunes library on your computer could be corrupted. This can cause all kinds of problems and can be tricky to fix. One thing that can cause a library to become corrupted is if you store it on an external device and start iTunes without having that device connected. This is because the index to the library is stored on your computer's internal drive. So if it can't find the files on the external drive bad things happen. To prevent this problem, you need to install both the library and the library database on the external drive.

 

[Tilpots]

That is a little confusing. Do you mean you can play the music on your computer when it isn't connected to the internet but you can't play it on the ATV? I have two Apple TVs and use a Mini as an iTunes server (just sits in a cabinet runnning iTunes 24/7). I can access all my music (purchased and ripped) via the Computers icon on the Apple TV's. So something is clearly wrong with your setup.

If my computer is not connected to the internet, then most things just don't work on my AppleTV's. Evidently it needs to be able to connect to Apple's server to make sure you are authorized to access your iTunes library. So for starters, make sure that your computer is connected to the internet.

If that doesn't help, then perhaps your purchases really aren't stored on your computer. The suggestion about creating playlists doesn't make sense to me. I can access all my music through the AppleTV3 computers icon without doing this.

One possibility is that your iTunes library on your computer could be corrupted. This can cause all kinds of problems and can be tricky to fix. One thing that can cause a library to become corrupted is if you store it on an external device and start iTunes without having that device connected. This is because the index to the library is stored on your computer's internal drive. So if it can't find the files on the external drive bad things happen. To prevent this problem, you need to install both the library and the library database on the external drive.

Sorry for the delayed reply, I didn’t receive the notification of your response.

The Mini is always connected to the internet, was just referencing an occasion when our service was down but we could still access the music over the network.

I don’t feel the library is corrupted. All the music is there, it’s just not all accessible from the same icon on the ATVs.

As far as the music not being downloaded, I can see the files on the Mini so I believe they are on the computer.

Truly, something’s amiss...

Today I subscribed to iTunes Match. My reasons were twofold. First, I need to solve this issue and I believe it may help by putting the songs in the iCloud Music Library so that it can be played on all my devices. Second, I want to download Apple’s AAC 256Kbps version for as many songs as it will match. I’m going to try to make a new library with these files. Will see how it goes. Matching now. It’s taking a looooong time!