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Problem with iTunes dropping AppleTV

foofan said:
then every atv owner is screwed. My solution is the best solution. Sell the damn thing!
Click to expand...

Amen.

Better yet, I returned it to the Apple Store within 14 days of purchase. (Sorry Apple, since you can't get it right, I'll be going with the Logitech Squeezebox Touch instead. Although it doesn't do video yet, at least it's supposed to work with wireless streaming audio. And it doesn't need a TV, iTunes, or hacking to work. Woo-hoo!)
 
jersey10 said:
I have two AppleTVs that I have been using, without problems, for the past year. Recently, however, the AppleTVs will show up in iTunes whenever I first open it, but after a while they disappear from iTunes. When this happens, I can no longer play anything which has not already been synced to the AppleTV (I will instead get a message that the "selected video could not be played. The format was not recognized."). If I close iTunes and reopen it, the AppleTVs will show up again, but again only for a little while.

Has anyone else had this same problem and/or know how to prevent it?

Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

I did until I switched my Airport Extreme (an older model) to .11n only and stopped using any .11g on it. I simply added a cheap Netgear as the .11g for the iPhones and an old iBook. So now only the MacBook and the ATV are able to use the Airport Extreme and all has been fine since I did this.

I am not sure but I think on wireless networks if a slower protocol connects such as .11g or worse the network drop to the slower speed. If an iPhone connects in the middle of a movie I assume the risk of an ATV connection problems could occur. As I say I am no expert and may be totally incorrect. However it solved my problems touch wood. Newer AEs are dual band of course thus I assume solving this problem.
 
Does anyone else have Airtunes when it drops? I just noticed that mine drops from the devices in iTunes and I can't sync, but if I choose the AppleTV icon from airtunes it will happily play music through my stereo. iTunes knows its there for airtunes, but not to sync....aaarrgh
 
I've posted this earlier when 10.6 first came out, but thought I'd post an update.

Since upgrading to 10.6 (10.6.1 now) and iTunes 9, I've not had any Apple TV drops outs. I have 3 - two via ethernet and one via 802.11n-only WiFi (via Time Capsule). No drop outs at all since the release of 10.6.0.

Very happy so far.
 
xraydoc said:
I've posted this earlier when 10.6 first came out, but thought I'd post an update.

Since upgrading to 10.6 (10.6.1 now) and iTunes 9, I've not had any Apple TV drops outs. I have 3 - two via ethernet and one via 802.11n-only WiFi (via Time Capsule). No drop outs at all since the release of 10.6.0.

Very happy so far.
Click to expand...
I can connect just find on 10.6.1 (and 10.6 before that) but 10.5.x won't ever see the :apple:TV (dropouts would be better than nothing at all).
 
This might help itunes dropping apple tv

All, I'm a PC user and over the past few days, my AppleTV has been dropping out of itunes for no what seemed to be no apparent reason. I loaded iTunes on different PCs, entered the access code in iTunes and every time, the AppleTV would drop out after about 5 minutes.

I was reading a little about WEP and other security settings and I remember that before i upgraded to a different access point, i was only using MAC address filtering and nothing else. When i installed the new access point, I didn't use MAC filtering and only WEP.

SOLUTION:
Something with the encryption i was using because i turned the encryption off and turned on MAC filtering. I need some type of security even though MAC filtering isn't that great. Anyway, it works like a charm. Apparently WEP or WPA doesn't work well with the latest versions of appleTV and/or iTunes.

I hope this helps.
 
It seems that many of the solutions in this thread are anecdotal and may or may not be reproduceable by others. I'm having the same old apple tv dropping out of itunes issue constantly. I have three apple tv's in the house and several macs and pcs. I've tried using tiger, leopard, snow leopard, xp, vista, and 7 and have had the same issue with all OSs. I've tried wired, wireless connections, security, no security, different hard drives for the apple tvs, different hard drives for the drobos, different drobos, a plethora of versions of itunes, hacks and no hacks; the issue remains unsolved. Way to go apple, you really did it with this one.
 
Same Problem...

Hello fellow Apple TV lovers/haters. Again, I love my apple TVs when they work. I've owned one apple TV for overs two years. And the second one is about 6 months old. I'm a software engineer by day and have lots of experience with debugging. So, here is my own personal experiments and observations.

I have two Apple TVs streaming from an iMac that is always on, itunes always running, library on an external Firewire 800 port. I see the apple tvs drop off the device list once a day on average. I have to restart iTunes to get them back.. and they come RIGHT back.

Setup:
Have reserved IPs using thier MAC address for the apple tvs using DHCP.
iMac (late 2006 model, 2,16GHz)
firewire external drive using Firewire 800 running the itunes library
Airport Extreme Router dual-band router

Things I've tried:
Apple TV on a G network.. see drop outs. No unique observations.

Apple TV on a wired network/one on a wireless.. see drop outs. This was stable for 5 days initially, then it started doing the dropouts again. I'm going home to make sure that it didn't magically join the wireless network by itself. One was wireless and one was wired. Oddly, neither one dropped out when one was wired. Needs more investigation.

Apple TVs on a N only network.. see drop outs.

Tried Different Routers .. see drop outs. Tried two different Airport extremes and a belkin router G router.

Neighbors Wireless Interference? I've moved to a new house. So, this would eliminate neighbor networks from interfering.

Will try the following solutions in the coming days::
-Haven't tried the channel trick.. I've always been on Automatic Channel.
-Haven't tried no security on the wireless network. Always had the WPA2 personal.
-I've had the same cordless phone the entire time. Its a 2.4GHz phone and I've been running on the 5GHz band for a long time now. Will try to turn this off.

Random Observations:
I just bought a new iPod Touch 64GB and noticed that when the system was all up and running, I plugged in the ipod into the USB docking station. This worked fine and iTunes saw all three devices (2 apple TVs and 1 ipod touch) I then pulled the ipod Touch out of the docking station and all three devices disappeared. This is not repeatable every-time but I've seen it on multiple occasions.

Personal Thoughts:
After reading the posts and my own personal observations I do think its a port issue. Even though I thought I solved the problem by pluggin in one of the Apple TVs into Ethernet the problem came back within a week. I do not think its interference, I do not think its the Apple TVs, and I do not think its the routers. I think its a system port issue/itunes issue. I will continue to experiment and want to solve this problem in the coming week.

Another thought would be its somehow the iMac setup. Its really the ONLY thing that has been constant. I will setup the laptop tonight as the "server" and see if the apple TVs stay connected to that computer with the same setup all around.

Jeff
 
Just a question - does anyone have this issue when the ATV and your computer are connecting to the network in the same way (i.e. both connected via wireless or both connected via ethernet?)

I have the issue only when I have the ATV connecting wirelessly and the computer connected via ethernet.

If they are both wirelessly connected there are no issues, and if they are both connected via ethernet, there are no issues.

I posted about this on a thread a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had any luck fixing the problem, despite:

1. Factory restoring the ATV
2. Reinstalling iTunes
3. Reinstalling Windows
4. Playing around endlessly with my router settings.

It seems to me like there is definately a problem here that Apple needs to address. It is happening to too many people to be simple problems with client's network setups.

I've got an xbox 360 sitting right next to my ATV, and it has absolutely no networking issues, wired or wireless.
 
TomP80 said:
Just a question - does anyone have this issue when the ATV and your computer are connecting to the network in the same way (i.e. both connected via wireless or both connected via ethernet?)
Click to expand...

Yip, I've had this problem with both devices connected over Ethernet to the same AEBS.
 
More experiments

OK, I just left my iPod touch plugged in all night and all day. The apple TVs were fine overnight. They didn't disappear overnight and they were there in the morning.. I went to work and came home around 5pm.. my ipod touch was still plugged in and both apple tvs were gone and the ipod touch was fine and still visible in the device list.

It seems that during the day hours they are more unstable than at night.... strange. I've noticed that most mornings the apple tvs are listed in the device list.. but during teh day my wife complains alot of them disappearing.
 
There's more interference with wireless networks during the day on average (this can also include things like microwaves, motors running, etc. that generate a lot of interference all over the spectrum). Someone around me just added a new network and it's been screwing up my formerly stable system lately.
 
Next Experiment

OK... as a quick recap. I have an iMac connected via ethernet into the Airport Extreme Dual radio Router. I have one apple TV hooked up over Ethernet and one hooked up over Wireless N. Last night I disjoined the wireless apple TV from itunes and left the Wired alone. (So I basically have only one in the device list) This morning the wired apple TV is gone. This eliminates the wireless settings and points to the iMac/iTunes setup instead. What I'm going to do next is sync the wireless apple tv to my wireless laptop through itunes to see if this is unstable also.
 
Current Status...

This morning I put my laptop (wireless) connected to one of my apple TVs (wireless) to see if the Apple TV disappeared from a different computer's itunes like it has always done with my iMac's iTunes. Its still connected... 13 hours and counting. At the same time, I synced my iMac (ethernet to router) with my Apple TV (ethernet) together. And they are still connected fine. Will keep posting updates.

13 hours and both networks still have the Apple TV listed in the device section.
 
10.6.2 revived problems?

Up until 10.6.2 my two main AppleTV issues had been fixed under SL.
The problems were -
ATV vanishing from devices list for no explicable reason (sometimes midway through a programme playing!!!)
Alerts saying the file is not compatible with ATV (even with material purchased from the iTunes Store...)

As I said these seemed to vanish under the first incarnation of SL.
Sadly these problems have returned under 10.6.2. Or at least that's the only thing I can put it down to.
FYI my set-up is cable modem to Timecapsule. TC to iMac & ATV by ethernet cable. iTunes library is stored on the TC.
 
Experiment ended

Hi everyone, I hope this is helping some people... I'll assume it is and keep posting.

The two networks seemed to work very well. I had my iMac to router over ethernet connected to one apple tv over ethernet. I also had a wireless laptop connected to a wireless apple tv. Both networks were stable for 1 1/2 days. The Apple TVs never disappeared from either itunes (always running, never shut down) Last night before bed I turned off the laptop so that the wireless Apple TV had no iTunes running. The wired network was unchanged. This morning, the wired network's apple TV was missing from the device list. Without running 3-5 tests under this scenario, I have to assume that the wireless Apple TV is interfering with a wired iTunes "server". The problem could be in Bonjour or iTunes device discovery. I will be hooking the second Apple TV up over ethernet to see how that scenario works.

Unfortunately, there is no one solution to people's problems... and I HOPE this solves mine. Will let you know once the ethernet is hooked in and the entire network is up and running.
 
TomP80 said:
Just a question - does anyone have this issue when the ATV and your computer are connecting to the network in the same way (i.e. both connected via wireless or both connected via ethernet?)

I have the issue only when I have the ATV connecting wirelessly and the computer connected via ethernet.

If they are both wirelessly connected there are no issues, and if they are both connected via ethernet, there are no issues.

I posted about this on a thread a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had any luck fixing the problem, despite:

1. Factory restoring the ATV
2. Reinstalling iTunes
3. Reinstalling Windows
4. Playing around endlessly with my router settings.

It seems to me like there is definately a problem here that Apple needs to address. It is happening to too many people to be simple problems with client's network setups.

I've got an xbox 360 sitting right next to my ATV, and it has absolutely no networking issues, wired or wireless.
Click to expand...


This is looking more and more like my problem. I will hook in the second apple TV through ethernet soon and see if that solves the problem. although I've had the disappearing apple TVs from the device list problem with everything over wireless.

The XBox having no issues really isn't a good comparison. My apple tvs do not loose network connection. They can get out to the internet just fine. The issue here is the Apple TVs disappear from the device list in iTunes. The XBox does not use iTunes as a streaming content server. (I'm assuming this is the case) I believe the problem lies in bonjour service which iTunes uses to discover the devices. I'm not sure why Apple does not fix this obvious issue, but maybe this is also the reason why they do not have wireless itunes sync enabled for ipod touch and iphone. (I'm jumping to conclusions on that one)
 
Next Test

I will be connected my wireless apple tv to a wired connection tonight. I will then have a fully wired environment. I'm not expecting this will fix anything. It might for a while, but I will let everyone know the results as they are happening.
 
Stable for now...

My setup is now finally stable. The change? I unplugged the iMac (iTunes Server) from the ethernet and am now using Wireless N. So, to recap I have one apple tv using ethernet, one Apple tv using wireless and the iMac is wireless. This setup has been stable for 1 day. We'll see how long this lasts.
 
I know everyone's setup is going to be a little different, but since going to 10.6, I've not had any drop-outs of my three AppleTVs. 10.5.x would drop one or more AppleTVs about once per week.

Two of the AppleTVs are connected to the Mac Pro iTunes server via ethernet through a gigabit switch. The third is wireless via 802.11n (from an original 1TB Time Capsule).
 
1 1/2 weeks of no drops

OK everyone, I'm finally happy with my setup. I have two apple TVs, one is wireless 802.11n and the other is ethernet into a Airport Extreme (Dual band) and the iMac (itunes server) running itunes 24/7 as the server. The way I fixed my particular situation is that I unplugged the ethernet cable from the iMac to make it connect through 802.11n. And all is well. I still believe this is a bonjour bug and needs to be fixed by apple. Like everyone else in these threads say, every persons setup is different and every solution might be different. So I suggest if you have drop outs, change up the connection method of the computers and apple TVs (if you can) to get a stable network.

Again, all I did was unplug the ethernet cable.
 
I keep having the same problem. I just updated my Apple TV software and everytime I play something that is coming from my laptop, it magically cuts off. Its really frustrating. I can't get 5 minutes into anything and I've been trying to figure it out all morning. Any ideas?
 
I have been dealing with the same issue. My Apple TV dropping out of iTunes was driving me crazy. On a whim, I went into iTunes and chose the Apple TV in the side bar and went to the photo tab and clicked to share photos even though I am not using iPhoto on that mac. Ever since I did that Apple TV has not dropped out of iTunes!
 
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