Was it Really That Simple?

[rayward]

One of the later updates to Leopard, prior to the launch of Snow Leopard, fixed the interminable problem of my ATVs dropping off iTunes. Then I updated to Snow Leopard and, bingo! The problem was back, and worse. They would all drop all the time, no exceptions, no respite. Until yesterday.

It suddenly occurred to me to check the power saving settings. Wouldntchaknowit, the computer was set to sleep after 20 minutes or so (presumably an SL default). So, the ATVs weren't dropping, the Mac was going to sleep and cutting them off!

I put the computer back to always on (the screen still shuts down), and all the ATVs have been online ever since.

Question: Isn't SL, meant to have the ability to wake the computer over a network? I guess this doesn't work for ATVs, or do I need to adjust another setting? Any info would be appreciated.

 

[aristobrat]

Check out the last paragraph on this article. Hopefully that helps!

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/29/snow-leopard-extends-wake-on-lan-feature-if-your-config-is-ri/

 

[rayward]

Check out the last paragraph on this article. Hopefully that helps!

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/29/snow-leopard-extends-wake-on-lan-feature-if-your-config-is-ri/

Thanks. I have 3 of my 4 ATVs connected through an ethernet network running off a 16-port switch connected to an Airport Extreme. The 4th ATV is wireless because the builder didn't put an ethernet port where he was supposed to (grrrr). My iMac is connected via ethernet to a Time Capsule, which itself is connected via ethernet (and the switch) to the AEBS.

My iMac is at least 2 years old (and it was a refurb then), and my AEBS is older still. I'll have a root around in the settings, but I think I may be out of luck as the article suggests that only newer vintage Macs and AEBSs can handle the wake-over-LAN feature. Oh well, at least I've got a solution until I get around to upgrading.

ETA: From what I can find, it's not clear whether ATVs can send the "Magic Packet" required to wake up a Mac, whether wired or wireless. People have been having very mixed results.

 

[RumMunkey]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/530.17)

I have a "WiFi wakable" Airport Base Station, but had to turn sleep off again anyway.

I found it inconsistent. Apple TV dropped A LOT, and would sometimes sort of "half drop" -I could see it in iTunes still, but nothing would play on the TV.

I turned sleep back to "never" and it's been fine. I hope this gets some love in 10.6.2. I really need this feature.

 

[rayward]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/530.17)

I have a "WiFi wakable" Airport Base Station, but had to turn sleep off again anyway.

I found it inconsistent. Apple TV dropped A LOT, and would sometimes sort of "half drop" -I could see it in iTunes still, but nothing would play on the TV.

I turned sleep back to "never" and it's been fine. I hope this gets some love in 10.6.2. I really need this feature.

See my ETA above - you're not alone. I think it's clear that my equipment is too old to handle the wireless wake-up but should be able to wake over LAN. But it could be that an ATV cannot send the necessary Bonjour command to wake up the host Mac, so the whole thing may be moot.