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Who has fixed the home share dropping issue?

R

rlu929s

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 17, 2011
132
2
I'm still battling this. I have no choice, but to use wifi in my house.

My setup:
1. ATV2
2. Airport Extreme 2011

If I reboot my router it will work at that time, but after sitting for awhile it loses the home share again. So far the main way to reset is rebooting my router.

What I've tried:

1. I have software firewall on my Itunes Server, so I have full exempted Itunes and opening those suggested ports.
2. I've set my DHCP Lease time on the Airport to 365 Days.
3. I've went into Port Forwarding and setup the allowed ports (I Think) I'm a little fuzzy on this one. I put a rule for the ports and set the private IP to 10.x.x.2-200
4. I've set my ATV2 to never sleep.

What am I missing? I just want this thing to work. It's mainly used for the kids to watch cartoons in the morning and it's a pain to go downstairs (where router is) and mess with rebooting it and closing itunes every morning.

I know the connection is fine as I can browse YouTube just fine at all times.
 
Unless You Have A faulty Router

rlu929s said:
I'm still battling this. I have no choice, but to use wifi in my house.

My setup:
1. ATV2
2. Airport Extreme 2011

If I reboot my router it will work at that time, but after sitting for awhile it loses the home share again. So far the main way to reset is rebooting my router.

What I've tried:

1. I have software firewall on my Itunes Server, so I have full exempted Itunes and opening those suggested ports.
2. I've set my DHCP Lease time on the Airport to 365 Days.
3. I've went into Port Forwarding and setup the allowed ports (I Think) I'm a little fuzzy on this one. I put a rule for the ports and set the private IP to 10.x.x.2-200
4. I've set my ATV2 to never sleep.

What am I missing? I just want this thing to work. It's mainly used for the kids to watch cartoons in the morning and it's a pain to go downstairs (where router is) and mess with rebooting it and closing itunes every morning.

I know the connection is fine as I can browse YouTube just fine at all times.
Click to expand...

You've done it all correctly....Just one thing..Set the lease time to never drop the connection....Sometimes the time zone can interfere with those settings.
 
I know the feeling - try this

I have been struggling to get a stable wireless connection to my ATV2 for months. The connection kept dropping and required frequent re-configs which was embarrassing when showing photo slideshows etc. Then I realised that I was already using Devolo plugs to link my iMac/Router in one room to my Speakers 2 rooms away (through several thick walls) and music streamed without a problem. So I bought another Devolo plug, linked my ATV2 with a short Ethernet cable supplied and - Bingo! perfect streaming of all my photos, plus my music, plus my MobileMe stuff etc. Haven't tried Movies yet but don't anticipate a problem. It does, of course mean extra financial outlay but its worth it to escape the uncertainty of wireless connection. (I entered this in another post a few days ago but it might be relevant to you)
__________________
 
I didn't see in the airport where there was a never drop connection setting?

Here's my port mappings. Couldn't get the UDP to enter.

 
Well looks like we do have an IOS5 update incoming. Here's hoping this fixes a lot of our issues.

I read somewhere that someone with a beta of IOS5 reported it fixed the home share dropping.
 
rlu929s said:
I'm still battling this. I have no choice, but to use wifi in my house.

My setup:
1. ATV2
2. Airport Extreme 2011

If I reboot my router it will work at that time, but after sitting for awhile it loses the home share again. So far the main way to reset is rebooting my router.

What I've tried:

1. I have software firewall on my Itunes Server, so I have full exempted Itunes and opening those suggested ports.
2. I've set my DHCP Lease time on the Airport to 365 Days.
3. I've went into Port Forwarding and setup the allowed ports (I Think) I'm a little fuzzy on this one. I put a rule for the ports and set the private IP to 10.x.x.2-200
4. I've set my ATV2 to never sleep.

What am I missing? I just want this thing to work. It's mainly used for the kids to watch cartoons in the morning and it's a pain to go downstairs (where router is) and mess with rebooting it and closing itunes every morning.

I know the connection is fine as I can browse YouTube just fine at all times.
Click to expand...


I feel your pain.. I have a TC at home that I use to generate my Wi-Fi signal, and my ATV2 downstairs that I used to stream to. Like you, using ethernet wasn't an option (I'm cr@p with cabling things anyway)..

however.. I bought an Airport Express (I needed to extend my Wi-Fi anyway), plugged that in near my ATV and then cabled my ATV to the Ethernet port on the Airport Express..

Not had a single home-sharing drop-out since. There's something *definately* wrong with ATV2 and it's Wi-Fi.

Might be worth a shot for you :)
 
Not a true fix, but a suggestion:

Instead of taking the time to reset the router, I have found the quickest way to restore Home Sharing is to just go into the ATV2 menu and stop and then restart home sharing. It takes seconds and it works everytime for me.
 
I've had very good luck with switching to one of the built in screen savers, not using my photo library.

I've also unchecked "keep iTunes folder organized" in Itunes settings.

These two things have made a huge difference.

I went through hell with this problem for a long, long time. I searched high and low and found references to those two small changes and it fixed 99% of my issue.

I still get "Loading Library..." for 3-5 seconds at times when browsing my shared library of movies, but nothing like the lockup/timeouts I would experience before.
 
Different solution same success

Wavell said:
I feel your pain.. I have a TC at home that I use to generate my Wi-Fi signal, and my ATV2 downstairs that I used to stream to. Like you, using ethernet wasn't an option (I'm cr@p with cabling things anyway)..

however.. I bought an Airport Express (I needed to extend my Wi-Fi anyway), plugged that in near my ATV and then cabled my ATV to the Ethernet port on the Airport Express..

Not had a single home-sharing drop-out since. There's something *definately* wrong with ATV2 and it's Wi-Fi.

Might be worth a shot for you :)
Click to expand...

Yep, you say AE, I say Devolo, Lets say we both cracked it - no matter, it was doing my head in
 
It was quite bad for me (would drop at least a couple of times a day). In the end I connected the ATV via Ethernet and it's worked flawlessly since; a few weeks without a single disconnection.

Obviously, that's not much of a consolation for anyone who needs to use Wifi. When I was using Wifi, I did find the following helped a bit:
- Manual TCP/IP setup, not DHCP
- Only have 1 Wifi router in range, if possible. I had two, and that setup never worked well.
- If you're picking up a neighbour's wifi network(s), ensure you don't have a clash of channels.
- Use a reliable DNS server.
 
Streaming freeze

Hi all, maybe a similar issue but on my atv2 in the bedroom (wireless connection) I can connect to my computer library, see all films with the images, select a film, choose resume play or start from the beginning but then that's it - if I select resume it will have a frozen picture of where it last played from and the spinning wheel will spin and spin and spin, so won't play

Same with start from beginning as well

YouTube works sometimes but long stream, photos are OK

the annoying thing is it used to work. Since the new wireless router I am having these issues and am sure it must be some sort of setting issue

Any thoughts??

Cheers
 
Wire it

I tried everything with atv2 the only thing that sorted it was ethernt wiring hasn't dropped since I'm a bit pissed off with apple at present .the trouble I'm having with airpot express is so frustrating it's unbelievable
 
Is this just a problem with the Airport Extreme?

I've never had these problems with my cable router's wifi.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the feedback guys. No Airport extreme, NetGear N150 router which is just playing up all the time.

cheers - wish i had run cable round the house when we renovated!!!!
 
Mine hasn't worked for quite awhile. I tried everything to get Home Sharing to function again without success. Frankly, I just gave up. But tonight, for some reason, I turned ATV2 back on, and as inexplicably as it had quit working, without my doing anything else at all, there it was...functioning perfectly once more. Gremlins? Who knows? :confused:
 
So, IOS5 is now out. Has anyone updated to it and seen this issue fixed?

I will update when I get home and cross my fingers. Would rather not buy anymore devices like an AE or Devlo!
 
Looking good so far

rlu929s said:
So, IOS5 is now out. Has anyone updated to it and seen this issue fixed?

I will update when I get home and cross my fingers. Would rather not buy anymore devices like an AE or Devlo!
Click to expand...

I did the updates yesterday and as of today, no drops. Not ready to fully declare victory for a few more days, but I can tell you I would have at least one drop by now. Keeping fingers crossed.. Looking good so far.
 
I have 2 ATV2's and was always up to date on software releases, Never had the issues. I updated last night and boom, both of them are now dropping the home sharing connection. WTF
 
OK, I'm now two days in and no drops.. Still not calling it 100% fixed yet, but its definitely changed for the better.
 
Well....no luck:( Got another drop last night, post IOS5.

I've noticed that since updating my ATV acts more sluggish on loading the cover art pictures etc.

It's odd because I can turn around and play an HD trailer no problem.

I guess the only thing left to try is to get a Airport Express or Devolo and wire it. I've heard this works.
 
I've tried everything besides what I've posted above. I'm afraid the ATV2 will not might me needs the way it is. After all the time I spent ripping movies I may end up putting these on eBay.
 
My iPad/ATV setup has been flawless for weeks since I switched to Ethernet and manual network settings.

...and then I upgrade to iOS 5 and have two disconnects in a day. Both times, I was playing music for a while, and when I tried to pause it via the Remote the song just kept playing. When I went out to the device select screen in Remote, the ATV was gone (but the music was still playing).

I had to reset the device, and fingers crossed it doesn't happen again.
 
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