AppleTV Dropping out of iTunes Solution

[bpsmith14]

I noticed a lot of people are having problems with their AppleTV dissappearing from iTunes. I have this issue fairly regularly. I'm not sure if there is anything you can do to actually fix it. But, to get it back in iTunes all I do everytime is just unplug my router and plug it back in. In about 20 seconds it reestablishes the connection and AppleTV pops back into iTunes. I dont reboot, close iTunes, or cycle power on the AppleTV. All I do is unplug and immediately plug back in the router. It fixes it everytime. Let me know if this works for you. If so, I'm glad I could help :)

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I noticed a lot of people are having problems with their AppleTV dissappearing from iTunes. I have this issue fairly regularly. I'm not sure if there is anything you can do to actually fix it. But, to get it back in iTunes all I do everytime is just unplug my router and plug it back in. In about 20 seconds it reestablishes the connection and AppleTV pops back into iTunes. I dont reboot, close iTunes, or cycle power on the AppleTV. All I do is unplug and immediately plug back in the router. It fixes it everytime. Let me know if this works for you. If so, I'm glad I could help :)

How is having to unplug a router better than having to quit and restart iTunes? That also interrupts the entire network. I rarely had problems with Apple TV units disappearing from iTunes in the past, but since I upgraded to iTunes 8.1, one of my two ATV units keeps disappearing at least once a day and it's getting very annoying. If I quit iTunes and restart it, it reappears for another day or so. Either way, there is clearly a bug in iTunes in that restarting often solves it and they ought to address it. There is nothing more annoying than going to my comfy chair, picking up my iPod Touch and trying to play a song on my ATV through my high end stereo only to find the library is disconnected and then having to travel to the den to reconnect it. It ought to be able to reestablish the connection itself.

[jb60606]

my ATV is dropping off of the network completely. Restarting iTunes doesn't help... only restarting the ATV resolves the issue. I assume this is the same problem everyone else is having? It started happening to me after they started releasing HDTV movies for purchase, which I think coincide with the 8.1 release.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

my ATV is dropping off of the network completely. Restarting iTunes doesn't help... only restarting the ATV resolves the issue. I assume this is the same problem everyone else is having? It started happening to me after they started releasing HDTV movies for purchase, which I think coincide with the 8.1 release.

I don't recall ever having a problem where it would only be solved by resetting AppleTV. I have had it disappear and not want to come back on but that usually means my Netgear router needs reset (I can get it to log on to my secondary Airport Express router when that happens, though if I don't want to go upstairs to reset it right away). I've rebooted the PowerMac. I seem to recall that solving the problem with intermittent behavior in the past. Maybe playing games (Jedi Academy) on it affected it somehow. Time will tell. I did have a freeze today when starting a movie in iTunes 8.1, though. I had to hard boot the computer. That sort of thing is annoying and is most likely a bug somewhere (iLife '09 used to do the same thing and even sometimes cause a kernel panic until there was a bug fix update and now it seems fine). I did find one other bug which I reported and that is you can no longer select a secondary audio track in iTunes 8.1 from the title bar menu (worked fine in 8.0x), but you can still select it from the onscreen menu that pops up when you move the mouse where the movie is playing.

[OldGuyDave]

I noticed a lot of people are having problems with their AppleTV dissappearing from iTunes. I have this issue fairly regularly. I'm not sure if there is anything you can do to actually fix it. But, to get it back in iTunes all I do everytime is just unplug my router and plug it back in. In about 20 seconds it reestablishes the connection and AppleTV pops back into iTunes. I dont reboot, close iTunes, or cycle power on the AppleTV. All I do is unplug and immediately plug back in the router. It fixes it everytime. Let me know if this works for you. If so, I'm glad I could help :)
Restarting the router is not a good idea for me, that would be cutting off other PCs in the network. I'm connecting via wireless to my ATV and my router is cutting out often, so all I do is deactivate my wireless connection on the Mac and iTunes then activate the connection immediately and after 10 seconds the ATV turns up again and then it works.

[jb60606]

It may be too early to tell, but I think the latest iTunes patch resolved the issue for me. My ATV hasn't dropped off of the network in over a day.

Anyone else?

[phillipjfry]

To all those who are having :apple:tv drop off of itunes, are you using the wireless on your router? If so, is your wireless signal encrypted? I believe it is in the last question which actually answers why the :apple:tv drops off of itunes.

In my network setup with a Linksys router (the sleek new black ones with no antenna sticking out), I watched the connections with wireshark, and I believe that the appletv is either sending information back and forth so fast that the router is having a hard time processing information from wireless and encrypted, unencrypting it, sending over the wire (to my computer/itunes) and from my computer, encrypt it, and send it back over wireless.

I started to notice checksum errors more and more frequently as the information kept going. Eventually, the appletv or itunes was not registering a connection with :apple:tv anymore because my router couldn't confirm any valid wireless packets coming from the appletv (or to the appletv) and the connection timed out so to speak.

At some points I noticed in wireshark, i saw that either :apple:tv or itunes was trying to "log into one another" (or validate a connection) and if the packets are corrupted from the router, or the router is unable to handle processing so much information back and forth, then I would notice somethings along the lines of "login failed". And the connection would break off between the two.

It would make sense to say that disconnecting the router and/or itunes would reconnect with the appletv because the router has a lot less traffic to handle allowing itunes and appletv to connect with each other for the time being...

If it's any support to what I'm saying, I haven't had one single issue with itunes/appletv since going wired on the :apple:tv :cool:

[jb60606]

It may be too early to tell, but I think the latest iTunes patch resolved the issue for me. My ATV hasn't dropped off of the network in over a day.

Anyone else?

it was too early to tell. ATV is gone again.

shucks.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

It may be too soon to tell, but it's been a few days since I upgraded to 8.1.1 and it hasn't dropped since the upgrade. Maybe they fixed something related to it? Like I said before, I never used to have this problem with older iTunes versions. I can certainly state they fixed a bug in regards to selecting alternate audio tracks from the title bar menu (bug introduced for certain with 8.1.0; I had to use the pop-up menu to change them in that version) so who knows what other bugs they introduced with that version as well.

Heck, I just noticed for the first time the other day that 8.1.0 and onward have a newly improved visualizer (does a lot more than pre 8.1) plus a few more to pick from (I particularly like the "Jelly" one). It's too bad they don't add those to AppleTV. I don't believe the lines about not having enough power. My hacked AppleTV units do just fine with the XBMC visualizers, some of which are pretty cool too (well they do a LOT; some is cool some not). Besides, these iTunes visualizers run perfectly smooth/fine on my PowerMac with an ATI 9800 Pro which is considerably older than the HD-capable GPU in the AppleTV (I cannot even do 720P on my PowerMac smoothly). Basically, I don't know what they're waiting for, really. Someone with a fully hacked (i.e. full OS X install) AppleTV could try running iTunes itself directly and see if the visualizers work OK or not, I suppose.

[ascender]

This problem has started happening for me in the last week or so and is incredibly frustrating. ATV and iTunes are up to date, but despite reboots of the Mac, iTunes & ATV, it still won't appear. The ATV is connected via Ethernet to the base station and has been very reliable until the recent updates.

No idea what to do, but I do wish Apple would stop tinkering with ATV as it seems every update is less stable than the last.

[jmdeegan]

my family and i have noticed the issues more and more as well....and not just dropping out of itunes...also a lot more freezing and stuttering during streaming, and its running N speeds, the apples are 2 of only 3 devices on the N network, and it's basically my own little intranet...

i am moving closer to wanting to drop a 250gb drive in the smaller of my 2 apples and just move toward even less streaming than i had been doing.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Last night I noticed one of my two Apple TV units had dropped off the iTunes list. I assumed the problem had returned or was still present in iTunes, but this morning without any reboots or changes by me, the unit has returned to the list. Maybe there's a timed scan or something to check for units because normally if I quit iTunes and restart, the units return right then. If I reboot the AppleTV, it will normally return too so it seems like they need to scan more often.

[ascender]

Still not working :(

ATV now seems stuck in a reboot loop, but after unplugging it recently, its come back online, still not connecting to the iTunes library though. One time I left it a while and went in to the computers menu where the shard library was greyed out. After 5 minutes, the library went white, so I thought we were sorted, but the ATV just hung and after a while came back with the diagnostic screen again.

I give up.

I'm starting to think a Mac Mini just running iTunes is worth a punt as the reliability of ATV is getting beyond a joke now. I can't think of a single other piece of kit which has given me this much trouble on and off for so long.

[jb60606]

This is probably a dumb question, but has Apple support acknowledged the problem?

[ascender]

Two factory restores later and we're back in business.

[Jrice]

I was having this problem and found a very simple solution. My ATV is connected by wireless to my Time Capsule. ATV was always loosing the connection, even during a movie.

I learned that the wireless signal is subject to interuptions by a number of household/neighborhood signals. Cordless phones, microwaves, garage door openers. Here's what I found. Go to Apple.com and download iStumbler.

This program monitors the signal from your wireless source and includes a display of "noise", which can interupt the signal. Audiophiles know that a low signal to noise ratio is a good thing. I just watched the noise level on a few channels, chose one that had a low noise level and I've not had a problem since. TC has an automatic feature that choose one of the 11 channels. It was recommended to watch channels 8-11. Switched the TC to manual channel selection. So far, so good!

[dpmiller]

A few days after the last ATV update I noticed it was no longer seen in iTunes. I have tried everything except for reseting ATV back to factory defaults. I have uninstalled iTunes, IPL'd etc with no luck. Sounds like the restore is in order, but my concern is if it doesn't connect to my desktop how do I get my purchases back to ATV?:apple:

[ascender]

A few days after the last ATV update I noticed it was no longer seen in iTunes. I have tried everything except for reseting ATV back to factory defaults. I have uninstalled iTunes, IPL'd etc with no luck. Sounds like the restore is in order, but my concern is if it doesn't connect to my desktop how do I get my purchases back to ATV?:apple:

Given my experience this week and in the past with ATV, a factory restore is a fairly safe option that will get connectivity back. After the restore, my ATV is much more responsive and I'm starting to wonder if its like PCs used to be when they'd benefit from a rebuild every 6 months or so due to getting "clogged up" with files all over the place.

[dpmiller]

Thank you ascender. I will give it a go this weekend. Appreciate the response.:)

[ladysman]

I was having this problem and found a very simple solution. My ATV is connected by wireless to my Time Capsule. ATV was always loosing the connection, even during a movie.

I learned that the wireless signal is subject to interuptions by a number of household/neighborhood signals. Cordless phones, microwaves, garage door openers. Here's what I found. Go to Apple.com and download iStumbler.

This program monitors the signal from your wireless source and includes a display of "noise", which can interupt the signal. Audiophiles know that a low signal to noise ratio is a good thing. I just watched the noise level on a few channels, chose one that had a low noise level and I've not had a problem since. TC has an automatic feature that choose one of the 11 channels. It was recommended to watch channels 8-11. Switched the TC to manual channel selection. So far, so good!

For those that have the Linux based WRT54g/WRT54GS routers, I highly recommend using Tomato firmware. (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato_123)

The firmware has the feature above that allows scanning and show noise level as well so you can properly tune your wireless. i have zero issues that are described in this thread and can stream HD files without issue on a different floor even. Of course, there are tons of other features as well as a very robust QoS. Real time bandwidth meter comes in handy too as well as graphing.

Newegg has the router on sale as well. $60 shipped. This router is NOT available in any store that I have seen.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190

[FearlessFreep]

I was having this issue along with a host of other wireless problems and having to reset my router regularly. I finally got sick of the whole thing and bit the bullet and spent $100 on an Airport Extreme n router from EBay. Problem solved.

I have a lot of non-Apple wireless clients in my house in addition to the ATV, and iPhones (Mac Mini is hard-wired) like Wii, four PCs, etc. and the Airport plays nice with all of them.

I haven't had the iTunes drop of ATV since I set up the new router. Yep, it sucks that I had to pony up for the Airport, but after months of frustration it's worth it to have a 'set-it-and-forget-it' network setup again.

[ascender]

That's the strange thing though, I was getting this problem with a Mac Pro and ATV, both hardwired in to the same AEBS.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

For those that have the Linux based WRT54g/WRT54GS routers, I highly recommend using Tomato firmware. (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato_123)

The firmware has the feature above that allows scanning and show noise level as well so you can properly tune your wireless. i have zero issues that are described in this thread and can stream HD files without issue on a different floor even. Of course, there are tons of other features as well as a very robust QoS. Real time bandwidth meter comes in handy too as well as graphing.

Newegg has the router on sale as well. $60 shipped. This router is NOT available in any store that I have seen.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190

Linksys routers are so ugly. It's the external antennas that look bad. I've got a Netgear WNR3500 Gigabit router with 802.11N. It appears to the use the Marvell 88W8363 chipset. From the search results I'm seeing, Apple's Time Capsule seems to use the same basic chipset. Beyond that, I'm not finding much. Tomato doesn't work with it. I do get devices dropping off my iTunes list on a semi-regular basis (not using it regularly seems to increase the frequency of dropping since my downstairs unit that gets used almost daily is still there while my upstairs system regularly drops off the list and requires either an AppleTV reset or quitting and restarting AppleTV (turning off the "search for Apple TV units" option and turning it back on again will also bring it back). I'm guessing the drops are due to an intermittent signal (once in awhile interference causes the Apple TV to lose its connection and even though it comes right back this somehow confuses iTunes which loses it and doesn't search for it again. I'm sure the failing is mostly iTunes' fault which should keep an reasonably active search for units.

Those that have had success by changing routers or firmware may simply be getting a stronger signal to your devices and therefore losing them less often to begin with. It's hard to say without more data.

I've also got an Airport Express running a 2nd network (since iPod Touch units use 802.11G, they can slow "N" networks down). I haven't really tried using it as the primary network, but I suppose I could to see how the drops compare. I use it as the secondary because its signal is a bit weaker around the house according to my iPod Touch signal meter and WiFi finder and transfer rate tests show it's definitely slower talking to the AppleTV units than the Netgear (4Mb/sec versus 6-7MB/sec).

[ladysman]

Linksys routers are so ugly. It's the external antennas that look bad. I've got a Netgear WNR3500 Gigabit router with 802.11N. It appears to the use the Marvell 88W8363 chipset. From the search results I'm seeing, Apple's Time Capsule seems to use the same basic chipset. Beyond that, I'm not finding much. Tomato doesn't work with it. I do get devices dropping off my iTunes list on a semi-regular basis (not using it regularly seems to increase the frequency of dropping since my downstairs unit that gets used almost daily is still there while my upstairs system regularly drops off the list and requires either an AppleTV reset or quitting and restarting AppleTV (turning off the "search for Apple TV units" option and turning it back on again will also bring it back). I'm guessing the drops are due to an intermittent signal (once in awhile interference causes the Apple TV to lose its connection and even though it comes right back this somehow confuses iTunes which loses it and doesn't search for it again. I'm sure the failing is mostly iTunes' fault which should keep an reasonably active search for units.

Those that have had success by changing routers or firmware may simply be getting a stronger signal to your devices and therefore losing them less often to begin with. It's hard to say without more data.


I don't really care what the router looks like. The above router with Tomato works wonders. I've installed many of these for people. Never a lost connection myself as I said even streaming HD content.

Netgear networking stuff is garbage. I've always issues with their stuff when going to peoples houses that use them. Do yourself a favor and try something else or continue your suffering.;)

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I don't really care what the router looks like. The above router with Tomato works wonders. I've installed many of these for people. Never a lost connection myself as I said even streaming HD content.

Netgear networking stuff is garbage. I've always issues with their stuff when going to peoples houses that use them. Do yourself a favor and try something else or continue your suffering.;)



I almost never lose connections while using the router. As I said, the problem is with iTunes dropping the AppleTV unit, not the AppleTV unit losing its internet connection. It still accesses the internet and movie rentals, etc. just fine so it's not the router. But thanks for sharing your "garbage" opinion. It's oh so helpful. ;)

[jb60606]

No iTunes or ATV updates since my last post, yet my ATV has mysteriously stayed on the network for a good week+ now. Granted, there were a couple of times where I opted to set the ATV to "standby" mode (overnight), just in case. However, a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't get it to stay on the network for more than 6hrs.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I was getting tired of rebooting the ATV on a daily basis.

[Rich1963]

Until recently, I pitied anyone who had this problem, and figured my combo of time capsule (1st gen), hard wired ethernet, and leaving my imac on 24/7 was what kept me immune. Since the last iTunes minor update, I've lost the AppleTV twice. Now, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't that big of a deal, and simply quitting and restarting iTunes solves the problem.

But it's frustrating. And what's even stranger is that since the last update, I will also come downstairs in the morning to see that my AppleTV has decided to come out of standby by itself occasionally. Not the end of the world, but odd nonetheless.

[MacBoobsPro]

I had this issue when the ATV first came out and it was because my ATV IP address didnt start 192.168 etc.

I set the IP manually during wireless setup on the ATV and have never had another problem with it. It may be worth checking the update hasnt changed the IP address on your ATV.

[jb60606]

3 weeks since it last dropped off of the network.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I think I've finally found the solution to my problem of the AppleTV units dropping out of iTunes. It appears to be a matter of finding the most stable channel with the strongest signal and lowest noise ratio on the wireless router. This is hard (a pain) to test with something like my NetGear router due to a lack of a monitor mode, but it's very easy to do with my secondary Airport Express router since Apple's Airport Utility has a channel monitor mode (click manual and then on the word "channel" and a graph and table will appear with updated monitor conditions for the signal strength, noise level and transfer rates for any devices connected to it.

I went through and manually tried ALL available channels (in 5GHz mode it will only do automatic and it was VERY POOR in that mode compared to the 2.4GHz reception on some channels, but your house/location may vary. Clearly, some channels were doing better than others and since I have two AppleTV units in two different areas of the house, it helped to try them all. I found Channel 10 to have the best signal overall and since switching both AppleTV units to use the Airport Express (by itself, it was still unstable and would drop on Automatic) and changing to Channel 10, it's been over a week since either unit has dropped from iTunes. It wasn't generally lasting a day for the closer unit on automatic. Clearly, the signal level plays a HUGE part in whether the units remain connected to iTunes. Maybe even a temporary signal interruption can cause it to drop? In any case, getting the best possible signal to all units seems to be the key. This might mean moving the router (or adjusting antennas if external) or just finding the best possible channel and bandwidth range for your location. It clearly made a huge difference here. It's never been this stable over the past two years for both units (one would usually drop sooner or later, usually sooner and require either a reset of iTunes or a reboot of ATV (or Finder reset on hacked version) to get them to reappear. Now they rarely ever drop to begin with.

I'm not talking about huge signal differences either making a big difference in behavior. It went from -68 to -70dB on average to -64 to -66dB on average with noise down from -94 to -97dB. Transfer rates vary somewhat over time, but I seem to get over 100Mbit per channel on average now whereas it was getting 68-90 before (My NetGear router often gets 160-180Mbit, but it's a lot harder to monitor the signals over time to find its optimum channel (it also sits in a different location in the room); maybe I can find an app to help with that somewhere?) For most uses, it doesn't make much difference, though. I simply switched my iPod Touch over to the NetGear and the AppleTV units to the Airport Express (was the other way around before; I don't want them on the same unit since a G device can slow down N devices).

[Geordie56]

I was having exactly the same problem. After working fine for months, iTunes would lose one or both Apple TVs. iTunes would fine, one, both or none of the Apple TVs on restart with apparently no logic to this and rebooting the Time Capsule normally had the effect of losing whatever Apple TV had been found.
I first tried setting the Apple TV's to static IP addressees with no effect. I tried the channel thing. Again no effect.
The (possible) answer - I restored the Apple TVs to factory settings and then updated the software to the latest version. An hour or so of time invested but the result is consistent Apple TV connections. Running for over a week now with no issues.