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chronomac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2009
8
0
I bought my ATV (3rd generation) about 2 months ago. Up until last week, it's been working perfectly. Netflix, iTunes, DVD rips, Blu-ray rips. They all worked fine.

But now when I turn on my ATV3 and iTunes on my Macbook, my ATV3 doesn't show any iTunes connection with Home Sharing. It just has that Home Sharing icon and wants me to turn on iTunes, which is already on. So I either do one of three things: 1. Turn off wi-fi on my Macbook and then back on. 2. Restart iTunes. 3. Restart the ATV3.

Usually one of those things fixes it and the ATV3 can see my iTunes content and we're fine. But after watching an episode of a TV show or a movie it fails again. It still shows my listings but when I select one it loads forever, fails, and when I go back to the main menu the problem starts again and I try my 3-prong solution.

I did a little research and while I didn't find an answer (hence why I'm posting this), some people thought it was because of a recent update, either for the ATV3 or Mac OS X.
 

waw74

macrumors 601
May 27, 2008
4,668
941
try rebooting your wireless router, this has fixed similar problems for me before.
 

chronomac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2009
8
0
The ATV3 and iTunes on the Macbook Pro are both up to date, as is Mac OS X. Restarting the router only helps temporarily. I turned it on just now to check and it didn't connect at first but did after I went though the ATV's settings to restart. Hopefully that'll solve it. If not, though, what else can I try?
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
The ATV3 and iTunes on the Macbook Pro are both up to date, as is Mac OS X. Restarting the router only helps temporarily. I turned it on just now to check and it didn't connect at first but did after I went though the ATV's settings to restart. Hopefully that'll solve it. If not, though, what else can I try?
Are you operating wired or wireless for aTV to router?
 

ser968

macrumors member
May 18, 2008
79
10
Same thing is happening to me. The only remedy I found was to change the ATV's settings to not put it to sleep. Once I did that, the iTunes connection never dropped.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
The ATV3 has a wired connection to the router. The Macbook Pro has a wireless one.
Try operating the aTV wirelessly and see if that helps. There have been some threads indicating that operating the aTV wired can be the source of the problem.
 

chronomac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2009
8
0
Would it help if I downgraded my ATV 3 to an older version? If so, how do I do that and what version should I use?
 

Neotribe

macrumors newbie
Dec 12, 2011
18
0
Same problem

I have been using my ATV 3 for almost a year with no problems. Then, it recently started to not find my iMac. Usually, if I restarted my Mac and ATV it would find it. But since updating to itunes 11, I have only been able to get it to find my computer once.
When it did, I couldn't get it to play any of the songs or movies. It would just give me the loading icon for a few minutes until I gave up. I haven't moved the computer or the Apple TV. So I have no idea why it isn't working. It seems to find Youtube etc. no problem. It just can't find my computer.

This is the first negative experience I have had with Apple products and my house is filled with them!
 

shadow puppet

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2012
607
2,436
4th padded cell on the right
My downgrade to 5.0.2 solved my connection issues

I was going bald from tearing my hair out after upgrading my Apply TV3 to 5.1.1. Connection kept dropping about every 3 minutes. Restarts helped maybe one time in 7 tries but alway lost the connection after just a few minutes. I had similar problems with the last upgrade, although not was often or severe. My Apple TV3 is only a few months old.

Then I came across this suggestion & downgraded to 5.0.2 & it worked:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4372428?start=15&tstart=0

One thing for me since I'm still on SL, I held down OPTION, not SHIFT as the poster lists. Other than that, if you do this, follow his connection instructions to the letter or you won't see the option to restore and search for what version you want to use. Now everything plays nicely together again and so far, no connection time outs with iTunes. I have read that iTunes 11 is also causing problems but I didn't jump on that upgrade yet so can't speak from personal experience.

I don't know how long the window to downgrade will be available so if you're at all interested in giving this a try, I'd suggest doing it sooner than later.

Hope this helps.
 

chronomac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2009
8
0
Then I came across this suggestion & downgraded to 5.0.2 & it worked:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4372428?start=15&tstart=0
Thanks for this link. I'm going to get a mini-USB cable from a friend tomorrow and try it out. The way my ATV is acting now, it's a lot less useful than it used to be. Netflix still works great but the biggest selling point of the device is riddled with issues and a pain in the ass to use. Apple should get on this issue.
 
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