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casperghst42

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 11, 2006
162
112
Headless and iTunes Remote

Hi,

I have an headless (no keyboard/mouse) macmini running High Sierra, which I is only used to play music using iTunes/Audirvana plus.

My problem is that when the mac sleeps and I wake it up (WOL) I cannot connect with iTunes Remote to iTunes until I connect to the macmini with Screen Sharing. I don't even need to login, it's enough that Screen Sharing connects.

I have the HDMI plug to emulate a monitor.

From what I have seen I am not the only one with the problem, but I have not been able to find a solution/fix - anyone out there with a solution to this problem?
 
I have the same problem, and it's driven me crazy. I have the same setup as you (headless macmini w/HDMI plug, running High Sierra) for the same reason, except my macmini is set to never sleep. So, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with regular system sleep.

I also discovered that I can "unstick" iTunes just by connecting to the macmini with Screen Sharing (IIRC, I don't even have to log in, just the initial connection does it). So weird, and it's been like that for a long time, for me (like a year or more).

Sometimes my Remote app-->iTunes is "stuck", and sometimes not. Sometimes Remote seems to connect to my macmini library, but is unable to change Airplay destinations. Sometimes it just works. For awhile I thought it was related to using iTunes' WiFi syncing of the music library to my iPhone, but I've ruled that out as the cause. I've used some arcane 'log' commands in Terminal and seen some iTunes error messages, but couldn't figure out what's wrong.

I have four Airplay 2 destinations and one Airplay "1" (a Denon AVR) and I kinda wonder if the mixture is part of the problem. Are you using Airplay 2 devices or older original Airplay protocol devices?

I'd really like to get this figured out because I love using the Remote app from my phone. I have several Airplay speakers set up and I like streaming the music from my macmini iTunes because it doesn't use up my phone battery, and my entire music collection is available that way.

My workaround so far is that I put a screen-sharing app on my phone. If Remote seems "stuck", I switch to the screen-sharing app to initiate a connnection to the macmini, and that always (I think) gets things working again. Incidentally, the screen-sharing app is surprisingly usable, even on my little 4" iPhone SE.

I've been using VNC Viewer from "RealVNC" on the App Store. Hope that helps some.

If you figure out anything, I'd appreciate you posting it here!
 
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