Streaming to Apple TV Suddenly Not Working

Hi all,

Today, all of a sudden neither of my 2 Apple TV's are seeing my iTunes library. I am able to stream Youtube etc. so I know it's not a router issue. Not to mention that I can use the wifi just fine with my iPhone and Macbook.

I did the Apple TV update that came out a couple days ago on both units. I have used them both successfully since that time as well, so I'm hesitant to blame the update.

I have not made any changes to my iTunes preferences in months, however just for good measure I double checked and my home sharing is on.

I have also rebooted the Apple TV units, my modem and router, my iMac (the source of my streaming) and iTunes each a few times now. No luck. Apple TV still gives me the message to turn my home sharing on.

Everything was working fine yesterday, but today nothing. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry folks... my bad. It's fixed now. I have 2 Internet connections and for whatever reason my iMac switched over to the secondary connection while the Apple TV uses the first for streaming. I should have caught that quickly. I take back all the cursing about Apple I did behind closed doors as well.

ok, I spoke too fast. lol sorry.

While the mac had switched to the other iso, that has now been fixed. I have also reset all the settings on the Apple TV and gone through set-up again, still can't see my shared library... very frustrating.

Seems like I've read turning off and then turning back on HomeSharing would take care of this. Need to turn it off on your Apple TV and in iTunes. Turn it back on in iTunes, then your Apple TV.

bobtomay said:

Seems like I've read turning off and then turning back on HomeSharing would take care of this. Need to turn it off on your Apple TV and in iTunes. Turn it back on in iTunes, then your Apple TV.

Click to expand...

Good idea, I tried it and now I can access the library, but it won't actually stream anything. I'm starting to really want to blame this latest Apple TV update but I can't seem to find anyone else online having issues.

I'm having issues since the latest update, too. I can't get beyond the main screen when selecting Movies or TV. I select, I click, the screen goes black, I get the "timer" icon and the words "Accessing iTunes Library," and then right back to the main screen. Other parts like Netflix, Flickr, YouTube, work fine.

This is a big deal to me. If I can't get it working soon I'll be switching to another streaming product. That will break the cozy little Apple eco-system I've been enjoying. No reason not to start looking at Android then too. I'm still hooked on OS X but I can let the tablets and streaming devices go if it's gonna be a pain in the ***.

This happens to me occasionally if I call up the Apple TV activity on my AV set up and forget to check that iTunes is actually open.

I have to turn everything off (i.e choose a different activity on my AV set up and quit iTunes) and then on again starting with iTunes.

The 'switches' somehow get latched in a sort of 'deadly embrace' or deadlock

Deadlock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another thing that's gone haywire since the latest update: my AppleTV now never goes to sleep. It doesn't matter what preference I've selected (I currently have selected sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity), it stays on forever.

I hope an update to the update is happening soon.

Solution!

Apple is aware of the problem and has posted the solution on a support page.

The solution involves signing out of your iTunes Store Account on the Apple TV, and then signing back in again.

The complete instructions are here:

Apple TV: Unable to access Movies, TV Shows, or other iTunes features after updating

It worked for me.

I recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and all of a sudden my ATV1 couldn't stream my media thats on a USB drive. Otherwise, XMBC fully functional. I read something about SMB being problematic and installed SMBup which seemed to help but sometimes on power downs of the ATV1 it requires me to stop/restart Samba in SMBup. I don't know what thats all about but it works. Never had this much grief with previous OS, so I'm blaming it partly on user ignorance and Lion LOL. I had been using Jailbroken ATV for 2 years with variants of Boxee and XMBC.