Owners of Apple's new MacBook Pros report issues with iTunes Home Sharing

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Numerous owners of Apple's early 2011 MacBook Pros report being unable to connect devices or maintain connections through iTunes Home Sharing.



A support thread in Apple's Discussion forums has received over 200 posts from owners of Apple's latest MacBook Pros reporting issues with iTunes Home Sharing. Several readers have also contacted AppleInsider regarding the issue.



"This is turning out to be a bigger problem than I thought with many people giving up and returning their new MBP 2011 due to this conflict. Apple has yet to find a fix but it has been widely documented via phone through AppleCare and through many Apple retail stores," wrote one reader.



According to forum user 'themacbear,' the new MacBook Pro was able to stream to a second-generation Apple TV at first, but then the Apple TV reported being unable to connect or would display the error message "There are no movies in this library."



Apple released the upgraded MacBook Pro lineup with Sandy Bridge processors and high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology in late February.



In March, Apple released iOS 4.3 with new Home Sharing features. The Mac maker also issued iTunes 10.2 and then iTunes 10.2.1 to add compatibility with iOS 4.3 and Home Sharing. In spite of the updates, a number of users continue to report being unable to connect or maintain connections with iOS devices on their early 2011 MacBook Pros.



Recent improvements to the Home Sharing feature expand iTunes library sharing from just between Macs, PCs and Apple TVs to include mobile devices such as iPods, iPhones and iPads. When working properly, Home Sharing in iOS 4.3 allows an unlimited number of iOS devices to access content over Wi-Fi.



Though early 2011 MacBook Pros appear to be having the most trouble with Home Sharing, owners of older machines have also reported problems with the feature in a support thread for Home Sharing in iOS 4.3 that has reached 60 posts.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 34
    dagamer34dagamer34 Posts: 494member
    Yeah, I've had some issues with iTunes Home Sharing and my iPad 2. It would immediately refuse to connect to my library. I usually have to restart iTunes to get things working.
  • Reply 2 of 34
    eksodoseksodos Posts: 186member
    I've had these issues with the current generation AppleTV too since it launched.
  • Reply 3 of 34
    jonamacjonamac Posts: 388member
    Irritating problems I'm sure, but are people really returning their MacBooks because of this?!
  • Reply 4 of 34
    How can you be sure it's only happening to 2011 MBP owners?



    Anyway my 2010 MBP seems to be fine.



    The "problems" reported with 2011 MBPs from various forums up till now:



    1) Use of Intel's flawed chipset despite the problematic SATA ports not being in use;

    2) Heat issues;

    and now

    3) iTunes home sharing



    What's next?
  • Reply 5 of 34
    ghostface147ghostface147 Posts: 1,629member
    These issues make me appreciate my 3.5 year old Santa Rosa 17" MB Pro.
  • Reply 6 of 34
    rjbrucerjbruce Posts: 45member
    Funny. I've been having issues with this on my 2011 MBP and sat down determined to solve it tonight. Checked my Network settings and added file and print sharing (not specifically to solve the issue) when I went back to itunes it worked. I didn't check today before I started messing with it, so maybe it just started working..no clue.



    Before today, the library name would show up but I was unable to browse it and was not able to connect to other libraries. I had tried removing the home share and adding back as well as deleting the library and re-adding. Just glad it's working now.
  • Reply 7 of 34
    I have a MBP that I bought right after Christmas and purchased ATV2 shortly after. I have been having issues with ATV for the past couple of weeks.



    I would access Home Sharing but after about 20-30 minutes, it would drop me and would give me the "Turn on Homesharing." Normally, I would just have to quit and restart iTunes to get it back up and running, but 20-30 minutes later, it happened again.



    I finally went to an Apple Store a couple of days ago to ask about it and they said the issue was with my ATV and just swapped my old one and replaced it with a new one.



    However, this did not help as I continue to have the issue. I hope that Apple get this fixed quickly.



    I'm interested to hear of other people's issues.
  • Reply 8 of 34
    rhbruce -- quit itunes, and then, without doing anything else, reopen it. home sharing will be broken.
  • Reply 9 of 34
    Apple really needs to do something with iTunes....I understand that they want "everything" in one place for monetary reasons. I absolutely dread opening the store just to search for a Podcast.



    Best
  • Reply 10 of 34
    rjbrucerjbruce Posts: 45member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by adr1974 View Post


    rhbruce -- quit itunes, and then, without doing anything else, reopen it. home sharing will be broken.



    Should have tested it a little more extensively before doing this. I can still "pull" video from another machine to play on my MBP, I can "push" audio from my MBP to my ATV2. I cannot push video to the ATV2 and I cannot connect to the MBP library from the ATV2 although it does show up in the list (just fails to connect).



    I know before today I couldn't do anything with home sharing but even with the little I can do, fact is it's still broke. \
  • Reply 11 of 34
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    That sucks. However, I don't see how this can be a hardware issue. It seems like a software issue since the new MBP are using newer 1.0.6.6 build and the issue mostly happens in the newer version. Does it happen under Mac OS Lion?!
  • Reply 12 of 34
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ghostface147 View Post


    These issues make me appreciate my 3.5 year old Santa Rosa 17" MB Pro.



    These issues makes me appreciate my 3.5 year old Rosa who loves Santa!
  • Reply 13 of 34
    gpuckgpuck Posts: 3member
    Thanks for bringing some attention to this issue. As one of the posters in the Apple forums, it has been quite frustrating trying to figure out this problem. Little help so far from Apple on this. Maybe this will get their attention.
  • Reply 14 of 34
    I've had no problems with my 2011 17". I use home sharing between it and my 11" MacBook Air, mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro, early-2008 17" MacBook Pro, as well as my current-gen MacMini.



    I guess I'm lucky then?
  • Reply 15 of 34
    j1h15233j1h15233 Posts: 274member
    There are also issues with the first generation Apple Tv's. The new Macbook Pros will not sync with them at all and is giving people bogus firewall messages. It's also refusing to read some peoples itunes libraries at all. Mine for example will not sync or stream content.
  • Reply 16 of 34
    I have had this same problem on my Late 2006 17" 2.33 GHz MB Pro, too. Perhaps it is an AirPort problem? An iTunes problem?
  • Reply 17 of 34
    cam80cam80 Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by williamneildrake View Post


    I have had this same problem on my Late 2006 17" 2.33 GHz MB Pro, too. Perhaps it is an AirPort problem? An iTunes problem?



    My late 2006 15" 2.16GHz MBP is also having this issue- whereas our newer i3 iMac seems to be available on the Apple TV 2 reliably.



    Come on Apple!
  • Reply 18 of 34
    I too had the same issue mentioned above, but on much older hardware. The issue because me apparent after upgrading to iTunes 10.2. the affected device could play video from another remote iTunes library, but would fail to host a video stream from an iTunes home sharing client on another machine. Interestingly, after troubleshooting, I found that I had to inactivate the Ethernet connection and the reinitiate in order to resume any network connectivity. As a test, I have temporarily replaced the inbuilt Ethernet with a third party NIC. Connectivity has been stable since...
  • Reply 19 of 34
    adamcadamc Posts: 583member
    The problem will be solve once Apple get hold of the MB pro with this kind of problem.



    Looks like finding fault with Apple products is the norm and the first thing to do and whine .
  • Reply 20 of 34
    i've had this trouble with my 2009 imac as itunes master (10.6.6., 10.2.1) and my new apple tv - oh well. wait for a fix!
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