My Homesharing Connection Observations.

Overview.

Since the Apple TV 2 was released I’ve noted numerous complaints about the Apple TV being unable to connect to the homesharing library, many of these complaints made mention of this occurring after either the Apple TV or the computer running the library had gone to sleep, although some complainants did state that this had occurred even when neither had been asleep.

I have 3 Apple TV 2’s and until recently although I had experienced this problem, it was on no more than a handful of occasions in over 12 months use (I/we use our Apple TV’s more or less every day).

The vast majority of complainants noted that turning homesharing off on the host computer and turning it back on again resolved the problem (which of course would be somewhat annoying as it involved raising one’s self from the armchair in front of the big screen to attend to the task on the host computer).

On the few occasions I had encountered the problem, I’d noted a slightly less intrusive solution (but unfortunately it wasn’t suitable for everyone). We have multiple libraries configured to use our homesharing set up, and simply switching to another library from the Apple TV when this problem occurred and then switching back again would allow us to connect to the problem library again (this of course meant we didn’t need to leave that armchair).

On the assumption that my own experience of the problem (and indeed some other complainants too) had been intermittent, I have always attributed this problem to occur mainly as a result of wifi interference. Now for those of you that are ready to hit the back button because you use only ethernet or powerline adapters, you might want to read on because these networking systems can experience interference too, albeit less often.

Today Things Changed.

Today I reconfigured my wireless network set up (I’ll explain this later) and immediately encountered the ‘connection’ problem consistently. I have already made a number of observations which might be of interest, and am in the process of testing various small changes to see how they affect the homesharing performance.

I do have some interesting observations but would like to collect more data and conduct more tests before sharing them with you. When appropriate I’ll post my observations here, and in the meantime if you haven’t already done so you might try implementing the workarounds mentioned previously.

I’m happy to receive email from anyone who has any observations of their own, but please avoid sending me your ‘me too’ emails. I won’t be able to answer many emails but may contact a few of you for additional information as I see relevant.

I am able to change my set up and immediately resolve the connectivity issues, but I’m not at all sure that such changes will be an option for the majority of you, because of the set up I have (I’ll explain this later). Ill be switching between my set ups so that I can continue to enjoy my Apple TV’s as well as observe the homesharing connection problems.

More to come......