AirPlay icon just won't appear on iTunes - i've done everything!

Question

I've just gotten a gen3 Apple TV. Have been trying to get it hooked up to my iPhone 5 and my MacBook Pro. I'm running the latest software on both devices. My photostream will appear on the Apple TV and so will my purchsed music but I can't get AirPlay to work. The icon simply doesn't show up in my iTunes. Separately, if I go to the apple TV computer page, it says I need to turn on homesharing on the same network on my computer, etc.
I have all of these devices on the same wifi network. I have them all logged in to the same icould.com account. I have done everything I can from this support page: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4215?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.
And, now, I have absolutely no idea what to try. Help?

Answer 1

does it work on the iphone ?
have you tried to restart the iphone ? http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/phone/#section_1
what router?
have you verified that that ports required by airplay are open http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1629 (sometimes when people setup their network they have a bit of a zealot "the h@x0rs shall never get access so I'm locking this thing down!")
homesharing is enabled in itunes on the computer and can have set a password
homesharing is also required if the iphone have to access the sharedlib
if ones router don't bridge wired ethernet, wifi 2.4Ghz and wifi5Ghz and the devices are on seperate networks that is also an issue
updating firmware to latests or just restarting the router is also often a cure
sometimes my appletv don't showup as airtune speaker unless it's not in sleep mode and have navigated to music
you don't go into if it's just airplay or also sharedlib you have issues with
sharedlib mean the appletv access the media stored on the computer and shared in itunes sharedlib while the computer is turned on
airplay mean using the appletv as remote speaker for iphone or computer running itunes
airplay mirror mean using it as remote display as well