Apple TV, browsing music on home sharing, music stored externally

I wonder if anyone can advise...
I recently bought a Seagate Central wifi external harddrive, 3TB. Besides using it as a remote backup disk, one of the main reasons behind it was combining music collections on my iMac and my wife's MacBook Pro. Advantages being we can listen to each other's music without having to have both computers on at the same time. Also, I'd like to use my new Apple TV to access my music via home sharing settings.
So I have combined our music files onto the Seagate. I have changed the iTunes Music folder on both computers so that it looks to the Seagate for all the media. I have then "re-imported" the songs into iTunes from there.
Running iTunes from the computers, this works 100% Ok, even sending via Airplay to Apple TV. The problems come when browsing through using the Apple TV home sharing on My Computers. The Apple TV sees all the albums and tracks as you would expect. But if you play a track it comes up with a message "there is no content".
The strange part is that if I go to the computer and play the track once, when I go back to Apple TV it will them recognise it and be able to play it!
I am trying to find a solution that doesn't involve me clicking through every track of my music collection! Any ideas?

That seems strange.
Have you changed the itunes media folder location to the external drive?
iTunes > Preferences >
Try changing to location to the external hard drive.. so your itunes music gets saved there
Also I'm not sure iTunes can work this way..
I've seen someone try to use a timecapsule the same way and it required them to manually connect to the drive in the finder, before being able to play their music.
Is there a password required when connecting to the drive?

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I recently imported all our Cds into iTunes to save space and allow equal access. Our music now exists on ONE external hard drive. Most music tracks were imported from CDs, and therefore we don't have any restrictions who can play them. But then there is the music that either of us bought before and since married with our different User IDs. This means that music can only be accessed if originally bought by that person and on that authorized Mac.
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ps: EULA has destroyed the idea of sharing. Piracy is so much easier with digital files, but knowing that parents can't hand down their music or films etc to their kids is very sad.

You seem to be making quite a few incorrect assumptions in your post.
MarcusOne wrote:
But then there is the music that either of us bought before and since married with our different User IDs. This means that music can only be accessed if originally bought by that person and on that authorized Mac.
Why do you think it means that? (it doesn't)
So what can we do?
Keep the music on a hard drive at home.
Is homesharing a good option? is it a viable option? Doesn't this require both Macs to be open at the same time to enjoy the music?
Yes.
What happens if I go to work with the music hard drive, and my wife needs to listen to tracks?
"The hard drive"? As in a single hard drive? Don't you each have hard drives on own computers? She can listen to all the tracks in her library.
I'd like to clone our music drive so she can access music in this situation, but it wouldn't allow her to listen to music I bought.
Why do you think this? iTunes purchases have been DRM free for almost 5 years.
And even with DRM, just authorize the computer for each others account (which is automatically done when you enable Home Sharing).
What have couples done in the past? Once married, do they create a 'couples' ID and buy music together for the home?
Personally, I would not recommend it. Keep the accounts you have. No sense in tossing another into the mix.
And if so, what about the older music bought with older User IDs?
Just play it.
but knowing that parents can't hand down their music or films etc to their kids is very sad.
Why can't they?

Apple TV, browsing music on home sharing, music stored externally

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