Does home sharing only work if you're connected to the wi-fi?

Does home sharing only work if you're connected to the wi-fi? Im having very sporadic results with this. I thought Apple products worked. Home sharing is not working from my windows operating system to my iPhone 4S nor my iPad.

Hi ccvitality,
If you are having issues with Home Sharing between your Windows machine and your iOS devices, you may find the following article helpful:
Apple Support: Troubleshooting Home Sharing
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2972
Regards,
- Brenden

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Does Home Sharing only work over wi-fi?

This may seem like an odd question, but I think it may be the root of my problem. I have a network that uses three Devolo mains network extenders in various rooms (the house has very thick walls). All three Devolo mains plugs connect (via the ring main) to the router. An iMac, laptops, an Apple TV, iPhones, etc each connect wirelessly to these very happily.
However, no two computers (say an MBA and an iMac) in the same room, or different rooms, can 'see' the other in the normal way - i.e. by having the other device appear in the left hand pane of the finder window. They can, however, if I enter the IP address of the other machine manually. So this is irritating but not insurmountable.
What does appear insurountable though is that, in a similar way, iTunes cannot 'see' any shared libraries across the network. Because of the issue described above, I had assumed that both problems were probably being caused by some sort of issue with the way the Devolo boxes are configured. But then I realised that, even though each device is connecting wirelessly to the Devolo boxes, I don't actually have a wi-fi network in the same sense that I would if I had an Airport-based system...and if Home Sharing only works over wi-fi, this might explain why it doesn't work for me.
Apologies for the rambling question, but given the increasing popularity of these mains network-extender boxes, I feel I can't be alone in experiencing these issues. Can anyone shed any light?

The quick answer to your question is no, for example Home Sharing works over Ethernet as well. Strictly speaking Wi-Fi is not required and iTunes doesn't care either way.
However, I understand that the Devolo mains adapters have problems coping with this. If I had to guess, the problem might be an inability to carry the required bandwidth. The reason for this is that Airtunes is fairly demanding of bandwidth and if your wireless network's performance is degraded due to any number of variables, Airtunes is the first to suffer.
You didn't say what kind of computer or OS you are using but Home Sharing uses TCP port 3689 and UDP ports 123 and 5353 to communicate with shared iTunes libraries. Those ports need to be configured in whatever firewall or security settings you may be using. If you are certain you have those ports open on your shared computers then concentrate on the Devolo adapters. Perhaps they are in need of a firmware update or modification of some configuration setting.

Does Home Share only work when you are at home? Or once you've shared will the music stay on the computer you've shared it with?

I want to use Home Share to share music in i-Tunes between my desk top and my laptop. Does it work once you're not in the same house?

If you use home sharing to transfer music to your laptop, it stays on the laptop and you can take it anywhere.
Look at Understanding Home Sharing: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819 where it says "With Home Sharing, you can stream music and video from one authorized computer to another, or simply drag music between computer libraries. You can also choose to have iTunes automatically import purchases you make on any of your Home Sharing computers to your own library."

Iphone 4: Home Button Not Working. The home button only works when it is connected to iTunes, once i disconnet it does not work, i have tried a restore to factory settings but it still is not working. Any suggestions?

iphone 4: Home Button Not Working. The home button only works when it is connected to iTunes, once i disconnet it does not work, i have tried a restore to factory settings but it still is not working. Any suggestions?

Apple, as I said, does not repair your iPhone. All hardware service issues are handled by replacing the unit. So they can't handle the home-button issue without also addressing the issue of the cracked screen, for which they'll almost certainly charge you. But you can make an appointment at an Apple Store or call Apple tech support and plead your case.
Regards.

Does Home Sharing not work through a network extender?

Home sharing seems to cut out whenever I get into range of my network extender (Airport Express).
Here's my setup, it's pretty standard: Cable modem wired to Airport Extreme router, which is connected wirelessly to the MBP with my iTunes hard drive. All of this is in my living room.
I use the Airport Express to extend my network into the bedrooms.
Whenever I'm home sharing from my iTunes library on my iPhone, if I walk to my bedroom, it cuts out. It usually crashes the iPod app. If it doesn't completely crash it, I can get it to restart buffering if I walk back to the living room.
Does Home Sharing not work with wireless extenders? Do I have to change something in the set up?

However, when a device goes from being attached to one wireless device to another, there is often an interruption as the device must change the radio connection to the network. There is a brief period of no connectivity (a second or two)
Try starting the share while in your bedroom instead of the living room. I'll bet it works.
Makes sense - so it's a bug in the iPhone OS, that it's unable to recover from temporary interruptions to wifi connection?
However, I'm not so sure. Starting the share in the bedroom works as you suggest (since 4.3.2 - didn't under 4.3.1) - but as soon as you go back to the living room and the iPhone connects to a different base station the music stops playing. Note also that the shared library itself ceases to work. So for example you can't be in one room (on the extender) and add the shared library (without actually playing anything yet) then move to another room (on the base station) and play a track from the shared library. It just plays dead and you have to explicitly reload the shared library to get anything to play.
So is it maybe a bug also with iTunes that it can't keep up with a shared library client moving from one wifi station to another?
How do you report these things to the people that matter by the way?

Why does home sharing only list a few of my songs, lots of faults?

I've got a pretty large library where my music is hosted on a PC file server, but iTunes is running on a mac mini.
I've enabled Home sharing, but I get lots of problems.
The iPhone doesn't allways pick up the home sharing and when it loses it I have to power off the phone and then back on again for it to find the shoare again.
When I can see the share and pick a playlist, I only get a few dozen tracks out of a list of thousands
When I play the tracks, nothing happens, it just skips from track to track without doing anything.
All my music is in MP3 format on the server, and iTunes on the mac mini has no problems playing it at all, and if I transfer the music to my iPhone I have no problem at all, it just seems to all revolve around the home sharing not working.
Also, from another PC system I can't see the home share at all. If I select in iTunes on the mac to share the music on the local network then the library appears on the PC under sharing, just not using Home sharing.

Have you synced music to your iPad? If so, look in the MUsic app, not iTunes which is the storefront only.
If you do mean iTunes, then either your other songs were not purchased through iTunes or they were purchased with another Apple ID.

Why does Home Sharing not work on iTunes 10.5.3 between a Windows PC and MacBook Pro?

I have a Dell XPS M1530 laptop which is my older laptop, consisting of all my music, apps and so on. I recently purchased a MacBook Pro (latest version) and would like to use Home Sharing to browse my music libraries and so on on there. However, I find that I am unable to do this, after several methods I have attempted in order to resolve this issue.
The Home Sharing on the left column does not appear at all.
I have upgraded iTunes on both laptops to the latest version yesterday, which I assume is iTunes version 10.5.3.
I have turned off Home Sharing, and turned it on a few times.
I use the same Apple ID to log in to Home Sharing.
I named both playlists/music libraries to the same name - not sure if this is a way to 'fix' the problem but I saw it in a thread.
I tried all the above methods, but to no avail. Home Sharing still does not work - in fact, it does not even appear on the left column; it disappears as soon as I turn on Home Sharing.
Help is very muchly appreciated.
Thank you very much!

First, each Library should have a unique name, not the same name.
Now, I wrote an extensive how-to in another thread that explains Home Sharing, Library Sharing, how to turn them on and identify them and so on. See if it helps you with your problem.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3461734

Why does home sharing stop working?

Home sharing with my windows 7 desktop suddenly stopped working about 2 months ago. I went through the recommended steps online for troubleshooting home sharing but that did not help. A friend said I should uninstall and then reinstall iTunes which works the first time I connect via Apple TV. The second time I turn on Apple TV, home sharing does not work; i.e. it will not connect. I should remark that uninstalling and then reinstalling ITunes does not always work in allowing home sharing to make the connection. Any ideas to try?

I have had the same frustrations for months. Then I read a suggestion and tried it and it worked, at least for me. Here is what you do.
Go to Control Panel
Then click Network and Internet
Then Network Sharing Center
Under Connections, click your internet connection.
In the pop up box click on "properties" and when the box pops up, say yes.
Then uncheck Internet Protocol Version 6 and click the okay box.
After I did that mine started working and has worked even after turning off itunes and getting back in.
I hope this works for you.

Why does home-sharing not work with Windows-PC and iMac?

Aber mit gleichem Windows-PC und MacBookPro doch? Alles im selben Neztwerk. Der PC erscheint beim iMac einfach nicht unter Freigaben. Der iMac erscheint zwar beim PC unter Freigaben, aber wenn man auf die Mediathek des iMac in der PC-Anzeige klickt, erscheint der bunte Drehball und nach einer Weile ist die Anzeige des iMac in der Rubrik Freigabe beim PC nicht mehr da. Erst nach Neustart des PC erscheint der iMac dort wieder. So nutzt mir das gar nichts. Die Einkäufe werden automatisch auf allen drei Geräten aktualisiert.
Sämtliche "Hilfen" habe ich durchsucht, aber ohne Erfolg. Es klappt einfach nicht mit der Freigabe.
Vielleicht ist es ja möglich, eine deutsche Antwort zu bekommen.
Ich kann mir auch gut vorstellen, dass ein solches Forum in Deutschland gut genutzt würde. Es ist sehr schade, dass es das nicht gibt. Aber vielleicht kommt soetwas ja irgenwann einmal. Jetzt wo auch in Deutschland an jeder Ecke Apple-Produkte zu kaufen sind und keine Exoten mehr darstellen.
Vielen Dank im voraus.

First, each Library should have a unique name, not the same name.
Now, I wrote an extensive how-to in another thread that explains Home Sharing, Library Sharing, how to turn them on and identify them and so on. See if it helps you with your problem.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3461734

Why does home sharing not work endless both itunes are open?

Why doesn't it?
I was orginally asking how to fix it, but I saw those other posts on the right hand side and I guess It was always opened on both.
Why's it have to be like that? It can't just send a signal or something?

Winston Churchill wrote:
Welcome to the Apple Community.
I'm not sure it's all that realistic to expect something to work when it's turned off. Both devices need to be running iTunes in order for homesharing to work.
Mavericks server app not only doesn't need to be running, the account its on needn't even be logged in. Ideally, iTunes would use some kind of helper app to feed the data without the iTunes interface running, which is not then needed. But I can see from Apple's perspective how it might create user confusion.

Will Apple tv ONLY work with an HDMI connection on the tv?

My television has one HDMI port and it is connected to my Bose setup. If I get an Apple TV, will that also have to be connected to the same HDMI port? Or, can it work connected to the "old fashioned" video and audio ports?

The 2nd and 3rd generation Apple TV need a HDTV to be used, so you need a HDMI port on the TV to connect the Apple TV

Why does my audio only work when i put water on the audio plug?

whenever i want to listen to music, i have to put water, or some liquid on the TRS (audio plug for earphones) for it to work. It will not detect an earphone without water. There is NOTHING wrong with my earphones, they work in other things without water. They are iFrogz. I need help really bad because i dont want to carry a water bottle on the bus and dip my cord in it JUST to listen to music. It is really annoying
Ipod Nano 7g Blue

It sounds like a hardware problem, so it's probably not something that can be solved without repair (or replacement). There may be a fault in the headphones jack that affects contact with headphones plug. Water is an electrical conductor, so it improves the connection enough so it works temporarily. That's my theory... But because water is an electrical conductor, it can cause a short circuit that may damage the iPod. That's why the warranty is voided if you accidentally get your iPod wet.
You can check your current warrany coverage with the iPod's serial number, here
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
I believe Apple uses the serial number most of the time, to verify coverage. If you have an Apple Store nearby, there are Apple tech support staff at the store's Genius Bar. You can make a reservation (to avoid a wait) using the store's web page.
http://www.apple.com/retail/
Otherwise, you can contact Apple tech support through the "Contact Us" web page
http://www.apple.com/contact/

Have to restart Apple TV to get Home Sharing to work, iTunes 12, Yosemite

I am running Yosemite 10.10.2 and the latest Apple TV software 7.0.3 and using the latest build up iTunes 12.
Nearly every time I sit down at the Apple TV to connect to my iMac through the home sharing system that is accessed when you click "Computer" on the Apple TV, I am unable to load video content. The videos just load (spin) forever. My Apple TV has a wired connection to a Apple Router being used as a Ethernet hub. Everything has a wired connection, but Home sharing only works intermittently. The sure fire fix is restarting the Apple TV which will restore connectivity. I have had this exact same set up for a while but have only recently experienced this issue after upgrading to Yosemite and iTunes 12.
I have tried changing the name of he iMac which restored connectivity after Yosemite was loaded initially, but I am still unable to figure out why I have to restart my Apple TV every time to get home sharing to work.

On the ATV go to settings and test your network. You must choose the proper network speed you have, its mostly a guess so you'll need to try again if needed. Once done then sign out of home share on the ATV and on the Mac then sign back in and finish by restarting the ATV. This was my sequence of events to get home sharing to work. Airplay is a good backup though.

HT202213 Does Home Sharing use up data allowance?

Hi,
Does Home Sharing use up broadband data allowance, or is the data streamed between iMac and Apple TV kept just within the home using the wireless router? I'm unsure as the info on Apple's site says homesharing requires an active internet connection.
All I really want to do is stream photos and music from my Mac to the HDTV as it has the sound system hooked up to it. I don't want to have to use iCloud for this, as I don't believe the satellite connection is consistent enough.
I'm concerned as I only have a 3GB monthly allowance, and am on satellite broadband, so service is a bit patchy.
Any thoughts/solutions greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the Apple Community.
NZAidan wrote:
Hi,
Does Home Sharing use up broadband data allowance
No

HT4557 Does home sharing work for apps? The instructions make it sound as though home sharing really only allows you to stream content.

Does home sharing work for apps? My young son received iPad mini for Christmas, and I don't want him to have to repurchase the games and other raps I'd already bought for him that are resident on my iPad.

does Home Sharing allow you to copy any item begtween libraries, including CDs you have ripped yourself
It certainly allows you to copy ripped CDs. Just did that myself last week.

Does home sharing only work if you're connected to the wi-fi?

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