iTunes Home Sharing and PC Sleep Issue - Blu-ray Forum

PCFan · 10-29-2017, 03:54 AM

I'm using an Apple TV (4th Gen) as my streaming player and my PC with Windows 10 Home installed as my iTunes media server. When Home Sharing to my Apple TV through the Computers app, about 20 minutes after the movie I'm watching is fully cached in the internal storage of the Apple TV, my PC goes to sleep mode and as a result the movie stops playing and I get disconnected from Home Sharing. This happened when my PC was set to go to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity. So I set my PC to never go to sleep as a workaround. Is there a way to set the stream speed on my local network to only go as fast as it's needed for the movie I'm watching so that my PC does not end up going into an inactive state while I'm still watching a movie through Home Sharing to my Apple TV but still have sleep mode set to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity? The Quick Start setting on my Apple TV I have set to on and it only works for the TV app, and the iTunes Movies and TV apps but not the Computers app on my Apple TV.

Vor4 · 10-29-2017, 05:25 AM

Change the Windows 10 advanced power settings for turn off hard disk when plugged in to never and turn off sleep > sleep after when plugged to never.

PCFan · 10-29-2017, 11:38 PM

I noticed today that iTunes did not record my resume point in a tv episode during home sharing through the Computers app on my Apple TV. So I had to search manually in the episode where I left off watching. Also when I went to check the status of iTunes on my PC, it showed duplicate movies, one that I downloaded and one in the cloud for recent downloads I did. Why was a resume point where I left off watching not recorded in the episode I was not done watching?

PCFan · 10-29-2017, 11:51 PM

Also I have disabled Windows 10 auto updates in Windows 10 Home through Services. However, I read that you can't really disable Windows auto updates in the Home edition and can only defer them in the Pro edition. Is it possible that Windows 10 Home did an auto update and then did a reboot while I left my PC running for a few hours unattended while iTunes on my PC was running. I always had issues with resume points disappearing if I restarted my PC without closing iTunes properly. I have a retail copy of the Pro edition which I'm not currently using but I currently have the Home edition install on this PC.

shinobipopcorn · 10-30-2017, 12:51 AM

Newer Windows versions are a pain for user control. Updates will happen whether you want them to or not, and it's possible they did mess your system up.

As far as sleeping goes, I don't know how much control they give you, but at least on 7 you could customize a little more between 20 minutes and never. I'd set your sleep preferences to something like 3 hours, or whatever the length of the longest movie you usually watch. (I used to use Titanic as a reference, but not everyone watches that one anymore. Maybe Captain America: Civil War? Seven Samurai?

)

D00mM4r1n3 · 10-30-2017, 03:34 AM

Someone got Bonjour Wake On Demand to work with Kodi, presumably it would work with iTunes Home Sharing as well since that is already supported on Macs. Source: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=205044

Quote:

I recently set up my windows xbmc/kodi machine to automatically wake from sleep when I select it as the airplay output on any of my apple devices (iphone, ipad etc). Now the HTPC can save energy by sleeping when idle but it remains available as an Airplay target, waking up when needed. Most of the info out there seems to suggest that the Bonjour Sleep Proxy technology behind this feature only works with macs so I thought I'd share how I did this.

Your kodi machine must be capable of Wake on LAN and have the feature enabled in the BIOS. I've only tested this with a wired ethernet connection. It probably won't work for wifi networked boxes as Wireless wake on LAN requires both motherboard support and a WiFi adapter that supports the WMM (wireless multimedia) extensions. Recent apple laptops & desktops support wireless wake but it's pretty rare on other PCs.
You need a networked apple device that is always switched on and connected to the network to act as the sleep proxy server, an airport express or extreme, apple tv, time capsule, even an apple desktop will work (with some additional configuration) - though you're obviously best off with one of the low power devices if saving energy is the goal.
Download and install the Bonjour SDK for windows. The standard Bonjour for windows does not include the Bonjour control panel applet that lets you enable wake on demand. To download the SDK you have to sign up as an apple developer.
Open the Bonjour control panel applet and activate "Enable Wake on Demand".

PCFan · 10-31-2017, 10:14 PM

I noticed now that sometimes while home sharing to my Apple TV, resume points don't get added when I stop playing a movie or TV Show and it's not always because of my PC resetting without a proper close of iTunes but not closing iTunes before restarting or shutting down my PC shows consistency to this issue I'm having with home sharing. Also I experience the same issue with the TV app on the Apple TV sometimes not adding resume points in movie and TV shows and sometimes and also not updating my Up Next list. Also going back to just cloud streaming through iTunes store is not what I want to do because sometimes I have issues loading my purchased movies from the iTunes store. Also I'm not going back to Vudu either as my main streaming provider due to issues I had with that service in the past. At this point I'm not sure if I should continue making digital purchases. I'm tempted to buy a 4k Blu-ray Player and to go back to purchasing physical media.

Vor4 · 10-31-2017, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCFan

I noticed now that sometimes while home sharing to my Apple TV, resume points don't get added when I stop playing a movie or TV Show and it's not always because of my PC resetting without a proper close of iTunes but not closing iTunes before restarting or shutting down my PC shows consistency to this issue I'm having with home sharing. Also I experience the same issue with the TV app on the Apple TV sometimes not adding resume points in movie and TV shows and sometimes and also not updating my Up Next list. Also going back to just cloud streaming through iTunes store is not what I want to do because sometimes I have issues loading my purchased movies from the iTunes store. Also I'm not going back to Vudu either as my main streaming provider due to issues I had with that service in the past. At this point I'm not sure if I should continue making digital purchases. I'm tempted to buy a 4k Blu-ray Player and to go back to purchasing physical media.

Read this article: http://www.aiseesoft.com/resource/it...t-working.html

BlakkMajik3000 · 10-31-2017, 10:40 PM

I use a W10 desktop for Home Sharing. Haven't had any issues with it going to sleep. Then again, it's a gaming rig so it's on a "Performance" power setting. The only problem I'm having is that my movies are stored on an external drive with an aggressive spin-down setting that I can't be bothered to mess with (requires use of a BIOS tool), so sometimes it will take a while for a movie to start since it has to wait for the drive to spin up. I plan on getting some drives that are more suited to serving media at some point.

iTunes is barely passable on Windows machines. On my Macbooks, however, iTunes works flawlessly, but I guess that's to be expected. My long-term plan is to get a Mac Mini and use that as my iTunes media server, but the boss (wife) won't yet approve the purchase.

As far as updates, I've had a couple of situations where Windows will just update, even though it's supposed to ask me to install updates. I only seem to be able to "defer" updates if I'm actively using the computer when the message pops up. This rarely happens because Macbook.

PCFan · 10-31-2017, 11:23 PM

It seems that if I play a downloaded iTunes purchased movie directly through the iTunes app on my PC instead of the Apple TV, it will retain the resume point even if I restart my PC without closing iTunes first, just not when home sharing to my Apple TV. I have to actually close the iTunes app on my PC before shutting down or restarting my PC if I was watching the movie through the Apple TV's Computers App so that I can retain my resume points most of the time.

PCFan · 10-31-2017, 11:26 PM

I was wondering if the resume points stay in RAM if home sharing to the Apple TV and only get recorded to disk once I do a proper iTunes app close on the PC or if there is some kind of communication issue with home sharing between my PC and my Apple TV?

shinobipopcorn · 11-01-2017, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlakkMajik3000

I use a W10 desktop for Home Sharing. Haven't had any issues with it going to sleep. Then again, it's a gaming rig so it's on a "Performance" power setting. The only problem I'm having is that my movies are stored on an external drive with an aggressive spin-down setting that I can't be bothered to mess with (requires use of a BIOS tool), so sometimes it will take a while for a movie to start since it has to wait for the drive to spin up. I plan on getting some drives that are more suited to serving media at some point.

iTunes is barely passable on Windows machines. On my Macbooks, however, iTunes works flawlessly, but I guess that's to be expected. My long-term plan is to get a Mac Mini and use that as my iTunes media server, but the boss (wife) won't yet approve the purchase.

As far as updates, I've had a couple of situations where Windows will just update, even though it's supposed to ask me to install updates. I only seem to be able to "defer" updates if I'm actively using the computer when the message pops up. This rarely happens because Macbook.

Just to note, haven't had this problem on my Mac Mini but I did on one of my Macbooks. I had upgraded the stock hard drive on one of them using a WD drive from Best Buy, I think it was a 1TB that just said "laptop" (no colors like "WD green" on the box but it said Mac compatible). WD apparently programmed it to spin down after 20 seconds, and it was causing me grief. I remember some terminal commands fixed it, but apparently this was a known issue.

PCFan · 11-04-2017, 05:51 AM

I now just use hibernation instead of sleep because hibernation does not kick in when I'm home sharing even when the movie is cached after 10 minutes which is what I set my PC to hibernate to. I'm also using Windows 10 Pro instead of Home now on this PC. I find myself having to restart iTunes on my PC often to get movies to load up on my Apple TV 4k otherwise the loading won't end. I had the same issue with my Apple TV 4th Gen. The server in my network is seen by my Apple TV but the movies won't load sometimes. This is an inconvenience. Does iTunes on the Mac sometimes has to be restarted in order to get movies to load successfully on the Apple TV for home sharing as well?

PCFan · 11-06-2017, 10:18 PM

Well, now recently even hibernation will hibernate my PC while still home sharing to my Apple TV about 20 minutes after the movie has been fully cached in the Apple TV's internal storage with hibernation set to 15 minutes in the Windows power settings. So Windows Pro is not different than Home in hiberating/sleep while I'm doing home sharing and I need iTunes still up and running on my PC even when the movie is fully cached on the Apple TV. Also sometimes I either have to turn off and sign back on to home sharing on my Apple TV to get my iTunes library on my hard drive connected to my PC detected or I sometimes have to exit and restart iTunes on my PC to get my iTunes library on my hard drive connected to my PC detected. I was once advised by Apple support to download my movies and not rely on the iTunes store as storage, but I find iTunes home sharing less reliable than just simply streaming directly from the iTunes store. I just want my PC to act like an iTunes server without manual user interaction within the interface but with the issues I'm having with iTunes home sharing sometimes not detecting my iTunes library in the Computers app on my Apple TV, it's not possible.

10-29-2017, 03:54 AM	#1
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	iTunes Home Sharing and PC Sleep Issue I'm using an Apple TV (4th Gen) as my streaming player and my PC with Windows 10 Home installed as my iTunes media server. When Home Sharing to my Apple TV through the Computers app, about 20 minutes after the movie I'm watching is fully cached in the internal storage of the Apple TV, my PC goes to sleep mode and as a result the movie stops playing and I get disconnected from Home Sharing. This happened when my PC was set to go to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity. So I set my PC to never go to sleep as a workaround. Is there a way to set the stream speed on my local network to only go as fast as it's needed for the movie I'm watching so that my PC does not end up going into an inactive state while I'm still watching a movie through Home Sharing to my Apple TV but still have sleep mode set to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity? The Quick Start setting on my Apple TV I have set to on and it only works for the TV app, and the iTunes Movies and TV apps but not the Computers app on my Apple TV.

10-29-2017, 05:25 AM	#2
Vor4 Active Member Member since:Aug 2009	Change the Windows 10 advanced power settings for turn off hard disk when plugged in to never and turn off sleep > sleep after when plugged to never.

10-29-2017, 11:38 PM	#3
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	I noticed today that iTunes did not record my resume point in a tv episode during home sharing through the Computers app on my Apple TV. So I had to search manually in the episode where I left off watching. Also when I went to check the status of iTunes on my PC, it showed duplicate movies, one that I downloaded and one in the cloud for recent downloads I did. Why was a resume point where I left off watching not recorded in the episode I was not done watching?

10-29-2017, 11:51 PM	#4
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	Also I have disabled Windows 10 auto updates in Windows 10 Home through Services. However, I read that you can't really disable Windows auto updates in the Home edition and can only defer them in the Pro edition. Is it possible that Windows 10 Home did an auto update and then did a reboot while I left my PC running for a few hours unattended while iTunes on my PC was running. I always had issues with resume points disappearing if I restarted my PC without closing iTunes properly. I have a retail copy of the Pro edition which I'm not currently using but I currently have the Home edition install on this PC.

10-30-2017, 12:51 AM	#5
shinobipopcorn Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Jan 2017 Location:Cow Country Home Theater Gallery:11 4K collection:75 Blu-ray collection:438 DVD collection:304 MA collection:266 Digital collection:303 iTunes collection:238 Blu-ray reviews: 30 Trading Score:6	Newer Windows versions are a pain for user control. Updates will happen whether you want them to or not, and it's possible they did mess your system up. As far as sleeping goes, I don't know how much control they give you, but at least on 7 you could customize a little more between 20 minutes and never. I'd set your sleep preferences to something like 3 hours, or whatever the length of the longest movie you usually watch. (I used to use Titanic as a reference, but not everyone watches that one anymore. Maybe Captain America: Civil War? Seven Samurai? )

10-31-2017, 10:14 PM	#7
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	I noticed now that sometimes while home sharing to my Apple TV, resume points don't get added when I stop playing a movie or TV Show and it's not always because of my PC resetting without a proper close of iTunes but not closing iTunes before restarting or shutting down my PC shows consistency to this issue I'm having with home sharing. Also I experience the same issue with the TV app on the Apple TV sometimes not adding resume points in movie and TV shows and sometimes and also not updating my Up Next list. Also going back to just cloud streaming through iTunes store is not what I want to do because sometimes I have issues loading my purchased movies from the iTunes store. Also I'm not going back to Vudu either as my main streaming provider due to issues I had with that service in the past. At this point I'm not sure if I should continue making digital purchases. I'm tempted to buy a 4k Blu-ray Player and to go back to purchasing physical media.

10-31-2017, 10:40 PM	#9
BlakkMajik3000 Expert Member Member since:Apr 2014 Location:479 via 318 4K collection:12 Blu-ray collection:481 DVD collection:89 MA collection:1004 Digital collection:12 iTunes collection:418 Trading Score:97	I use a W10 desktop for Home Sharing. Haven't had any issues with it going to sleep. Then again, it's a gaming rig so it's on a "Performance" power setting. The only problem I'm having is that my movies are stored on an external drive with an aggressive spin-down setting that I can't be bothered to mess with (requires use of a BIOS tool), so sometimes it will take a while for a movie to start since it has to wait for the drive to spin up. I plan on getting some drives that are more suited to serving media at some point. iTunes is barely passable on Windows machines. On my Macbooks, however, iTunes works flawlessly, but I guess that's to be expected. My long-term plan is to get a Mac Mini and use that as my iTunes media server, but the boss (wife) won't yet approve the purchase. As far as updates, I've had a couple of situations where Windows will just update, even though it's supposed to ask me to install updates. I only seem to be able to "defer" updates if I'm actively using the computer when the message pops up. This rarely happens because Macbook.

10-31-2017, 11:23 PM	#10
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	It seems that if I play a downloaded iTunes purchased movie directly through the iTunes app on my PC instead of the Apple TV, it will retain the resume point even if I restart my PC without closing iTunes first, just not when home sharing to my Apple TV. I have to actually close the iTunes app on my PC before shutting down or restarting my PC if I was watching the movie through the Apple TV's Computers App so that I can retain my resume points most of the time.

10-31-2017, 11:26 PM	#11
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	I was wondering if the resume points stay in RAM if home sharing to the Apple TV and only get recorded to disk once I do a proper iTunes app close on the PC or if there is some kind of communication issue with home sharing between my PC and my Apple TV?

11-04-2017, 05:51 AM	#13
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	I now just use hibernation instead of sleep because hibernation does not kick in when I'm home sharing even when the movie is cached after 10 minutes which is what I set my PC to hibernate to. I'm also using Windows 10 Pro instead of Home now on this PC. I find myself having to restart iTunes on my PC often to get movies to load up on my Apple TV 4k otherwise the loading won't end. I had the same issue with my Apple TV 4th Gen. The server in my network is seen by my Apple TV but the movies won't load sometimes. This is an inconvenience. Does iTunes on the Mac sometimes has to be restarted in order to get movies to load successfully on the Apple TV for home sharing as well?

11-06-2017, 10:18 PM	#14
PCFan Expert Member Member since:Oct 2008 Trading Score:202	Well, now recently even hibernation will hibernate my PC while still home sharing to my Apple TV about 20 minutes after the movie has been fully cached in the Apple TV's internal storage with hibernation set to 15 minutes in the Windows power settings. So Windows Pro is not different than Home in hiberating/sleep while I'm doing home sharing and I need iTunes still up and running on my PC even when the movie is fully cached on the Apple TV. Also sometimes I either have to turn off and sign back on to home sharing on my Apple TV to get my iTunes library on my hard drive connected to my PC detected or I sometimes have to exit and restart iTunes on my PC to get my iTunes library on my hard drive connected to my PC detected. I was once advised by Apple support to download my movies and not rely on the iTunes store as storage, but I find iTunes home sharing less reliable than just simply streaming directly from the iTunes store. I just want my PC to act like an iTunes server without manual user interaction within the interface but with the issues I'm having with iTunes home sharing sometimes not detecting my iTunes library in the Computers app on my Apple TV, it's not possible.

Best iTunes Movie Deals