iTunes Sharing across LAN

Westyfield2 · 15 Dec 2014 at 14:47

At home I’ve got one computer with a big iTunes library. On all the other computers on the network, we use iTunes to play the songs from the first computers iTunes library.
This has recently stopped working for one of the home computers. But still works for all the other computers! Has anyone else had anything like this happen before?
I have uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes (and deleted all the leftover files etc.) but it is still not working. So I’m guessing it’s networking or some other program on the computer conflicting. Unfortunately I can’t remember when it failed.
The computer can still the others iTunes library exists, but it just sits there forever on “loading…” with the spinning wheel.

Configuration details:

All computers running the latest version of iTunes (12.0.1)
‘Server’ with shared iTunes library is running Mac OS X
iTunes on Mac hosts can connect to the shared library fine
iTunes on Windows hosts can connect to the shared library fine, apart from
The one problem computer is running Windows 8.1 – it previously worked fine, but has recently stopped working possibly a couple of months ago (not really sure when)

Does anyone have any ideas on what to try? I don’t really know where to start, apart from just uninstalling programs in the order they were recently installed.
Because the problem computer can still see that the shared iTunes library exists (just that it sits there forever “connecting”) I’m assuming that I can rule out any Windows firewall stuff blocking the ports.

McGraw · 15 Dec 2014 at 22:30

Can the win 8.1 machine access files on the itunes machines without using iTunes?

asim18 · 17 Dec 2014 at 00:15

iTunes as a media server is the problem. It's barely a working music player I wouldn't expect it to be able to serve media properly, especially to a Windows client as Apple are known to slow down/cause issues with Windows stuff.

Audigex · 19 Dec 2014 at 16:23

1) Grab plex server
2) Grab the plex client
3) Point the plex server at your iTunes Music folder
4) !?!?
5) Profit

It's an infinitely better solution, and if you set up a firewall rule for plex, it will work outside your home network too

cliffo88 · 19 Dec 2014 at 22:23

asim18 said:
iTunes as a media server is the problem. It's barely a working music player I wouldn't expect it to be able to serve media properly, especially to a Windows client as Apple are known to slow down/cause issues with Windows stuff.

That's a pretty flippant statement...

iTunes is a perfectly capable media server, I've used it for years with many Windowsand linux clients, as do/have many people.

OP - check IPV6 isn't on.