iOS TV App Breaks Home Sharing

[Jason Woerner]

Thought I'd start a thread on this forum, as I see it in many other places with little to no expert analysis.

 

Since the release of the TV app, and its replacement of the Video app on iOS, I have been unable to get Home Sharing to work with video content.

 

I have iTunes (12.5.5) running on a mini. Home Sharing is turned on. I use an AppleTV 4th and can connect using the Computers app to this shared library no problem, see and play my mostly DVD-ripped movie collection.

 

The TV app on iOS, however, is broken. My Shared Library shows up in the TV app, which is signed in to the proper iCloud account, but touching the name of the library on the iPad does nothing at all, and touching it on an iPhone SE brings me to a new screen and a spinning "wait" icon, but that lasts forever. Neither app can produce a list of my shared video content.

 

Can anyone elaborate on their own experiences here?

[kirkmc]

I've had that problem for years, even with the previous Videos app.

[Jason Woerner]

Hmm... disconcerting. I'm wondering if it's solely an issue with a video library that numbers in the hundreds, or if it just never works. Real shame that a major malfunction like this can last for years, and through to a new application, not to mention major OS revision.

 

More glaringly, sorting Movies in iTunes is broken. Make a playlist with movies and sort by Title or Year. Interesting results. Seems like this might be easy to fix, but what do I know.

[kirkmc]

My video library in iTunes is small; most of my videos - those not brought from the iTunes Store - are in Plex. It's the music library that screws things up. The iOS device has to load the entire library file, not just the info for the videos.