Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with itunes and sharing

How can I get Home Sharing in iTunes to stay connected?

Twicketface — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:54:30 -0800

I can Home Share via iTunes (from PC to laptop), but can't get the connection to stay. I work from home and want to stream music from my (home) PC to my (work) laptop.

Both machines have iTunes installed and I have Home Sharing turned on for the PC (source of music). I can access my all my PC music on my laptop...but only for about three hours at a time (it varies). It will abruptly stop and my PC library no longer shows up on my laptop's Shared area.

I also have the option checked to keep track of play counts (so when I'm done with a podcast on the laptop, it shows the Play count as '1' on the PC's iTunes), but this too works occasionally and inconsistently. I've also tried turning on Home Sharing on the laptop as well (sharing the laptop's library with my PC) but the problem still persists.

My PC is hard wired to the internet and I use WiFi for the laptop. Signal is strong. I've never lost internet connectivity to the laptop (I guess I could have for a second or two without noticing, but I've never had a webpage not load when losing connectivity with iTunes). I have my PC set to never go into sleep mode (I leave it on with the monitor off when I'm working).

Once the connection is lost, if I go back to the PC's iTunes it still shows Home Sharing as turned on. If I turn it off and then turn it back on again, the laptop will 'rediscover' it.

Searching has brought up more issues with AppleTV rather than just home sharing within iTunes. Any help/suggestions is appreciated!

how do I link to a shared playlist in itunes?

dpx.mfx — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:01:51 -0800

iTunes playlist publishing, ping, yikes, help, this shouldn't be so difficult right? I want to put together a list of songs in itunes, and publish it as a play list to 22 other people so they can purchase all the songs in one click. i assume this isn't hard. I see how I can click on a playlist in itunes, and publish the list to my ping profile. But I can't figure out how to send people a link directly to that playlist. Am I missing something? I don't really want them all to have to have ping profiles and follow me and whatnot - they just want the playlist. Please walk me through this like I am dumber than my 21 month old. Thanks :)

(on preview: we wanted to use itunes and not just hand out mix cds; people are willing to pay for the 30-ish tracks; if there is some other solution, i'm open to it).

Is there an easy way to share an iTunes playlist online? (or, help me make some of the people happy some of the time, please.)

TonyRobots — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:20:52 -0800

Is there an easy way to share an iTunes playlist online? I've been tapped to create the playlist(s) for the wedding reception for some friends (I know, I know.) I'd like to be able to share what I have with them ahead of time, to solicit feedback, get buy-in, etc. A textual list won't do; there's a bunch of stuff that might be less familiar to them, and it's (semi-) important to be able to hear the transitions between songs. Is there some easy way to share online?

I know this is the kind of thing that gets the music industry all cranky, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the answer is no, but even a less-than-easy method would be okay, I suppose.

There was once a gloriously simple and elegant site called muxtape, but it's sadly dead. I know about 8tracks.com, but that (I believe) doesn't preserve your track order, nor does it display what's in the playlist until the track has been played. (Though that's not a huge deal, as I could just send a list along with the 8tracks list.) I could be wrong, and if so, that might indeed be the answer. But I'm very curious to hear what AskMe has to say...

Why won't iTunes 9 Home Sharing drag songs?

chazlarson — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:38:31 -0800

Why won't iTunes 9 Home Sharing let my wife drag songs? She can see the [XP] server's library on her Mac, can browse the library, but cannot drag songs into her own library. I'm two states away, and hope for an "Oh, sure, do that"-type answer.

Server: Win XP, running iTunes 9.something.
Client: Mac OS X, running iTunes 9.something.

Both computers are authorized on my iTunes Store account.

On my wife's Mac, the server's library shows up in iTunes. She can browse through songs and select them, but cannot drag them to her own library.

I have watched this work in the past on these two machines.

Any ideas? I'll be home in 10 hours, but if there's an obvious answer I'd like to get it working for her sooner than later.

A Mac, an XP, and a Vista all walk into an Itunes...

nat — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:42:17 -0800

I am having trouble sharing music files in itunes over a wireless network. The three computers involved are a Mac, an XP, and a Vista. There are 3 computers in this house, connected to one wireless network. One Vista (sigh), one XP, one mac. All 3 computers are set in ITunes (8.0.2.23) to both look for shared music libraries and share their own music libraries. The Vista machine can't see the music from the other two properly.

**
Between the Mac and the XP machine, everything is fine. They both see each other's shared music. Additionally, they also both see the Vista's shared music.

**
Between the XP and the Vista machine, The XP sees Vista's music, but the Vista does not see XP's music.

Things I already know are set reasonably:
1) Firewall exceptions for itunes.exe and for Bonjour are set in both Vista and XP machines.
2) I also added an exception for Port 3689 to both machines.
3) The XP machine is visible under "Network" in Vista on the Vista machine. I can see and open the XP machine's normal shared files (does not include Itunes here, but it shouldn't have to) on the Vista.
4) The Vista machine has Network Discovery, File Sharing, Public Folder Sharing (read only), Password protected sharing, and Media Sharing all turned on.

Things I tried which do not work:
1) Turning off firewall on just XP machine entirely
2) Turning off firewall on just vista machine entirely
3) Turning off firewalls on both machines, entirely
4) Cursing furiously, fantasizing about installing a different OS on the Vista machine (might work if I actually did, but I'm still at the fantasizing stage). Subsequently informing the Vista machine that I really do care for it and it shouldn't take my hatred of its operating system personally doesn't help either.

Things I would prefer not to do:
1) Enable sharing through XP on all of my music on that computer, then manually tell ITunes that music exists in the shared folders. Why? well, because I don't store music in one place on XP. It would take a while to find, and I'd have to set a ton of permissions. I'm also not sure that ITunes can add music manually that is in a shared folder on another computer.
**
Between the Mac and the Vista machine, the behavior is a little better. Again, the Mac sees the Vista share just fine. The Vista sees the Mac share when I first load itunes, or when I uncheck and then recheck the "look for shared music libraries" option. If I just sit around and chill, the mac share will disappear after a few minutes. Wierdly, if I play something from the Mac, then the Mac share stays visible indefinitely (or as long as I've had the patience to wait, anyhow). So this is more annoying than actually a problem, but it might help diagnose what the Vista machine's attitude problem is about.

Any ideas? I'm stumped.

How do I turn a text file list of artist & song titles into an iTunes playlist?

mabelstreet — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:22:01 -0800

A friend just posted a list of well-nigh every song they played at the dance club we went to as teenagers, exported from his iTunes. I'd love to somehow be able to have that as a playlist in my iTunes, so I could listen to the collection (at least those in the list that I have on my computer). Already checked this AskMe response, but it doesn't really answer. If there's some better way (e.g. if iTunes has some kind of "send a playlist" option that I don't know about), please tell me that. Thanks!

Share iTunes, with a catch.

kbanas — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:31:09 -0800

What's the best way for my dad to get access to my iTunes library? I recently gave my old MacBook Pro to my dad. On a lark, I installed SimplifyMedia and configured it with my account details so that he could gain access to the music on my home media center PC. I didn't really think he would ever do this, I just kind of did it on an impulse - but it turns out he loves the fairly large selection of music and uses it all the time.

The other day he asked me how he could get my music not just on his MacBook Pro but on his home stereo system. I just so happened to have an old Airport Express sitting in my closet, so I took it over and hooked it up to his stereo and configured it to work with his home WiFi network.

Ta-da!

Except SimplifyMedia is not really doing it for me - or, more precisely, for him. He calls me frequently to complain - songs cut off abruptly, sometimes my library disappears, sometimes it takes a half-hour or more for my library to fully populate, sometimes songs won't play at all... and SimplifyMedia is a pretty "no configuration" application, so when it doesn't work for him, my only real recourse is to reboot my home server and hope that fixes it.

There has to be a better way.

I know there are lots of programs out there (like Firefly and SuperSync) that can basically take your iTunes library file and serve it up via DAAP, and he could get any number of clients to listen this way.... but he would most assuredly then lose the ability to play to the Airport Express. Outputting to that device seems like a pretty specific to iTunes kind of thing, unless there's a way to set the master sound output to use it.

I've also had great success with the Hamachi VPN. If he installed and configured this and joined it to my "VPN Group" then his iTunes would detect my iTunes library via the built-in sharing feature, and he could simply listen this way. Unfortunately, Hamachi on OS X is a total bastard. The GUI front-end that is put out by a 3rd party is buggy and never really works, and the command line setup and configuration is a little too much for my dad to trudge through. I could set it up for him and configure an AppleScript that initializes the connection at startup, but this seems like a recipe for "only works intermittently".

So I don't know. I feel like there has to be a better way to do this. Worst case, I drive over to my dad's and do some configuration myself, but ideally this would be a solution that doesn't have a huge likelihood of completely breaking down.

Any ideas, MeFites?

iTunes Xp and iPhone Remote won't play together

filmgeek — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:05:27 -0800

Can't seem to get this to work. iTunes sharing + iPhone remote - Mac Book Pro works, Xp doesn't; same network. Ideas? MBPro 10.5.6. iTunes 8.0.2 (20)
Xp Service Pack 3. iTunes 8.0.2.22

Generally, the Mac works, the PC doesn't.

iTunes music sharing is on.
The mac shares it's library and pc sees (and can play) fine.
The pc shares it's library and the mac can't see it.

Apple's "remote" app - 1.1.1 (on two iphones, both 2.2)
Both iphones can pair and control the mac (the library name shows up)
Both iphones can PAIR to the pc - but no control (The library name doesn't show up)

I've tried turning on and off XP's firewall. I'm stumped.

Help sharing itunes iphotos

dougiedd — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:25:41 -0800

Help setting up OSX leopard so that my wife can see AND edit all of my iphotos and itunes files?I am the administrator. She shares the same iMac, so this is not a network sharing issue i gather. I have read about 30 articles by googling, all are either pre-leopard or way beyond the understanding of this new iMac owner...use of terminology foreign to a newbie. Thank you!

Help me share.

quarked — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:31:13 -0800

Can I share a streamed-from-home music library with my coworkers via iTunes, without making them install special apps? I've searched the archives, trawled Google, and I still can't solve this.

At home I use a Mac, with a large and well-organized iTunes library. At work I use a PC (WindowsXP), with very little disk space. By using Hamachi, Simplify Media, etc., I can already stream my home library to my work computer using iTunes. But right now I'm the only one who can see that stream.

Can I share it with my coworkers on the local office network using iTunes only? With Hamachi and Simplify, everyone else has to install those programs in order to see my music. I want my home library to be visible to the network (i.e., show up in everyone's iTunes Shared column) without anyone having to do anything special.

Copying the files to the PC is not an option, as there's not nearly enough space. And my iPod is Mac-formatted and only holds about 1/3 of my collection. I want to share all the music I have at home.

Being a lifelong Mac user, Windows does not come naturally to me, and terms like SSH, VPN, and port forwarding make me nervous. (Obviously networking is not my area of expertise.) But I am willing to learn. Can it be done?

iTunes Sharing

four panels — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 15:41:13 -0800

Is there a way to know what songs iTunes is sharing when other users are connected? Like what specific shared songs the connected users listening are to.

Help me share my iPod over my local network through iTunes' sharing function.

fet — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 07:16:45 -0800

Is there any easy way for a PC-user to share their iPod through iTunes sharing without ripping the contents of the iPod to the local machine's disk? I've got a Windows 2000 box at work which I'd prefer not to load with music, and an iPod that I bring in with me daily. I play my music via iTunes, but I'm unable to share the iPod through iTunes sharing to other folks at work. I understand that in OSX one can tick 'enable firewire disk' and 'disable automatic synchronization' in iTunes and have the iPod share, but the equivalent does not seem to exist in Windows. Any thoughts?

itunes sharing

willmillar — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:53:23 -0800

how can i share itunes libraries between a mac and pc? my older brother just went off to college this week. he has a macbook and i have a pc running xp sp2. we are both big music collectors and want to have ongoing access to each others' music libraries - instead of constantly sending and receiving files via a program such as pando. i would use grouper, but there's no osx version to be found. i was thinking about using qnext, but its reviews don't make it sound too promising. i think it would be nice to create my own little p2p network. maybe even invite a friend or two into it. my brother, however isn't too technologically advanced. i doubt he (or even i) could get hamachi for osx up and running (as it doens't have a gui in mac - just a terminal interface).

any suggestions are greatly appreciated. thanks!
-will (and his brother)

note: the majority of the material is recorded in non-drm'ed aac (.m4a) if that makes any difference.

iTunes Laptop/Desktop Blues

abbyladybug — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:21:41 -0800

How do I get iTunes to stop reverting the music folder back to my local laptop drive every time I leave the house? How can I play music that is housed on my desktop from my laptop through my stereo receiver?! I listen to music at home much more than at work. I have a large mp3 collection (12,000+ songs) that I keep on a desktop computer that simply acts as a server. I call it the G drive. I do all my computing on my laptop, which I bring to and from work. Its hard drive is the C drive. In iTunes, I have G:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes as my Music folder location, so that I'm not filling up my laptop hard drive with all these music files. I have both "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" checked in my Advanced preferences. When I listen to music at work (which isn't that often), I'm fine with listening to CD's or my iPod. Home is where music matters.

Here's the problem: Every day I go to work and use my computer, and regardless of whether I actually use iTunes or not, I come home, and the iTunes music folder in Advanced preferences has reverted back to the iTunes folder on the C drive. Every day! It's driving me nuts, and I'm not sure why it does this.

Also, any tips on playing music at home from my laptop through my stereo? I'm pretty sure it's possible because at one time, a friend was able to get music on the desktop computer (the one that acts as a server) to play through the stereo. I just had to log on to that computer remotely and play from iTunes there. Surely, I could do that more directly.

(I do apologize if this has been asked before, but I did look for a while and came up with nothing specifically geared towards my question.)

How do you share 2 iPods and 3 PC's?

zooropa — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 09:38:07 -0800

How do you share 2 iPods and 3 PC's? My fiancee and I are getting married and would like to combine our collections (ah, cohabitational bliss!) Here's the setup:

- 1 Sony laptop (XP, has iTunes,. my iPod setup)
- 1 Dell laptop (XP, doesn't have iTunes or iPod setup yet)
- 1 desktop PC for fiancee (XP, iTunes, her iPod setup)
- 1 shared broadband connection (Comcast cable modem)
- 1 WiFi router (for laptops, desktop connected directly)

As part of getting married, my fiancee and I are starting to combine our music collections. We both have iPods and iTunes setup on our individual machines. We've probably bought about 200 tracks from the iTMS since last year and ripped over 600 CD's (all that we own). Right now, everything is haphazardly spread over her desktop and my laptop, so it's rather unwieldly.

And now, to enter the mix, my employer has provided me with a newish Dell laptop to use for home and work. I'd still like to listen to our music, but I don't want to have to copy over gigs of music to the new hard drive.

Also, our machiens are not networked together yet, so I know I'll have to figure out how to share the two together. We're also thinking of buying a networkable printer to replace the aging EPSON inkjet we have. I don't think you can "share" it, so it makes sense to buy a networked version.

Here's what I'd like to do:

- Put all our tracks on the Sony laptop to act as a Music box/server

- Enable her desktop and my Dell laptop to "share" or access the music seamlessly through our iTunes.

- Set something up so we can play our iTunes on our home stereo in the living room when we have company.

I know there's a lot here, so I appreciate any and all help you can provide. Do I need to de-authorize our machines? Re-authorize them? Do I need to purchase Anapod Explorer or ephPod (or something similar)? Would the AirPort Express work for us?

Thanks in advance.

How do I burn CDs from an iTunes library from a shared library on another computer

melissa — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 16:49:14 -0800

Can I create mp3 CDs in iTunes using music from a shared library on another computer? My husband and I are both running iTunes on our computers (his is running XP Pro, I am running XP Home, and we are both running iTunes 4.7.1.30). He has the majority of the music on his computer. We figured out the sharing stuff so we can play each other's music on either computer, but I can't seem to create a playlist on my computer and add music from his his computer to it. (Clicking and dragging his files to my playlist doesn't seem to work.)

Are we missing (or doing) something really stupid, or is it not possible to create CDs using music from another computer. (We are both new to iTunes, having both been longtime Winamp users.)

The easy answer would of course be to go into my husband's office, create the playlist on his iTunes and burn my CD from there, but then what would the point of sharing the music be?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!