Apple TV not showing up in iTunes
Recently, I got my Apple TV back from repair. After setting up the wireless network connection and trying to connect it to the shared iTunes library on my Mac I was expecting it to show up in iTunes so I could enter the key to pair both devices. Apple TV usually shows up within seconds in iTunes. Not this time! No matter what I did, it just wouldn’t show up. I rebooted the Mac a dozen times, made sure the Mac OS X firewall is disabled, rebooted Apple TV, set Apple TV back to factory settings, restored it to the initial firmware release, upgraded the firmware again, ran it in diagnostics mode, moved it closer to my Wi-Fi access point, made sure the checkbox in iTunes was set to discover Apple TVs, made sure my iTunes library was shared on the local network… all to no avail.
After three hours of investigation I found out that one reason was a setting called Block wireless bridging I (stupidly) activated the other day on my router/access point without precisely knowing what it does :-) I thought it would do something else but according to the manual, this is what it does: it isolates all wireless clients on your network from each other. Wired clients will be seen and internet access works from Wi-Fi clients but you’re unable to see other wireless network clients on the same local network.
But guess what, even after fixing this issue, Apple TV still wouldn’t show up in iTunes. I had a look at my Mac’s log files and found some mDNSresponder warnings in it. I installed a Bonjour browser and sure enough, Apple TV didn’t show up in the list of devices even though I was able to ping it. So it seemed that there was some kind of Bonjour related problem on my Mac. I then downloaded the Bonjour conformance test:
http://developer.apple.com/networking/bonjour/ConformanceTest-1_2_3.zip
Ran it with sudo ./BonjourConformanceTest -I en0 -L p -M hu
(It will ask you for your root password)
and while the conformance test was still running, Apple TV suddenly showed up in iTunes and the Bonjour browser! I entered the 5-digit code displayed on Apple TV to pair it and now it all works as expected. Apple TV shows up in iTunes every time. Somehow the conformance test fixed whatever was wrong with Bonjour on my Mac.
I have been having the same problem and it has been driving me nuts, so I was glad to read your post.
I tried (to the best of my meager unix ability) to execute your fix, but I got the following message:
“No active interface en0 found with assigned IPv4 address”
I checked my DHCP settings and I do have an IP address (and all Internet apps are working fine). Any thoughts?
Thanks,
John
John, you could try en1 as well if en0 ist not working.
Just to let anyone who reads this great solution know, most wireless routers / access points call this option “AP Isolation”. It just means the access point / router tries to prevent wireless devices from seeing each other or being seen by other network devices. It is hardly consistent and this is why ping works fine. Turning it off should not have any serious effect for a home wireless network - and if you are using WEP/WPA/WPA2 (and you absolutely should be) then the security risk is virtually nothing.
I cannot stress what a great find this was, as quite a lot of people have been having the problem.
Regarding the Bonjour fix, another “fast” solution on a Mac is to open the Utilities - Activity Monitor and do a Quit on the mDNSresponder service. It will restart automatically and force a refresh of the Bonjour scan.
I have done what you have said above and still no luck. I’m using a linksys wrt54g router v4. It use to work and I don’t know what has happened. I connected my macbook directly with an ethernet cable and it worked fine. My G5 is connecting the network via wireless. I think it might have been when Cox ISP went down. I restarted the router, modem, G5, apple tv, restored ATV to factory. nothing is working. SO FREAKING MAD!!
Well, not sure if that fixed it but it works now. It’s been days. Thanks.
@Tim,
THANK YOU! Quiting the mDNSresponder activity did the trick for me.
mDNSresponder doen’t show up on my activity monitor…so no quitting that. What the hell? Why do I run updates. Damn thing ran fine before I updated!
Ran the process.
stays in listening… device not responding or something like that. What am I missing?