Moved iTunes library, now movies won't stream to Apple TV

gordol

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I moved my iTunes library from my system drive to a second hard drive due to space issues. Now that I've done that, I'm having streaming failures on movies and longer TV shows.

The break point appears to be right at or around 1GB in file size, as a 997MB title will stream, but a 1.2GB title will not.

The two hard drives are, for all intents and purposes, identical. They are both 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black drives, purchased at about the same time, a few years ago, and have been working fine since. The one the library now resides on was originally being used with my system backup solution in an external dock. I did a quick-format in Windows when I moved it internally.
 

pkcable

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This only happens on the new drive? And only on movies above 1GB? So we have ruled out a permissions issue right? As some movies do work? My next thought would be a bandwidth issue, what kind of wifi network do you have?
 

gordol

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The problem only started when I moved the library to this drive.
The LAN is a wired 100Mbs network. Router upstairs with the PC, dumb hub downstairs for the ATV and Bluray. All cables are CAT5 or higher.
There is over 300GB free on the disk, over 500GB free on the system disk. Before the move, with everything on the system disk, there was only about 90GB free.
If it's a permissions issue, I would be beyond surprised. The common item in what does and does not work is size based.
The drive is NTFS.
My external drive has enough free space, I could copy the contents to the external, do a full reformat and copy back if that would help (I doubt it, but at worst, it would only cost time).
Could it be the SATA socket on the motherboard? I have three more to choose from.


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Trees

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Event viewer may help provide some clues around the time that the streaming stops.

If I understand correctly, the "new" drive containing the moved iTunes library is external to your PC. Is the external dock USB 2.0?

Was moving the library to the external drive the only thing (variable) that has changed from when streaming was working to a not working state?

At what point do either file size (greater or less than 1GB) fail to stream? Do they both fail around the same timeframe/amount of data streamed?
 

gordol

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Event viewer may help provide some clues around the time that the streaming stops.
I doubt it, but I'll check.
If I understand correctly, the "new" drive containing the moved iTunes library is external to your PC. Is the external dock USB 2.0?
I said the drive is mounted internally. I also said that everything is SATA.
Was moving the library to the external drive the only thing (variable) that has changed from when streaming was working to a not working state?
Moving the library to the second drive is the only thing that changed.
At what point do either file size (greater or less than 1GB) fail to stream? Do they both fail around the same timeframe/amount of data streamed?
Immediately. It goes through the motions, but the movie never starts. The scrub bar appears, but the spinner never goes away and the download progress meter never moves.


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Trees

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Thanks for the clarifications. If you copy one of the files that fails from the "new" internal drive over to the external drive, would this fail as before? Per your thoughts that perhaps somethings up with the system board/SATA controller/2nd "new" drive, drivers, etc.; this may help to further isolate the problem. This assumes that the external drive is of equivalent specifications as the original and "new" internal drives such that the external drive does not introduce a new bottleneck or surface other problems. But, may not hurt to try that in an effort to narrow down options.
 

gordol

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Thanks for the clarifications. If you copy one of the files that fails from the "new" internal drive over to the external drive, would this fail as before?
Unknown. There is no realistic way to do that, certainly not without losing the metadata of the testing video as it's in the iTunes library. To move a single file back to the system drive, I'd have to change settings in iTunes, remove the file from the library and re-add it in the new location. I will lose the iTunes data about the file in the process. And there is now not enough free space on the system drive to move the library back, as I was critically low on free space there (which is what prompted the move) and I've been continuing to add videos to the library (TV disks, ripped they're small enough to stream but there's a bunch of them...)
Per your thoughts that perhaps somethings up with the system board/SATA controller/2nd "new" drive, drivers, etc.; this may help to further isolate the problem. This assumes that the external drive is of equivalent specifications as the original and "new" internal drives such that the external drive does not introduce a new bottleneck or surface other problems. But, may not hurt to try that in an effort to narrow down options.
I'm beginning to regret ever saying the word "external". The drive USED TO BE in an external dock. I've said and repeated a few times that it is now INTERNAL. I moved it to inside the case when I did the library move. I also said that this drive is the same brand, model and capacity as the system disk.

My time for computer surgery is limited during the week. I probably won't be able to test it on other SATA sockets until the weekend.

I can narrow down the break point in file size a bit more now. In testing specifically to see if anything would show up in the Event Viewer, my first selected stream attempt succeeded on a 1.206GB movie, and it still failed on a 1.265GB movie.
 

Trees

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Sorry, my confusion. I mistakenly thought that a third drive would be available for external use. Understood on the drive history and current state.

Appreciate the complexity and time investment involved in troubleshooting situations like these. I've had more than my share, so can relate.

Wish I could help more, but at this point out of ideas.
 

gordol

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A third drive is available, my new 2TB external currently has 1.07TB free. Yes, this is a time-intensive troubleshoot.

Well then, here's my plan, feel free to comment with other suggestions:

I'll move the library to the external tonight, it'll take a while so I'll set that on my way to bed.
Tomorrow evening, I'll test the streaming. Regardless of the outcome, this weekend, I'll move the internal drive's cable to a different SATA socket. While I have the case open, I should also check the jumpers on the drive, just to make sure I'm not missing something that stupidly basic.

If all that fails, I'll have to contact Apple Support.


Double ROT13 encrypted for your protection
 

gordol

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I think I solved it, and it was a drive issue. Or a cable issue. Or a mainboard issue.

I replaced the SATA cable and moved it to another socket on the mainboard, and it appears to be working properly now.
 

pkcable

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I think I solved it, and it was a drive issue. Or a cable issue. Or a mainboard issue.

I replaced the SATA cable and moved it to another socket on the mainboard, and it appears to be working properly now.

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Sometimes you just have to start replacing stuff and eventually it gets fixed. We may never know exactly what it was but at least you got it working!
 

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