iTunes 7.2 breaks FrontRow video streaming

This post is partly for the benefit of any friends experiencing the problem and partly to get the specific error message text out there on Google.

Every since a recent update, the Mac Mini hooked to the TV stopped playing shared video files from other machines (movies, video podcasts, music videos, etc.) Audio files still play just fine. It is just the video files that are broken and return the following error message: “This shared video cannot be played. The shared video server may be having problems playing this video.”

After a bunch of failed Googling and hair-pulling, I finally managed to find a thread on the Apple support forums of countless others having the same problem. The solution? Kill off iTunes 7.2 on the FrontRow machine, then install the older 7.1.1. You can still leave the update on the machines serving up the videos, just not on the client that is running FrontRow.

With something as obvious as “the new iTunes doesn’t play videos under FrontRow,” you kind of have to wonder what kind of QA occurs before iTunes gets released.

Posted in: Software

4 thoughts on “iTunes 7.2 breaks FrontRow video streaming”

  1. The real question is, _where_ (or how) do we get ahold of iTunes 7.1.1? It seems Apple buried it when they posted 7.2. I (and I’m sure several others would as well) would need it for Mac first, Windows second. Is there anyone, or any resource, around that has retained copies of 7.1(.1)?

    To reiterate, I too was affected by this glitch-y release. _All_ of my .mp4 and .m4v videos (movies), music videos, and TV shows _DO NOT PLAY_ in iTunes 7.2. When opened in QT, they play just fine. But, again, not in iTunes. Any additional video files you wish to add to the iTunes library are not accepted any longer, either (as in, you add them to the library, but they never show up in any listing). I’m holding off on hooking up my video iPod and syncing it because I’m a bit reticent about the possibility of losing playability of my videos on the iPod already.

    This _needs_ to get ironed out. Promptly. Whoever authorized this release back at Apple-ville should have a dead trout dropped on their desk.

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