iTunes 10 breaks the ability to share media files on NAS devices

[javajolt]

According to multiple threads in various forums, it looks like sharing media files in a Network Attached Storage (NAS) is not working with iTunes 10. The service worked without issues on iTunes 9. This is what user Michael Dymund reported in Apple Discussions:

All of the music for our house is stored on a LaCie NAS device with an embedded iTunes server. Open iTunes, click the server in the SHARED section of the sources list, wait for the library to load, and play. This system worked very well with iTunes 9.2.1 (and earlier).

There’s an issue, though, when trying to do this with iTunes 10.

Now, the server’s name doesn’t appear in the SHARED section of the sources list. Instead, it reads “untitled playlist.” When we click this, it appears to load the library from the server, and does display the server’s name with the progress in the top window. But when it’s finished the list of songs is blank.

Users report similar problems using ReadyNAS, D-Link and other NAS devices. According Apple Care, the company is not planning to fix the issue. “I called apple care. Same problem…they gave me the answer as ‘it was not meant to be supported in itune 9 to begin with. You will have to connect it through USB drive’,” a user wrote.

For users who want to rollback to iTunes 9, they can follow these instructions to completely remove iTunes 10 and then re-install iTunes 9.

[Jake]

A way to fix this would be to disable shared libraries entirely, then rewrite the default storage path for music and other media in iTunes to the directory of your NAS drive.  Worked for me.   

1.  Open iTunes > Edit > Preferences
2.  Go to "Parental Control" and under "Disable" check "Shared Libraries"
3.  Go to "Advanced" and change the location of the media folder to your network path.

Now depending how you have the drive set up it may try to reorganize everything, the process may take a while so grab a snack and watch TV.