James Willis

Q: Airplay Audio Drop To Certain Speakers

OK here goes.

 

I have a Mac Mini Server (Mid 2010) hardlined into my router that I use as my always on media hub. It is running the latest versions of Yosemite and iTunes.

 

I have a variety of Airplay devices around my home all on WiFi:

 

2 Older Airport Express units (pre 802.11/n)

1 B&W Speaker

1 Pioneer Boombox with Airplay

1 Acoustic Research Speaker

2 Apple TVs

1 Denon Home Theater Receiver

 

Netgear WNDR4500 on latest firmware

 

Within the last month or so I have started having some Airplay issues. All worked great in the past. The issue specifically shows up when I stream from my Mini to either the Denon or my AEs. After about 10 minutes the devices will disconnect and the iTunes Airplay icon on the Mini will change from Blue to Orange. If I click on that I get a message that the host is unreachable. If I start and stop, or sometimes choose a different Airplay destination and then switch back, it might start streaming again.

 

Some tests I ran.

 

Reboot everything involved (I even did a factory reset on the Denon, before I realized the problem was also with AE) - Result, no improvement.

Streaming to other speakers (e.g. B&W speaker, Apple TV) - Works fine, streamed for hours.

Pulling ethernet cable from Mini, and switched to WiFi - No improvement

 

I also have a newer Macbook Air that I used as a sort of control (Note. Everything I did from the Air was over WiFi). The MacBook Air had zero problems streaming to any of the speakers

 

OK, so my conclusion is that the problem is with the Mini/Yosemite/iTunes combination. To reiterate the exact same setup, but with a MacBook Air had zero problems. Also the Mini has only recently developed this problem.

 

Is it possible some OS interaction at the hardware level is causing this problem?

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 16, 2015 8:05 AM

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