Apple AirPort Express - Streaming Music on iTunes - Frequent Music Drop out

So has anyone actually called Apple Technical Support for assistance with this?
I mean, this is just a discussion board Apple provides. Its not like Apple monitors this board to respond to technical issues.

I've noticed some ranting here and just wondered if anyone has called them for assistance and what was discovered.

I've been in touch with Apple and they weren't much help - I was walked through the AirPort Express set up process then provided with a link for the latest version of "Airport Utility". I've told them that this seems to be a common problem (at least with i-Tunes 8) and sent a link of this discussion board.
Likewise, I've found it's nothing to do with the quality of the signal or interference; I'm returning my AE

Hi.

Just a little input:

I have the excact same problem as you, elliotw100, and I have tried the following:

- Tried 11 different channels to check if interference was the cause
- switched all wireless equipment of in my house incl microwave, refrigirator...
- Downgraded to iTunes 7.7
- Had the Airport replaced by Apple
- updated Aiport Utility sw and Airport Firmware
- spent hours with Apple support (who had no record of this problem in their knowledge db (late october))


...all of this without success 😟

mhn1970 wrote:
Hi.

Just a little input:

I have the excact same problem as you, elliotw100, and I have tried the following:

- Tried 11 different channels to check if interference was the cause
- switched all wireless equipment of in my house incl microwave, refrigirator...
- Downgraded to iTunes 7.7
- Had the Airport replaced by Apple
- updated Aiport Utility sw and Airport Firmware
- spent hours with Apple support (who had no record of this problem in their knowledge db (late october))


...all of this without success 😟

I forgot:
I also created an 'apple network' (=did not connect to existing network, but created a new network only containing the AE) without encryption

I was getting music cut outs approximently every 60 seconds (D-Link wireless adapter and Vista).
I solved this problem by replacing my old wireless adapter for another D-Link which had drivers and a wireless manager for Vista.
I guess when I was using the old driver, Vista' Wlan AutoConfig service was managing the adapter. Every 60 seconds it would scan for available networks, effectively creating a spike, hence, a cut in the audio stream.
You will find alot of posts about this in the gaming forums.
Any attempts at reconfiguring this service (netsh command) did not work for me nor did 3rd party tools (vista anti lag). But that said, it seems to have worked for others. For me, I had to buy a new D-link wireless adapter and I have had no problems with drop outs since.

I use airtunes as my main HiFi feed to a remote DAC and really suffered with the dropouts, it was fine for a year until I introduced another airport into the network recently and it all went wrong! Same issues as most on here, it would work through the computer but as soon as you connect to an airport it would start dropping out, taking the computer speakers with it. Removing the additional airport didn't fix it.

I have no idea if this will work for all, but I stumbled upon a fix that worked 100% for me whilst trying to extend the wireless network using a non Apple router.

I have two airport expresses running remote speakers and one acting as a wireless connection for my old G4 Mac Mini.

I couldn't make the airport 'extend the network' for the old G4 as I'm not using a Apple router so did some research and discovered about WDS networks.

Basically you have to enter the MAC addresses of all your wireless devices into the router and the MAC address of the router into the airports.

Enter airport utility:
Go into manual setup:
Set the airport as "Participate in a WDS network" under the Wireless tab
Tick "Allow wireless clients"under the WDS tab
Enter the wireless MAC address of your router into the "WDS Main" box

Then log into your router and set the WDS mode to "Bridge" and enter the MAC addresses of all your airports into the Bridge table. I can only speak for the Draytek router on this as it is the only one I have experience with.

The thread I found that helped me out extending the network was this one:

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=220052

Whilst this concentrates on setting up how to extend the network the principle is the same and worked a treat for me.

Yes it's fiddly, and no you shouldn't have to do it, but I can now listen to music reliably all over the house and from any computer without dropouts.

I'm no computer expert and struggled a bit with all this, but it is worth persevering!

Hope this helps some of you.

All we need now is for Apple to make Frontrow play through airtunes again and I'll be happy! 🙂 I use the old version of frontrow to get round this one.

ola

i have downgrad to itunes 7... and its going now! but if i use other application to send sound to AirPort Express that continue to cut sometimes!!!!

so i think it's realy a problem from itunes 8!

Add me to the list of people with this issue. Before iTunes 8, it was find. I could stream all day without issue. Now, when the track changes and then every 30 - 40 seconds, it will cut out for 20 - 30 seconds. It has made this feature completely unusable and am very frustrated. The only think I can suggest is to submit a bug report at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ .

XP SP3
Airport Express 6.3
iTunes 8.0.2

Streamed to a DAC happily for years until the iTunes 7.7 to 8.0.2 upgrade. Now the drop-outs are driving me nuts. Same as reported by some others: approx 1 second drop-outs every minute or so.

Upgraded DirectX, checked network driver and router firmware, and checked antivirus etc. All now the most recent. No better.

Like the original poster, no drop-outs when playing to My Computer only. Only when playing to the AE, or both the AE and My Computer. Alas the AE is the normal mode.

Any idea???

I too have struggled for hours with this problem using my Vaio laptop (latest version itunes), AX 802.11n and Netgear DGN2000. I seem to have effected a stable fix by setting my wireless devices to static ips rather than using the router as a DHCP client. Has been playing for hours and survived multiple reboots of router, AX and laptop. Don't understand why this would work - but has so far - no dropouts at all for the first time in weeks!

I've been trying to set up a WDS network as the previous poster recommended, but (big surprise) it hasn't been quite as smooth as described in Apple's instructions. Before I keep beating my head on the wall with it: has anyone else had good results from the WDS strategy? Or, what about this static IP approach? If there's a good consensus around either, I'll push ahead.

OK:

1. Removed 8.0.2 + Quicktime. Reinstalled 7.7, rebuilt the library, but have same problem. The drop-outs come with 8.0.2 but don't go away with it!

2. Stopped using Windows Zero Configuration (WZC) between the PC and the router. Reverted to the Linksys utility. Problem disappears in both 7.7 and 8.0.2. Apparently WZC checks for a better connection every 60 seconds and causes a connection drop-out. The original 7.7 buffer could handle it, 8.0.2 (and the new 7.7!) can't.

When streaming iTunes directly to my stereo using AirTunes the music drops out when shifting to the next song. Then I remembered I have a wonderful piece of software called Airfoil from RogueAmoeba. Switch off remote speakers, in other words set speakers to computer in iTunes. Activate AirTunes in Airfoil. Select iTunes as the application in Airfoil. Perfect, flawless streaming with no more dropouts. It is the only solution I have found that works.

This sounds promising, though a recent poster in this similar thread found that Airfoil actually made it worse:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8535891#8535891

Unfortunately, Airfoil won't play for more than 10 minutes at a time without a paid license, and I've been able to go longer than that without dropouts from time to time, so it might end up being a $25 shot in the dark ... too bad the stuff doesn't just, oh, work as advertised. Wouldn't that be great?