Airplay 1 speaker no longer recognized as compatible by iTunes / Mac Mini

Question

Airplay 1 speaker no longer recognized as compatible by iTunes / Mac Mini

I presume some iTunes or OS Update has changed how Apple deals with older Airplay 1 speakers. iTunes on my Mac Mini no longer recognizes my older Airplay speaker (it worked for years with same setup. Same router.)

The 3rd Gen ATV still recognizes the speaker as does my iPhone 6s

There is no firmware update available for the speaker (a Boston Acoustics MC200)

Specs: Mac Mini: Version 10.14.1 (18B75), Mac mini (Late 2014), 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB

iTunes: 12.9.0.164

Router: Airport Extreme 802.11n (5th Gen)

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 1, 2019 8:38 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

darrylfromsaskatoon Author

Level 1

13 points

May 3, 2019 10:28 AM in response to kelsar the magnificient

OK. Formatting the SSD as APSF did indeed solve my Airplay speaker issue.

Some details:

The SSD was installed BEFORE I upgraded past OS 10.4.1
The format of that SSD was HFS (probably because I used Super Duper to make a clone of previous HDD and used that to write the image to the new SSD) and for whatever reason, would NOT accept any OS updates
It took a number of restarts using Option-⌘-R on startup and ⌘-R on startup to FINALLY be able to use Disk Utility on startup to re-format the SSD as APFS. (For a number of restarts, APSF did NOT appear as an option inside Disk Utility)
Then I was able to do a clean install of the newest OS
followed by a transfer of data from the most recent TimeMachne backup
Upon looking, sure enough the OS had updated to 10.14.4 (the latest as of this post)
I open iTunes, select the previously 'incompatible' speaker and it works!

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Answer 2

sterling r

Community Specialist

May 2, 2019 12:00 PM in response to darrylfromsaskatoon

Greetings, darrylfromsaskatoon.

I see that your Mac mini no longer recognizes your Boston Acoustics MC200 Air. Your other devices can use AirPlay through it, but your Mac mini doesn't recognize the speakers any longer. I'm happy to help.

If you can't use AirPlay or mirror your device's screen -- This article provides the information and steps that you need to help your Mac mini recognize your AirPlay speakers.

Take care.

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Answer 3

May 2, 2019 12:15 PM in response to sterling r

I think it can be traced to the fact that my recent SSD upgrade may be preventing my computer from updating beyond 10.4.1. I check for updates and it says the OS is up to date. Apple Support dude thought that was odd. I tried to update OS after Option-⌘-R on startup but it refused to write to the SSD drive saying it was not APFS.

I finally created an APSF volume on the drive and am trying to get the OS on there.

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Airplay 1 speaker no longer recognized as compatible by iTunes / Mac Mini

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