Apple Music stalls when playing to Airplay via WiFi under Big Sur

drengfer,

Thanks for the additional information. You've done a great job trying to get this resolved. We recommend that you contact Apple Support for a deeper look into this issue.

Contact Apple Support

Take care.

Well, nobody could accuse you of not trying to resolve it. You've certainly gone thru a lot of trouble. I've done the same and still have this issue when streaming music from MacOS to HomePods. I'm running macOS Monterey 12.4 on a 2020 M1 MacBook Air. I'm streaming (I should say I'm attempting to stream) from Apple Music to HomePods and HomePod minis. It's fine for 2 or 3 songs, then the music just stops playing. I can manually start it up again, but it will only play a couple songs and then it pauses again.

I never have this trouble when streaming from MacOS to AirPods or AirPod Pros. I also never this trouble when streaming from an iPhone or iPad to the HomePods. I only have the trouble when streaming from MacOS to HomePods.

Frustrating, but not the end of the world. I'd love for this to be fixed sometime soon, though. 😂

Nobody here using macOS Ventura to check if this problem is fixed in the next major version? This is a problem I have since Big Sur. And I checked with multiple Hardware Configurations (Router, Airplay Speaker...) It HAS to be a bug in the software.

I have the same issue. After some number of songs, AirPlay just stops. It transitions to a new song, but sticks at 0:00.

Sometimes the music keeps playing audibly, but the progress indicator stays at 0:00 -- it can even change to a new song, but still show a previous song at 0:00.

Happens on HomePod and Sonos speakers, whether playing from macOS or iPhone. So doesn't seem device-specific. Have fiddled with many wifi/router settings to no avail.

I have the same issue when streaming music to my Homepod Minis from my M1 MacBook Air. Apple Music will play two or three songs without a problem and then boom, the sound drops out, but the indicator still moves to show that the song is playing. I have to stop the current track and restart it, just for the music to start playing again. There are other times when it gets to a track, it will play a few seconds and then the sound drops out.

I've been told many different things to rectify this issue and so far, none of those things work.

• Resetting the Homepods didn't work
• Resetting my home network didn't solve the problem either.
• Rebooting the MacBook (an advisor actually had me wipe my system and start fresh) didn't solve the problem either.
• Dedicating certain IP Addresses in my router for the Homepods didn't work either.

Come on Apple, we need a resolution to this issue. I like to enjoy my music, without having to wonder/worry when the music was going to fade out/drop because of this issue.

This isn't completely fixed for me. It's not a constant issue as it used to be, but there are still moments when a song will start playing and then fade out, or the song changes and it doesn't start playing until I manually move the slider bar back to the start of the song. I say Ventura made the problem better than it was, but it didn't completely fix it.

Yes, I've had the same problem for many years across different users, networks and Mac OS. Some lingering bug in Airplay it seems.

Looks resolved for me on Ventura FINALLYYYYYY!!!

Apple Music and airplay have been nothing short of an annoyance this whole year. Add the remote app as well. I have torn my system apart and rebuilt it, making sure everything is updated. All my i’s and t’s are crossed. Restarting every time I want to play music. Contacting my internet provider, getting a new modem and router, reconfigured my internet settings time and time again. All resulting in the same response. Skipping, lagging, not responding, etc and it’s getting to the point of moving backwards to hardwiring everything and bringing out my old CD player and cds.

I've been experiencing the same issues. On Monterey (12.0.1) with a 14" MacBook Pro. Thanks drengfer for the detailed information of attempted fixes you've shared here; saved me the trouble of jumping through the hoops for an issue which appears to be a bug (ie. not a user problem).

Thanks for all your work and reporting on this @drengfer. It has taken me soooo long to properly Google this very problem - trying to describe the inaccurate playback, etc. Glad to know I'm not the only one with this problem, nor the only one who relies on Apple Music to play my own music via Airplay/Sonos...

Perhaps 12.2 rebuild of Apple Music will do the trick. Fingers crossed.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/17/22843024/apple-music-web-views-macos-monterey-streaming-itunes

I agree. OP addresses this issue perfectly, thank you for this and presenting all your tests as well.

I'm perfectly fine with streaming from my iPhone/iPad if there was an album shuffle function present, but alas...

Since I have the same issue as OP I guess I have to dig up my iPod Classic again...

Please Apple, fix this issue and implement the album shuffle function in the app for the portable devices as well.

I have the same issue - 13" MacBook Pro M1 16GB RAM, running Monterey 12.4.

Works fine through SoundSticks connected to USB-C hub, but music play stops after 2-3 songs when connected to Airplay 2 speakers (Sonos Move). In addition, sometimes I have a spinning beach ball on the Music app and need to force quit. But that is intermittent - sometimes I can restart the music.