AirPlay not working in macOS Tahoe

I am unable to stream music from my iMac (24-inch, M1, 2021) to my Airport Express nor Apple TV HD (two of them). I believe it is something to do with Tahoe because I can stream from my iPhone and iPad (both updated to latest OS) to Airport Express and both Apple TV HDs. I was able to get my hands on another Mac (Macbook Pro) that was still running on Sequoia and it streams just fine to all those same streamers.

I have tried a couple Terminal commands that ChatGPT suggested:

sudo pkill coreaudiod

sudo pkill AirPlayXPCHelper

I got rid of com.apple.airplay.plist

I have run in Safe Mode. No luck.

iMac 24″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Sep 16, 2025 7:59 PM

Top-ranking reply

janford

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Sep 23, 2025 4:34 AM

ChatGPT and I have spent hours trying to fix this problem. Here is GPT's conclusion after I did a lot of testing:

macOS 26 + Music AirPlay Bug (Summary)

What happens

AirPlay devices (HomePods, AVR, Sonos) appear in Music and can be checked, but audio is silent.
Mid-track dropouts.
Master Volume stops working (global slider has no effect).
Only reliable fix in-session: uncheck all AirPlay devices, then re-check (toggling just one doesn’t work).

What’s not the problem

Devices are online and reachable.
Network config is fine (same setup works on iOS and on a fresh macOS 26 install).
Static IPs don’t solve it (issue persists even with pinned addresses).
Configure IPv6 setting from Off to Link-Local Only had no effect
There is no VPN on this system

What’s really happening

Logs show AirPlayXPCHelper probing non-existent IPs (e.g., 192.168.50.x, 192.168.4.x) and timing out.
Sometimes it “self-heals” after long idle; other times it stays stuck until forced to rebind.

Workarounds

Toggle all AirPlay devices off/on inside Music.
When Master Volume is dead or audio is silent, killing and restarting the coreaudiod and AirPlayXPCHelperprocesses restores functionality.

Conclusion

This is a macOS 26 AirPlay stack bug: AirPlayXPCHelper caches bad addresses and gets stuck in a “connected but silent / master volume unresponsive” state. Apple needs to fix the helper’s discovery/cache logic and session state handling.

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33 replies

icon707

Level 1

10 points

Oct 4, 2025 5:16 AM in response to Jdub_3d

I have the same issue. AirPlay devices are de-selected after sleep mode. I have to manually select them again (HomePods).

The Music app messed-up my local music library in Tahoe. I can’t believe that Apple is proud of this buggy mess.

They are very close to becoming the company known for »buggy software products«.

matt947

Level 1

8 points

Oct 23, 2025 9:00 AM in response to Subsector

thank you. this fixed it.

not sure why this reply with 63 upvotes (at the time of writing) is not shown as the top solution.. rather one that hasn't worked for me and has only 4 upvotes is shown as a solution..

NightFox

Level 1

34 points

Oct 29, 2025 12:35 PM in response to Jdub_3d

I've been having this problem so I just updated to 26.1 in the hope that this would be fixed, and the first track I played, AirPlay worked as it should, playing the track through my Marantz hifi and showing the track details on its display... but as soon as that track finished and it went to the next one, it reverted to playing through my Mac (despite the Marantz still showing as the only speaker selected), and the Marantz display stayed on the title of the last track.

I've tried the suggested IPv6 changes for both my Wifi and Ethernet connection, but still no joy. Now I'm just left even more confused that it worked for a single track then stopped.

Jdub_3d Author

Level 1

102 points

Sep 17, 2025 1:38 PM in response to Subsector

That worked. Thanks!!

Sep 17, 2025 7:37 PM in response to Jdub_3d

I'm trying to check a suspicion that AirPlay is not turned on after updating to 26.0. I don't see the AirPlay icon on the very top right. So, we may need a way to turn it on. I'm searching for that.