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Airport Express/iTunes

Prior to this week I was able to use my Airport Express to play music through my stereo with no issues. Now, when I try to connect to the remote speakers through iTunes, I get the error "An error occurred while attempting to connect to the remote speaker "stereo". The network connection has failed."

I can see the AX on my network. It responds to the Airport Utility fine. iTunes shows the remote speakers as an option. But for some reason Airtunes suddenly can't connect. Is there a potential solution, or is this a sign my AX has died?

I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone has. Thanks.

Further details:
AX is over 3 years old.
AX is setup as a client on my wireless network
Wireless router is a Netgear Wireless N-300
All firmware is up to date
iTunes 10.0.1
Computer is running WinVista
I've tried putting the AX in different rooms and having my computer in different rooms
Everything worked fine a week ago

Windows Vista

Posted on Oct 1, 2010 10:22 AM

28 replies

Nov 25, 2010 8:13 PM in response to Cow Sommelier

I have wired ethernet through the house, with multiple base stations, each in bridge mode (DHCP provided by my Linksys router):

Time Capsule
Airport Extreme
Airport Express (connected to stereo)

All was peachy until recently, when I realized that although my AX was showing as an available wireless network, I couldn't actually connect to it. Also, I can no longer stream music from iTunes. With the 4.2 update on my iPhones, I really wanted to get this working.

Reset the AX and got it visible again. Everything seemed fine. But after 30 minutes it is *no longer:*

1. Connecting via iTunes
2. Connecting as a wireless network (visible, but can't connect)
3. Showing up in Airport Utility (via ethernet or wifi)

My other base stations continue to work as expected.

The behavior is mirrored from my iPhone 4 (4.2).

What's up, Apple? Do these things only work for three years? Or did a recent software upgrade cripple us all?

Nov 26, 2010 11:05 AM in response to Been Here Since iTools

To follow up:

I had been resetting my AX by holding in the reset button but not disconnecting it from power. I didn't realize there was a difference between a hard reset and a "restore to factory settings reset." So, I did the latter by disconnecting from power, holding in the reset button, reconnecting power (while holding the button in), and waiting for the light to flash rapidly (took about 20 seconds for mine).

I set it up again (just like it had been before) and it seems to be running very stably now. It's been 12 hours and it hasn't disappeared from the network, and it's streaming music with no dropouts. I love my AX again!

Rudmar

Level 1

0 points

Nov 27, 2010 7:38 AM in response to Cow Sommelier

My solution to this problem was:

On the Mac: reinstalled iTunes solved the problem.

On Windows XP: reinstall iTunes didn't help, changing firewall settings didn't help. Finally I selected Multiple speakers as output in iTunes. Then I saw that the Airport Express volume was set to 0. Increased the volume and everything was OK.

btheyd

Level 1

0 points

Dec 8, 2010 12:18 PM in response to MoxyDave

This helped, thank you. But my fix went much easier.
Went into Firewall with Advanced Security (I was not able to delete the iTunes exception through the standard Firewall app.)
Clicked on "Inbound Rules"
Deleted iTunes
Clicked "New Rule"
Chose "Program"
Browsed for path to iTunes in Program Files.
Also added a rule for iTunes Helper, which I did not have prior to the connection error.
Connection restored with Firewall on. Not even a restart was req'd.
Updated to v10 recently - culprit, I bet.

Dec 30, 2010 1:57 PM in response to btheyd

I had this problem after updating my Airport and AX firmware the other day. Disconnecting the power to the AX didn't work, but disconnecting the power from the Airport Extreme fixed it immediately. I'm listening to music at this moment.

I guess they weren't talking to each other over the network.

mr_ggg

Level 1

13 points

Jan 2, 2011 11:38 AM in response to MoxyDave

This solved my problem, thanks a lot! Why can't Apple do this for me, or at least tell me how to do it instead of giving me "unknown error -15000" ?

robbyoke

Level 1

0 points

Jan 24, 2011 11:09 AM in response to MoxyDave

Thank you for this. I have been trawling through the forums. I am not very techhy, but your instructions worked a treat!
Thanks
Rob

Jan 26, 2011 9:08 AM in response to btheyd

Great diagnosis and post -- thanks! v10 upgrade appears to have been culprit for me as well and all AX boxes are working again. Many thanks. Note also that I installed via Airport Utility the recently offered firmware upgrade on the AX boxes as well without incident.

TFT9999

Level 1

0 points

May 8, 2011 4:24 PM in response to Cow Sommelier

Maybe not the best place to put this, but I found this forum doing a Google search, so others may as well.

Using my Airport Extress to stream music from a shred iTunes library. Worked ok on my iPhone but not on my Windows 7 machine. It would think for a while and give me the "Connection timed out" error. Set up the rule as was mentioned above. Called tech support, they had no clue.

Finally did the simplest thing possible: Change speakers (in iTunes) from AirPort Express to My Computer, then change them back. Plays fine. I have to do this every time I pause iTunes and let it idle for more than a minute or two, but it's a two-second fix that confounded Apple tech support. So I figured I would share it in case anyone else had the same problem and didn't figure out that incredibly easy thing that stumped me for well over a week.

Aug 20, 2011 10:27 AM in response to MoxyDave

Thank you MoxyDave!

I've been fighting this issue and googling solutions for 2 days and yours worked.

Jan 21, 2012 11:51 AM in response to Cow Sommelier

I can tell you what just worked (and didn't) for me in an all Mac system. I have an Xtrme as the base station and an old AE (pre-n) next to my stereo. Sometime after the update to iTunes 10.5.2, things stopped working. AirPort Utility showed the AE on the network with a nice green light, but trying to connect to the AE from iTunes on my iMac, I got a "connecting" popup that lasted about 20 seconds and then disappeared, with no error message.

1) I tried a reset of the AE following some previous suggestions. The result, flashing amber and the AE no longer appeared in AirPort Utility. This was worse than before the reset in some regards.

2) I brought my AE close to my Xtreme and connected by ethernet. I now got the AE to appear in AirPort Utility, but the light was still amber, not green, both in the Utility and on the AE.

3) I then selected the AE and clicked on "Manual Setup," but that ended in an error message about a DHCP conflict, and the AE disappeared from AirPort Utility. I did get a message that I might like to try again.

4) I unplugged and then replugged in the AE so that it would appear again in AirPort Utility. (Rescan might have worked, but that's not what I did.)

5) This time, I clicked on "continue" (to change settings on the AE). AirPort Utility told me I had a profile, and I answered about 5 questions to accept the current profile settings. And now it works.

It's all alchemy to me.

erandcc

Level 1

0 points

Apr 8, 2012 11:49 AM in response to btheyd

Thanks you btheyd!

This worked when nothing else did...and it was very easy to boot.

Key is to "browse" for iTunes rather than putting the path in. Something to do with a "%" in front of the path.

After spending hours trying to fix this, I am almost interested in what the "%" means, but mostly happy to have fixed the problem.

hookbill

Level 1

4 points

Apr 18, 2012 12:23 PM in response to MoxyDave

Thank you so much. When I first got a hold of this Windows piece of crap it picked up the network with no problem. I ran an update driver program two days ago and went to use iTunes and it failed. I fixed it for a bit and then another fail. I spent 6 hours trying to find a fix today. I never had these problems with my Mac. And what a bunch of crap to get it fixed.

But thank you MoxyDave, you'e the man.

Airport Express/iTunes