AirPlay music streaming stops between songs

Hello,

I to am running into this same issue and it's quite annoying!! I'm running 10.3.1.55 for iTunes. I've noticed that if I remote desktop to the machine and using the computer between songs then it works fine. If I'm not on the computer then the songs will not continue. This is very annoying!!

It seemed to be working prior to updating to the more recent version of iTunes....

I have the same problem, which only started happening a couple of weeks ago. Before then, I could stream iTunes from my iMac to two ATV2s and an Airport Express over the home sharing network with no problems or dropouts. Now the stream will just randomly drop. The only thing I have been able to do to recreate the drop is click on the Airport icon on the upper right dock on the iMac. Clicking on it causes the Airport to search for wireless networks, which causes the audio stream to drop. The stream resumes when the Airport is done looking for and listing the networks. Frustrating.

Happening to me as well - Macbook Pro 2.66, streaming music off of a Mac Mini. Just started doing it a couple of days ago, and it happens with every song. I have to pause, then hit play again. Apple, how about a fix?

Same exact issue here too. Streaming from MacBook Pro to ATV and audio drops out after each song. Restart son and audio comes back. Extremely frustrating. Apple, pleas fix!

I'm having this issue too.

I've got a Mac Pro with iTunes and Lion running. The Mac Pro is plugged in via ethernet to my 1st Gen Time Capsule.

2 Apple TV's and an Airport Express uses as a wireless range extender (not Airplay).

Today while listening to a 75 song playlist via my Apple TV (second Gen) the sound would drop out and then pick back up after a few seconds. This seems to be random and isn't dependant on the internet since all the music is being streamed from my iTunes library.

Also I noticed that the Apple TV stopped buffering a movie 1/2 way through that I have in my iTunes library last night as well. The movie was Benji and was ripped in handbrake to my computer so I can hide the DVD from my young children. I set Handbreak to rip in Apple Universal format so I can put the movie on the iPad too. The movie never rebuffered and didn't start back up last night and ruined our movie night. Put the kids in bed after waiting for 5 minutes for the movie to start back up.

I think that this is a network issue but I'm not sure how to monitor it since it is internal. I get 12 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up on the internet as a side note. Netflix has been fine on the ATV's.

FWIW, experiencing the same issue since I started using AirPlay to AppleTV about a month ago.

iMac running Snow Leapord to AppleTV 2 through SMC N Wireless Router and (as of yesterday) Airport Extreme.

Sometimes it just misses like 10-20s of a song and then starts streaming again, sometimes it just stops all together, and you have to pause/play to get it to start again.

I am a Windows guy who has recently started converting after being enamored by the iPad and the new Airs.

Now between me and my wife we have an iMac, 2 Airs, 2 iPad 2s, an iPhone 4, an AppleTV 2 and now an Airport Extreme.

I was really attracted to the kind of 'out of the box' convenience Apple is famous for with a UI that is easy enough for my wife to utilize 85% of the technology.

Honestly this type of issue is not what I expected from the 'it just works' ecosystem.

Do Apple reps actually post useful insights in these threads, or is it simply misery loves company?

Perhaps if Apple spent as much time supporting their customers as protecting their IP, there would be a response here.

I am experiencing the same problem for some time now, before upgrading to Lion. Now I use an iMac with Lion as source and an Airport Express version 6.3.

It makes airplay function useless.

Ok here goes, I have been working on this issue of drop outs for over 2 years! I am an early adopter and loved the idea of streaming audio to my two recievers,up stairs and down. I bought an airport extreame router, three airport express units and an original apple tv unit. got it all hooked up and immedialy had drop out issues. called for support and changed one of the airport express's to just extend the network. that seemed to solve the problem. for a while. then more dropouts. I have tried everything and nothing cures it compleatly. Untill now. I finally got so fed up I said "I'll try anything even if it's not an apple product." So i bought a Sonos system. It runs right along side the apple network creating it's own "mesh" network to just stream the audio from my external harddrive attached to my imac.It works perfectly. finally no dropouts! stable as hec. it took 2 Zone bridges ($45.00 ea.) and one Zone Player 90 ($350.00) to get the system stable. unlike the Apple airport express you can daisy chain the Zone Bridges together to reach far away recievers. mine is like 45' from my router. the first zone bridge connects via ethernet to the airport extreme router the 2nd just sits pluged in in my kitchen. the zone player 90 is connected to my home theater receiver and to a airport express at the same location to enable making the zone player 90 an airplay device. this is critical for me as this allows me to use itunes and all my playlist i have created there to play approximatly 5oo gigs of music ie 97000 songs. the sonos can only hold about 46000 songs and will not bring over your itunes playlist if you max it out. it will if you don't have a huge library like me. Now that I have the downstairs system stabel I can add one more Zone player 90 upstairs and be done. one of the bonuses of having the sonos working in tandem with the apple airplay devices is that it makes it easy to pull in Pandora and iheart radio as well. not available in itunes.

it has been a long haul of frustrating visits to apple stores, calls to apple support and never getting the problem resolved. I think this is where we have to go outside the apple universe to solve the problem. from the amount of blogs on this it is obvious they cannot. I hope this helps everyone. oh and just so you know I control everything including the sonos syst. from my two ipads and 2 iphone 4's. the remote app and the sonos app are great.

Chiming in here as well:

So I have an AppleTV2 connected via HDMI to my Sony KDL-46S5100 HDTV.

While playing music to the ATV2 via Airtunes I will hit play and the song will start, but then it is a toss-up if the next song will play audibly or not. It will display on the TV that the song has begun and is playing, and it will display as playing in iTunes, but no audio will actually be heard. Sometimes the song after will play fine, but not usually. It seems totally random.

Furthermore, 99.9% of the time if I click the back arrow in iTunes to begin the song again it will play normally, but then do the same thing on the next song.

Any help? Apple?

I have skipping WITHIN the songs. I just called Apple and they acted like this never happens. RIGHT. This is a big issue and someone better upgrade these comments to Apple. AIRPLAY DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY. The music skips and it's very annoying. I wouldn't mind waiting a few seconds while the network catches up. But to skip in the middle of the song, like some kind of random musical chairs experiment, is unacceptable. APPLE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.

I'm just streaming from my phone. No computer concerns. Just a iPhone 3Gs and an Apple TV (latest).

What's going on here?

Wow, I am amazed this issue has been out there this long and no solutiion. This just started happening to me. I was working finne but now it is an annoying issue. I have always been PC person but there are so many pro apple people around saying how great their products are we gave the Apple tV2 a try. This iss driving me nuts

Yes I can stream from my iPhone 3Gs so I am very confused as why this should be an issue with a PC or MAC with ITunes.

I hope they fix it soon.

Same issue. My two cents, I believe dropouts at the beginning of tracks are a different issue than mid song dropouts that last several seconds ( which seems like a network quality issue).

Dropout begins at track change, lasts until forward track or back track button is pressed.

Anything further on the issue of Airplay dropping out and losing connectivity randomly while listening to music? Using Macpro to send to 2d generation ATV with all software current.

Same problem here - happens when new track starts playing. Doesn't seem to be such an issue when using Airplay from my iPhone rather than from iTunes on my Pro. It's clearly not a network issue as if I access music on my Pro through my ATV2 there is no problem.

Just had the exact problem, but with an Airport Extreme station.

Apple's support by phone helped me fix the problem.

Go in the wireless settings of your airport extreme. Then Radio Channel, select channel 9 instead of "automatic".

Maybe you'll have to try a few channels in your area, but the thing is that you must not be in "automatic" mode.

It works instantly, everytime !