Airplay audio cuts out intermittently

I notice this problem is exacerbated with the iOS 7 upgrade. I had a Bose Soundlink Air (or something like that) and it worked well. There were some rare times it would cut out. After upgrading to iOS 7, I can barely get it to play anything. I replaced the old model with a SoundTouch and still have the same problem. Nothing will play for more than a second and then it just pauses the music. I have a Windows machine with the SoundTouch software on it and was able to stream live radio with NO interruptions for a few hours. So I know it's not my Bose device. I'm able to stream the radio using my phone with no problem. So, it has to be AirPlay. Any one have any recommendations on what to do with an iPhone? Thanks in advance for your help!

I have the exact same problem with my iphone 5s and the bose soundlink air. Even from my iPad with iOS7 it does work very well.. but with the iphone it drops after 2 seconds. what a mess...

I too have the Yamaha HTR-4065 receiver and it was working seemlessly with iPhone 4 and iPad at version iOS 6. I recently purchased another iPhone 5S with iOS 7 and the whole system (iPhone, Receiver and Airplay) stops working properly. The music stops intermittenly practically every few seconds. Not only does it not working with the receiver, it also has the same problems with AppleTV. The whole Airplay circuit has collapsed!

I can confirm with very high level of certainty that the problem is with iOS 7 because I still have another iPhone 4 and iPAD, both with iOS 6 and they're still working PERFECTLY with the receiver, AppleTV and Airplay.

I am beginning to lose faith in Apple and am seriously considering other products.

Apple, please fix this problem!

Thank you!

I have got the same problem here.

No Airplay problems with iOS-devices and AppleTV3. No problem with Airplay of movies from iMac (MacOS 10.7.5) to ATV3.

But: Intermittent Sound while playing music on iTunes on iMac and using Airplay on ATV3.

Alle network setup hints did not work so far.

No problems when streaming music initiated on ATV3.

I've been having this problem for a while (over a year). I have a Windows 7 PC running iTunes, a Mac mini and a bunch of iOS devices (iPhones, iPod, iPad, etc) and have an Airport express hooked to my whole-house audio system. I've run it with the Mac or the PC streaming to the Airport Express and it cuts out after a few songs. Also forgot to mention, my music (63,000 approx songs) is saved on a network shared drive.

I have finally found a solution, at least for the PC: I turned off my screen saver. It didn't matter if I changed the screen saver settings to delay the start of the screen saver for several hours or a few minutes, the fact that it was on was causing it to cut out. It's been a couple of weeks now since I disabled my screen saver and it's been working flawlessly.

I haven't tried this with the Mac mini yet but I suspect that may solve the Mac issue as well.

The following worked for me.

Disabling "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multi-media) Settings" in your router.

This can found either under "Adavaced settings" or "QoS Settings".

I've experienced the same thing. But the most recent time, with my airplay (AE) stemmed from a firmware upgrade which I was missing. I was using 7.6.1 and Apple had released a 7.6.4 in August 2013. Obvously I had missed a few other upgrades in the interim. But, once I updated the AE firmware to the latest 7.6.4, all went well. Just go into your AE utility and check that you're up to date on this critical item. Hoep this helps.

I've had the AirPlay cut-out problem for years, on a variety of iOS and non-Apple devices. It's annoying, and if there were a good alternative, I'd consider switching. The technology purports to offer a simple way to distribute music throughout the house, but the implementation is flawed.

It's interesting that Apple seem not to be pushing AirPlay very hard. They don't advertise it heavily and there are few AirPlay speakers available. Perhaps it's effectively an orphan, like Apple TV. If that's so, could it be because they just can't make it work with 99.9% reliability? Could it simply be too complicated, because there are too many things over which they have no control that can cause it to fail? How hard are they working on fixing it? Have they effectively given up, having decided that there's little competition and that no one else has found a way to make it work, either?

Yes I've often wondered if that's it - that there are too many variables to control for. Perhaps that & some negligence as well. Fixing nagging issues doesn't seem to be a strongpoint of any company these days. It seems that everyone's interested n pushing out new tech, but not solving the already existing problems. Sometimes the new tech obviates the need to fix the old problem(s), but often this is not the case.

Sonos seems to work very well, & I've been considering it as an option. Perhaps it benefits from being a 'closed' system - it creates its own wireless network over which its components communicate. I listened to some piano on my friend's Sonos the other day, & I didn't note any static issues. And no drop-outs, of course. The UI/browsing of the iOS app seemed stellar as well. I may get a Sonos Connect to hook up my existing sound system wirelessly (though at $400 for the Connect & Bridge, it's steep).

For now, my solution has been to put all my music on a Synology DS214play, & use that as a DLNA server for my Yamaha receiver. On the Synology, one can enable transcoding (to WAV, so it should be lossless), which helps since my Yamaha can't decode Apple Lossless files. One can also customize the browsing hierarchy that the DLNA client 'sees' when browsing the music on the DLNA server. Hence, I set up a 'Genre-->Artist-->Album' browsing hierarchy, & this means browsing my large music collection using the Yamaha receiver iOS app is practical. Since the Yamaha is decoding the files itself, there's no loss of quality. No dropouts either. My only complaint is that the browsing hierarchy still doesn't remove artists from CDs that are compilations from the list of artists (hence, the artist lists for any genre are still far too long). Also, my Yamaha receiver (RX-V473) hangs every time you return to the music list off the server after restarting the receiver. The workaround is to switch the input to a different network-based input (like 'Net Radio'), then back to 'Server'. This forces it to rescan for available servers, I suppose, and prevents the hanging.

My point is: putting your music on a Synology & then using the DLNA capabilities of your receiver, or a PS3 or Xbox or similar DLNA client (e.g. a TV), does work. Airplay would've been more elegant, but has far too many issues.

Rebooted my Denon avr-e300 and the problem went away. Weird, I know.

I dont have any issues when I have only my airport express as my main router & running Airtunes. As soon as I introduce a base station and have airport express hooked up to extend the signal, airtunes cuts out all the time. This happens at my office and at home. totally lame. This should work man.

I am having the same issue I am now hooked up with a cat5 cable and it is still cutting out verry frusterating returning it tomorrow.

I have had some more success recently after getting very frustrated by continued dropouts. I examined my network rationally and did some online research on the nature of my Airport Express router.

In the first place, I eliminated my dedicated 5Ghz network. I had not realised that the default setting on the second-generation Airport Express included both 2.4 and 5Ghz networks, so possibly getting rid of the separately named one helped.

More importantly, I was using a mix of WPA and WPA2 security and once I switched to WPA 2 security only, the problem seems to have gone away permanently. Unfortunately that brings in a new problem which is that my iMac G4 upstairs is now included from my network as it cannot handle WPA 2 and that remains an issue for now.

As I have hooked my recently-revived turntable to a clapped-out MacBook whose sole purpose is to bring vinyl audio to my Airport Exoress and Apple TVs around the house using Airplay and Airfoil, NOT having this bloody annoying dropout issue is of oaramount importance, given that otherwise, it all works so well. Using WPA 2 only has had a dramatic and immediate effect to the good.

Sorry, that should have read "excluded my iMac G4" and of "paramount" importance. I cannot see how to edit posts when using my iPad to post.

I had the same issue (Airplay audio cuts out intermittently) on my configuration:

Bowers & Wilkins A5

Time Capsule 802.11ac

MacPro 2008

The probleme seems that the A5 could only connect to the timecapsule network 2.5Ghz while the MacPro was connected on the 5Ghz network. Connect the MacPro on the 2.5Ghz network solved it.