Airplay audio cuts out intermittently

Hey, thanks for your response, but I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit. I've opened Airport Utility on my laptop and looked around, but I don't see any mention of any "access list" or anything where I can input the MAC address of any of my devices. I do see something that says iTunes speaker password. I have that blank. (I think that may be a new feature..?) Is that revelant at all? I wonder if I should try setting a password?

If you'd be so kind as to list some steps to find what you're referring to, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance!

The problem is primarily with Spotlight on the phone.

I had the same problem -- airplay cutting out frequently from iphone but not imac. I reasoned this must be a problem with the phone rather than the network. What, I asked, does the phone do intermittently that might interrupt its processing/sending of the music to the network at regular intervals? Only one thing: Spotlight Indexing.

To remedy: Turn off Spotlight Indexing on your phone, Go to Settings/General/Spotlight Search, and uncheck every item.

Problem totally solved for me, at least.

If it persists, turn off pushing for some applications that your phone is regularly engaging with.

I tried all the tips here, including turning off spotlight...I still get the audio cutting out every 5-10 minutes for about 5 seconds.

Same problem whether I'm streaming AirPlay content from my MacBook, iPad 2 or iPhone 4s. I've got an apple time capsule working as the wifi router to my apple tv 2. Total apple ecosystem. Disappointed they're not playing flawlessly with each other.

C'mon apple: what is the silver bullet to put this issue to rest??

Hi sfbayrealtor , have you managed to solve your problem? i'm having the same problems with my new iphone 4s, it tends to cut out after 5 seconds of putting it via my airport. It also seems to disturb my internet connection afterwards!. My airport via mac has always been fine, and was perfectly fine with my old 3GS!

There appear to be issues specifically with the iPhone 4S and AirPlay. I am certainly having problems but only with the 4S and not with any other of me Apple devices. Check out the below discussion thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3413370?start=105&tstart=0

Hi Jatin186,

Actually, I did solve my problem. But technically, my solution doesn't have anything to do with the iphone; it had to do with my appleTV2. (I have a jailbroken ATV2, and the screensaver app was behaving badly, so I assasinated it 😉.

It's nice to have free flowing uninterrupted airplay content.

Good luck with your troubleshooting efforts!

Hi,

I have an appletv2 and a macbookpro and my better half has a laptop with win7 on it. My mbp uses wireless N and the laptop uses wireless G.

Since i hate itunes so much i got rid of it on my macbookpro, instead i use vlc/spotify combined with airfoil. Airfoil is basically a product that allows you to stream any kind of audio produced by your device to an airplay enabled device.

With my mbp i never had any stuttering issues using airfoil, the laptop however had lots of problems (it WAS using itunes for windows). I solved this by installing airfoil on the windows machine as well and just let itunes play through airfoil. Apparently airfoil has a better buffering system so it can stream over airplay without ever stuttering.

There seem to be no buffering options in itunes for streaming over airplay. My advice: use airfoil (google it). There is a trial version which allows you to stream for 10 minutes and after that it broadcasts some white noise over your audio, but it should suffice to test before buying it.

Thanks for letting me know. i went to the Genius Bar today to enquire about the issue, the advisor was fully aware of the matter and was convinced that the issue would be rectified after a hard restore. After doing this i thought it worked, but after 30sec of airplay connections started to fail once again. May have to bug them once again...

Airport Express was cutting out and then back on every 3-4 secs. Turned off Home Sharing in iTunes and then turned Home Sharing back on and the problem was solved.

I had been immensely frustrated with this issue until I tried your non-intuitive yet totally effective solution. My music streams flawlessly to my ATV2 as long as I am using the remote app on my iPhone. If I simply press play with my Macbook in iTunes, the same song that I was just listening to without a problem immediately begins cutting in and out! Why in the world would it matter that I am hitting "play" with my phone and not my computer? The music is all stored in the computer HD! Bizzare stuff. BTW, this only started happening within the last month. I had no problems at all streaming music until all the recent Apple updates.

I have been having the exact same problem for months, resetting my Apple TV 2 would fix it for a short time but the would soon start cutting in and out.

I finally saw the reply above regarding the screen saver. I have turned my screen saver to "Not Show during Music" as well as to Start After "Never". This seems to have fixed the problem for me. Who would have guessed that the screen saver would play a role in the streaming quality. Obviously a bug that Apple may need to look into.

Hopefully this fix works for the rest of you

When running the 'shared' system from my PC and selecting only my computer's hardwired speakers, I still experience drops. Yet I can drive one speaker at a time from my iPhone and/or iPad using Air Play (with my 'shared' sytesm turned off, so I'm suggesting it's not a wireless, iPhone or iPad problem, and instead a problem with the 'shared' software.

Just for clarity, I've also used the remote software, turned off blue tooth, and disabled the screen saver, with no improvement.

I hope that helps someone more technically inclined than me to identify the problem and find a solution.

What Ed Adams 2 said on the second post worked for me.

The issue was resolved by connecting the Express to teh Extreme router using an ethernet cable instead of wireless. I have been having this skipping issue with my PC and tried a lot of solutions on this page and the hardwire connection is the only solution i found to work.

The probelm is data rate related. When I connected my PC to the Extreme via ethernet and had the express connected to the Extreme the skipping got better (less). If I used an ethernet on both the PC and Express connections to the Extreme, skipping did not occur. If i use wireless to the Extreme and ethernet to the Express skipping did not occur. Problem mainly in the Extreme / Express wireless connection - too slow.

To connect the Extreme to Express using ethernet:

1. Open Airport Utility

2. On Extreme check "allow this network to be extended"

3. On Express turn off wireless

4. Update

So glad this problem is resolved.

Ed, I'm happy your problem is resolved, however mine is not. I don't even know what Extream or Express from Apple are. However I do know that:

1) running 'home share' from my PC, and driving only my PC speakers, the music pauses, arghh.

2) running airplay from my ipad to any any singular airplay enabled speaker in my home works just fine, (no pauses).

By the way, the only router involved is the one comcast provided wich seems to work just fine with iPad/airplay, but not PC/home share.

Still looking for solutions because I've stopped using home share which is the main reason I set the sytsem up.

Dan

Hi all,

My intermittent cutting out problem was solved when I configured my system so there was only wifi connection to the Airport Express. The problem seemed to occur when both the MacBook and iPhone were connected to the home network through the AE, which was linked to my sound system. I suspect the poor little AE could handle the in & out load. By the way, I have two AEs and one TC all linked by ethernet to an Asus RT-N13U running DD-wrt that sits behind an ActionTec router on my Fios network. They all share the same network name. I may have to figure out a way to limit the number of wireless connections to this router ensure it doesn't get overloaded in the future.