Airplay audio cuts out intermittently

The one thing that is different in my house than just about anywhere else I go is that the ip address starts with 10. instead of 192. or 198.

I've tried my iphone at friend's houses and it worked fine with their air tunes setup. They were on 192...

Still not sure why the ipod touch works and the iphone doesn't but my guess at this point is that it has something to do with the ip address.

Anyone know how to change it from 10. to 192?

Mike

Ok! I have had this issue for a bit and finally got the intermittant playback to stop.

I have a macbook pro, a macbook, an airport time capsule, an airport express with remote speakers plugged into it. And a couple iPhones with the remote application.

The airport time capsule is set up as a media server with multiple users sharing it.

The problem was solved when I turned off the album cover screen saver on the other users. Seems when playing itunes on one mac while the other mac was accessing the album covers caused issues. Makes sence as all computers access the music files on the time capsule. This was true even if the other user was on the same mac and not in an active screen.. IE, had switched users on the macbook pro, however the other user was in screen save mode and it was causing the music streem to cut out.

Changed the screen saver for everybody and everything plays great again!

Cheers!

@csgiles, was the anything else you did while changing the screen saver? I say this because I have never used that screen sav nor, I wager, have many others in thread. Yet your experience suggests that iTunes itself may be involved with the problem, which I had always assumed had something to do with Various types of hardware not playing nice with Bonjour.

Of course, it's probably also true that, like heart attacks, AirPlay failures have many different causes... :(

Rockguitarpower, I'm gonna assume that you're using an Airport Extreme Base Station, since other routers I have used do to default to 10.0.1.xxx. In any case, you can change the IP numbering scheme by using whatever software came with your router. They're all pretty simple to learn. First BACK UP THE SETTINGS you've got now. If you've got an AEBS, then (if, say, you're using the iPAD app) hit EDIT, ADVANCED, DHCP and NAT, then look on that screen for the numbers to change.

All that said, I recommend you do NOT try this, because you may inadvertently pull the rug out from under any programs that learned your previous setup -- and also because I do not believe it will help. In fact, I solved my own Airplay problems by replacing my D-Link router with an AEBS, and pulling out a D-Link Bridge/Extender in favor of an Airport Express. In doing so, I also happened to change all my IP addresses (and I've got nearly 24 devices) from 198.0.1.xxx to the 10.0.1.xxx that apple routers apparently prefer. So I don't think the ip scheme matters, but SOMETHING does, and I'm pretty sure that the last ditch solution is to use Apple equipment whenever

Possible, amd why does that not surprise me? ;)

Rockguitarpower, are you using the same iOS release on your iPod touch and iPhone? If so, are they linked to the same computer -- or both linked to iCloud? Is there anything else on your iPod that differs from the setup on yor iPhone?

Yours is indeed a different situation.

Arthur,

Thanks for the input. I was able to change the IP address from 10.... to 192 and it actually worked! Didn't seem to negatively effect anything else and both the ipod touch and iphone are working great!

I have 3 different airport express units in different rooms of the house. So the signal flow goes:

Internet cable to a netgear RP114 router then to the main airport express unit.

All the iOS's are us to date. The ipod touch is not on the icloud and it is also linked to a different computer than my iphone.

I changed the ip address by going into the airport preferrences panel on my macbook.

Hope this might give some other people some ideas that are struggling with this.

Yeah, I basically had to quit iTunes on other users. I'm not sure if that is because it was indexing or doing other things in the background... All my music is on the Time Capsule. It seams if more than one iTunes is accessing the files the drop out happend.

Also I changed the crosfade time to 2 seconds between songs. That seems to help with iTunes forgetting to play the next song and just stopping altogether.

I sometimes have to go back into preferances and point the library back to the Music folder on the Time Capsule as iTunes periodically switches it back to where the local library was... No idea why but it does..

rockguitarpower, glad it worked! Of course I have no idea WHY it would work, unless resetting all your IP addresses corrected some previous problem--but whetever works, works.😎 In any case, it's great to have the details of your setup here, in case anyone searching the forums is facing somethingsimilar.

I tried tirning the mirroring option on my ipad and that took care of the problem.

I meant turning the mirroring option on, on my ipad.

First, I will talk about what I have:

1. U-verse using 2WIRE router

2. AirPort Extreme Base Station set to Bridge Mode

3. 3 AirPort Express Base stations connected in kitchen, living room and garage (to powered outdoor speakers)

4. Amped Wireless SR300 High Power Wireless-300N Smart Repeater (to get the wireless signal to the garage).

Prior to purchasing the AirPort Extreme, I was having a lot of difficulty with AirPlay providing continuous stream of music for periods longer than 15 minutes. I drank the kool-aid and believed that Apple stuff plays better with Apple stuff, so I bought the Extreme Base Station and set it to bridge mode as suggested in previous posts. This seemed to work fine, although cutting out still occurred. However, i couldn't quite the outside AirPort Express station to get a strong enough signal, so I added the repeater. It seemed to work fine a few times, but this past weekend I tried to fire up some music for a Spring BBQ and the music constatnly cut in and out, providing more frustration than relaxation.

I am rather certain that I have tried just baout every fix suggested in these and other posts. All devices have been updated and checked using Airport Utility. The signal strength is great, but the connection stinks.

The music is all stored on external HDs connected to a PC. All screen savers and energy saving features have been disabled on the PC, as I have noted many problems with connectivity when the computer's screen saver or sleep features are enabled.

I also noted that this weekend my phone (iPhone 4) could not connect via the Remote App to my library. It would try to connect to the libirary but would constantly fail such that I couldn't use the remote feature. Since I was more interested at the time at simply having music on -- and not necessarily the ability to adjust music and volume through use of phone or other device -- i said "screw it" and put the phone down and shut down the Remote App on the phone. I figured if my phone was part of the problem, the fact that the remote was no longer bothering the delicate balance of AirPlay would mean that the music would simply stream. Although annoyed that I would have to run upstairs to the PC in order to change music and adjust volume, I figured some music is better than no music at all, particularly with guests arriving.

Well, I tried multiple items to get music to play without interruption and I failed miserably. It would play for about 3 or 4 minutes, then would start skipping or cutting in and out, and then it would play no more. Extremely frustrating.

Note to Apple: I understand you are in a superior market position where you can put out various pieces of merchandise with a picture of a fruit on it and people will gobble it up, but please don't ignore feedback from customers. These posts on AirPlay go back several years with the same problems being reported. Where there's smoke there's probably a fire. I think it might be a good point in time to assemble a little team and start troubleshooting this issue, as the current state of inoperability is only leading to negative reviews on third party markets (Amazon, Newegg, etc.) and posoined word of mouth about how miserable these products perform. Having spent several hundred dollars -- most of which were Apple products -- and countless hours toying with settings and testing them, I am very close to scrapping the whole system and researching cat-5 or other wireless options which do not include Apple products.

If any Apple whiz-bang techie is out there with knowledge of a possible fix or has suggestions as to what I might try next in my journey to stream music wirelessly, please HELP!

I am streaming my iPhone 3GS to my Airport Express right now, and it works just fine, if my iPad 3 or iPhone 4S is not in the room. Whenever I bring either one of those into the room with the AE set up, the audio cuts out. Also, when I stream from the iPad or 4S, the audio cuts out all the time. It must have something to do with the different bands in the same room, I'm not sure.

tfullmer and twalker1998, Airplay is still alchemy, as near as I can figure. But I'm hooked on it, for better or worse. I think tfullmer's suggestion that Apple assemble a team to solve the hiccups is an excelent one, because I've never met a soul who has it working without complaint.

As fo me, I've not been able to make it infallible but have greatly increased its reliability. Here are a few things Ive done myself that have worked to varying degrees:

1. tfullmer, I've noticed that using Apple networking equipment whenever possible does indeed make a difference, and would suspect your Smart Repeater might be the culprit. I had problems nearly identical to yours until I replaced my D-Link wireless extender with an Airport Express in "extend a wireless network" mode. You may wat to try repurposing one of your Airport Express unts temporarily to be an extender and see if it mkes a difference.

2. My own network is entirely hard-wired except for iDevices and STILL endures Airplay interruptions. Anything that gets between the your Airport Extreme Base Station and the speakers can cause trouble, including the switches. When I recently upgraded all my old, power-hungry 10-100Mb switches to "smart" Gigabit, an unexpected bonus was better Airplay reliability. That said, I STILL get cutouts when streaming from my iPhone or iPad -- usually remedied by clicking "play" again and re-selecting the destinaton. I'm not sure what's causes these cutouts, but I suppose it could be RF interference from remotes, oher iDevices, or even ushielded appliances. Or maybe its one of the fershlugginer switches dropping the signal momentarily on its own.

3. If you're up for alternatives, I think Apple has the best one. The most reliable streaming solution I have discovered involves using an ethernet-conneted Apple TV for the destination and just about any Mac or PC running iTunes (also ethernet-connected) as a server. Works like a charm, no hiccups, and can be controlled by the remote app on your iPhone or iPad, or from Itunes on your server.

So far, so good...

I've had all kinds of problems trying to set up and maintain an airtunes network in my house, and the other day, I decided to purchase an Airport Extreme to feed the two Expresses that were doing all the heavy lifting. (I live in a 1,400 townhouse on two floors, so between the Extreme and 2 Expresses, we're not talking about covering a mansion here.) Regardless, while the Extreme seemed to give me much faster wireless speeds (or perhaps it's wishful thinking), the dropouts returned approx a half hour after hooking everything up. Sigh.

I'm no techie, but the problem seems to have been solved with a couple of minor tweaks. First, I set up the Expresses to JOIN the network, not expand it. My understanding is that this essentially renders the Expresses useless as "relay" or access points for my wireless internet, but all I'm asking of the little devils is to receive my airtunes from my MacBook and feed it into my stereos upstairs and down. (My Extreme should be more than enough to handle all my wireless internet needs.)

Next, I went in and changed the channel on the Expresses to channel 11. I'm now able to stream to the two Expresses without any problems, and I'm able to control everything from my iPhone or iPad with no problems whatsoever.

We'll see how long this lasts, but if I don't make it through the next couple of days, my next step will be to don a tinfoil hat, wave my arms furiously and chant. Gawd knows I've tried everything else.... :>0

I'm glad you've managed to resolve your Airplay issues. Of course, I did the same things you describe and I thought it was all good... and then (I'm guessing) my neighbors WAPs changed channels and it broke again :-)

There is an active discussion about this on the AVS Forum (Apple TV Owners) and everyone there has been advocating for running an ethernet cable to the Apple TV. I bit the bullet and did that and, voila, problem solved.

I was really surprised that I would have these problems with music playback (there just isn't that much bandwidth being used by ALAC audio tracks, right?), but it's the out-and-back problem that halves your effective bandwidth.

Add in channel interference from neighbors and you're in a jam (pun intended). Remember that Wi-Fi doesn't scale linearly, with respect to effective bandwidth as a function of signal strength and/or interference and/or opacity (i.e walls and ceilings).

Run a cable and be done with it, once and for all.