AIRPLAY DROPOUTS....

I too am frustrated by this and have been trying to sort it for a couple of years. The one thing I have learned is not to use the microwave oven.

I have two iHome iw1 speakers, both recognised by iTunes, but don't always automatically link to iTunes. They're both kept charging and on standby. Often I need to switch one unit off and back on to get it to connect. If I pause play in iTunes and then play a while later, the link to the speakers is lost and iTunes cannot connect. Has anyone had the same experince? Could my BT Home Hub router be to blame?

I can't help with your specific issue, but I can tell you that I have eliminated all my Airtunes dropout issues. It was a two step solution:

1) I wired each of Airport Express units to the network via Ethernet and homeplug and then cabled to each of the three amplifiers. I turned disabled wireless on each of the three AE units.

2) this wasn't a 100% success until I replace the single b/g AE with a new n AE unit. i.e. all 3 AE units are now n.

Just wanna say "me also". I am sitting here for years with a WDS network. AirPlay (or like it was called before "AirTunes") worked for me until iTunes 7.5 (when all features causing network traffic were switched off: DJ, Jukebox etc.).

At least nowadays apple seems to admit that problems might occur with this setup: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4587

BUT: why was it working before? I was hanging around with an old iTunes 7.5. Now I am thinking about getting myself an iPhone after all. But to be able to sync that thing with my computer I have to upgrade my iTunes. It is indeed frustrating that there is no solution in sight.

And I cannot agree to other statements here, that the dropout issue is a WiFi related problem: I have a Mac mini here in my home network, completely wired network connections to everything (AirPort Extreme n, AirPort Epress b/g) and the dropouts are still there when playing music over AirPlay ala AirTunes.

Finally I decided to kick iTunes and AirPlay altogether and not purchasing an iPhone. There are a lot of alternatives out there, that do work.

Found A Solution to the DropOut-Problem - BIG TIME!!

Here is what did on my MacBook Pro, and DropOuts are almost completely gone! Only when the WiFi signal is very weak, dropouts occur, but playback resumes as soon as signal strength comes back to normal. So for everyone who likes to join my experiment and post his experience, here is the howto:

• setup a virtual machine on your Mac (I use Parallels Desktop)
• install Windows in this virtual machine (I use Windows XP)
• download and install the latest iTunes for Windows in this virtual machine
• configure you virtual network as "bridged" and choose "AirPort" as your network adapter so that you can connect to your AirTunes or AirPlay devices
• play your music from iTunes for Windows inside the virtual machine and enjoy playback with no dropouts!