iTunes / Airplay drops out

Same problem. I put on a christmas album while we put up the tree and sent the audio from itunes to airplay speakers. at the end of each song, it was silent. i'd check to remote app to see that itunes was playing all along. if i backed up the song and started it from the beginning, sound would resume until the next track change.

airplay is becoming less stable in my environment over time. it should be more stable as it's updated.

mac mini running lion.

airport extreme for main network.

2 airport expresses for air play

1 apple tv for airplay

everything is up to date.

Mine drops music ramdomly, from every 2 seconds to 15 seconds,

musics is "broken"......

I am having a similar problem using airply from iTunes 10.5.1 on os 10.6.8. If I try to airplay to my ATV2 from iTunes it plays about 3,4 seconds then gets choppy and stops. However airplay from my iPhone plays fine. Also if I go to the ATV2 and choose the Library from the computers menu it plays fine. So the only issue is if I am at my MacBook Pro I can't push music via airplay from itunes, which have always been able to do in the past.

Is there any solution to this, or has anyone fixed this on their own?

I have the exact same problem: song dropping off only after the full track has played, & having to pause/play it to come back on.

I have 4 AX & 2 ATVs running from the latest Mac & on the Apple router.

Only 2-3 of the 6 potential speaker sets are on at a time.

This has gotten worse over time & is a problem.

For me the problem was using a dual-band router, the ATV2 was on one band and computer on another. If I put them both on the same band it works fine, but to send data from one band to the other didn't work. It was a router issue for me at least.

If it is a router issue, would the problem fix itself with each track change? To me, it suggests a problem with iTunes / AirPlay.

i have the same problem. I use 3 apple tv devices, connected via optical, to 3 amplifiers. Up next drops out intermittently. i have to replay the song to get it to play, but then the next song does the same thing. Up next doesn't work because I have to manually restart each song. Very frustrating, especially when entertaining, and have to constantly running to the computer to keep the music going. I use the airport supreme router, macbook pro, with latest mountain lion and itunes updates.

Not sure if anyone is still having this issue but if there's a solution I'd love to hear it. I've been having this issue for the past few months and it's extremely frustrating. Unfortunately I'm pretty invested in AirPlay as I'm currently using 12 AirPort Expresses for whole house music.

12 huh? I have 6 AE and 3 Extremes feeding a home.

Are you Express models the latest or older ones?

The 12 Airport Expresses are the latest versions. All are wired via ethernet and actually have their wireless functionality turned off since they are only used for music distribution (basically an Apple version of Sonos). It was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than Sonos and except for the random "silent songs" issue the system works great!

Michael, I understand "definitely" cheaper than Sonos! 🙂

How are they fed? I am assuming from 16? port switch or similar?

What is the router? Also Apple?

I just made an error updating a config on an xtreme and hung my LAN up. After spening a good 30mins getting Admin utility (had to connect via enet) to let me reset the extreme, I re-entered settings and updated to 7.6.4. All the expresses that talk to that extreme are via wifi and N generation (work under Admin 6.3.1). Extreme is a 2nd gen.

So far, no drops, even from iPhone. I don't get it. Will post if I find out anything. I don't have the budget to go all new (Need 3 newest Airport Extremes, and 6 newest Airport Express) 😢

Yeah, all the Expresses are fed via ethernet thru a 24-port switch. This is the phyiscal layout:

Comcast feed -> Motorola SB6121 Modem -> AirPort Extreme (2013 AC version) -> 24-port Monoprice Switch -> 12 individual AirPort Expresses

From there each AirPort Express has it's own small amp and then it's in-wall speaker wire all over the house for the 12 different zones. Overall it's a fantastic setup! We play music mostly from a giant iTunes library on our iMac (wired via ethernet as well) and control it via the Remote app on our iPhones and iPads.

If only the music didn't stop playing around the house randomly we'd be in business. Strange thing is that when it happens if you look at iTunes on the iMac it's still playing the song just fine like nothing is wrong... there's just no audio until you click Next Track or Previous Track in iTunes... then all of a sudden it starts playing like normal. Seems to be an iTunes communicating with AirPlay destinations issue.

Thankfully it doesn't happen too often... maybe once a week... but it's annoying enough to try to find a solution.