Airtunes Dropouts

My setup: Airport Extreme for internet with an Airport Express used only for Airtunes set to join the Extreme's network. This works fine.
My problem is bandwidth. I have a MacPro with all my music on it down in my studio and my G4 15" PB in the living room with the Airport Express and HIFI. My MacPro shows up on the PB as a shared library and music streams to the Express fine .. as long as it's an MP3 or MP4.
Seeing as how most of my music is lossless this causes problems. My setup just can't handle sending lossless around and I get dropouts, stutters, etc.
The thing is, I've had this setup working fine, in the same way that I've had screen sharing working with super fast refresh, almost as if the mac I'm controlling is the mac I'm using to control it. But now screen sharing still works but it's jerky and slow.
Something is eating my bandwidth and I don't know what it is. There's nothing going on on the network, no big downloads or anything and the network is secure so it's not someone stealing bandwidth.
Is there anything I can do to get this working so I can listen to music? I've set multicast to 11 on the Extreme to no effect.

It is very possible that you may have some form of Wi-Fi interference in the immediate area that is preventing your AX from getting a good clean signal.
I suggest you perform a simple site survey, using utilities like:
KisMAC, MacStumbler, iStumbler, or IPNetMonitorX to determine potential areas of interference...and then, try to either eliminate or significantly reduce them.

Similar Messages

How to hook up TWO Airport Expresses and base to reduce AirTunes dropouts?

Any suggestions on the best way to set up Airport Extreme base station with two Airport Expresses to allow iTunes to drive two separate stereos?
I've had a lot of problems with random Airtunes dropouts with this system, even now that I have removed all security from the network (removal of which definitely helps AirTunes). And I can consistently play music through ONE of the stereos without dropouts. But whenever I try to use the Multiple Speakers option in iTunes, the dropouts start again.
I've changed my channel to one that none of my neighbors is using. I've tried moving all of the Airports away from other electronics. Right now the two Expresses are clients of the network created on the Extreme base, which is where the cable modem is connected. Is there some better way to do it? Like use the Expresses as relays instead of clients, or something?

While I don't have any suggestions to make beyond what you have already tried, I can tell you that configuring the Airport Express units as relay or remote base stations will likely make the problem worse because of the bandwidth penalty you get from such a setup.
In case you haven't yet seen it, this is what Apple has to say on the topic:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108065

AirTunes dropouts - what to buy next?

I have had AirTunes dropouts with my Airport Express (g, 2007) since the beginning and haven't used it for this reason for a long time. I am now looking at upgrading our modem/wireless setup and I would like to ask what I should purchase and if that is a guaranteed solution.
Current setup is a Thompson ST780 modem/wireless router running at "g", WPA protected. iTunes is running on the current iMac (mid 2011) and the Airport Express ("g", 2007). All are in the same (small) room. Music dropouts occur irregularly, but tend to occur more often in the evening. To try and understand the issue, I made some measurements.
The iMac detects 21 other wireless networks. Nevertheless, noise appears to be low (-98 using terminal command), signal strength is -48. These values do not change (much) in periods of dropouts. I did a couple of tests with 1,000 pings to google. Without streaming: packet losses are below 1 percent, average time is around 23 ms, some spikes to 200ms but standard deviation is low (5 to 10%) so these are exceptions. Whilst streaming the major statistics do not change except the outliers approach 300 ms and the stdev increases slightly (<20ms). However, during very bad dropout periods, packet loss rises to 2%, minima are still 19ms but maxima go up to 1841ms, average is now 73ms and stdev 177ms. Needless to say, surfing becomes very slow. Moreover connection to the AE is occasionally lost and it is hard to re-connect. It seems that the AirTunes problems are taking up all wifi bandwidth, as soon as it is unplugged internet works great again. Interesting is also the graph of incoming and outgoing data from the imac. Outgoing is obviously high, incoming low. Around the time of a dropout, the incoming signal goes to zero whilst outgoing remains stable. As the dropout ends, both incoming and outgoing spike for a brief moment, after which they pick up the normal pattern. Looks like buffering the missed data. Btw, I've tried all channels and also WEP incryption etc.. I am also not doing any other heavy-duty internet work, just mail. Any thought on the reason for this problem?
The question is, is it save to conclude that the AE will never function flawlessly in this setup and environment? Even if the wireless router is replaced by -say- an Airport Extreme? Or are there any alternatives, like assigning specific IP-addresses? And if I were to replace this unit with the latest n-AE (and obviously get an 'n' router), will the problem be solved for sure?
What is irritating about this issue is that technically the device is not broken (I have two, both have the same issue), but it still does not work as advertized.

I have a mid 2011 iMac, an "n" Time Capsule and an "n" Airport Express. The Time Capsule is connected to my router (a BT one - I'm in the UK) with an ethernet cable and the iMac is connected to the Time Capsule with an ethernet cable too.
The Airport Express is in the next room and is only used for Airtunes to my HiFi system, streamed from the iMac. I too have been suffering dropouts and these seem to have increased since upgrading to AirPort Utility 6.0 and the latest firmware updates for the TC and AE.
At the moment, the AE is connected wirelessly to the network created with the TC and the iMac's internal WiFi is turned off. I have also tried setting the AE up as a separate network, turning the iMac's WiFi on and connecting to it directly. I have also tried limiting the AU to 5GHz only. In the past I have also tried selecting individual WiFi channels.
None of these actions have cured the problem. I'm coming to the conclusion that the only way to het a really secure connection to the AE is to connect to it with an Ethernet cable, but that sort of defeats the object, doesn't it?
I really wish this would work as it should. It's so nearly brilliant.

Airtunes dropouts - AE firmware 6.3 / WPA2 personal network

I finally managed to set up a proper airtuning of my Airport Express (AE) without having the regular streaming dropouts I used to have before (happening a few minutes after every hard/soft reset of my AE, AE still showing solid green light but suddenly not pingable anymore, iTunes stopping the playing, airport channel name displayed in italic at the bottom right of iTunes).
I think I found a solution (further testing required but so far much better) and would like to share my story for the eventual benefit of others. Since I am convinced there might be other reasons than the one I found to such a problem, I will try to carefully describe my network/systems settings.
> My network/systems:
. ADSL/WiFi router Xavi 7868r 54 Mbps configured for mac filtering, no ssid broadcasting, wpa2 personal auth/encrypt using 64 ascii psk, dhcp with fixed ip adressing for my AE
. MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo running Mac OS X (10.4.8) with iTunes 7.0.2 (15) connected to the network through Airport Extreme
. Airport Express with latest firmware (6.3) and regular speakers directly connected to it through audio jack
> My attends to narrow down the problem (OK means dropouts solved, NOK means dropouts not solved):
. putting all my network elements closer to each other (half a meter away from each other) -> NOK
. connecting my Macbook through Ethernet instead of WiFi -> NOK
. disconnect my DECT phone standing close the WiFi router -> NOK
. monitoring of neightbouring WiFi networks -> NOK (I have the strongest signal, almost 100% of signal level)
. checking interference robustness boxes on AE and my laptop -> NOK
. broadcasting my WiFi SSID -> NOK
. turn my WiFi security setting off (i.e. open network without even a WEP) -> OK
. move to WEP 128 security -> OK
. move to WPA2 security -> NOK
. downgrade AE firmware to the previous one (6.1.1) -> OK
So I finally have my AE airtuning working without these sudden dropouts and without any concession regarding the security of my network (WPA2 personal).
Link for AE firmware 6.1.1 download: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportexpressfirmware611formacosx.html
Hope it will help some people getting crazy around. Anyway, thanks for all the ones who posted messages on related issues since they surely helped me in some way. Will try to answer to your eventual questions as well.
Mabook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)
Mabook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

So let me be sure what you're saying. You had fairly new AE with V6.3 on it and you downgraded to 6.1.1? I'm a little nervous to try this, but the drop-outs are killing me. I had an older AE that finally died. I think it probably was running 6.1.1 and I hardly ever experienced any problems with it. So maybe you have found the solution, but wouldn't you think Apple would pick up on this and fix whatever is wrong with 6.3? Go figure!

Sudden Airtunes dropouts since Airport upgrade

I have only had AEXpress for a few days. But from the moment I connected it it worked flawlessly. I streamed music for hours all day the first day and a few hours running the next few days. All simply perfectly.
Now, since the Airport update I am experiencing dropouts. The music just stops. It could be a coincidence - I have seen reports of dropouts on this board but I was not experiencing them. Now I am.
Other experiences with this update?

I have a mid 2011 iMac, an "n" Time Capsule and an "n" Airport Express. The Time Capsule is connected to my router (a BT one - I'm in the UK) with an ethernet cable and the iMac is connected to the Time Capsule with an ethernet cable too.
The Airport Express is in the next room and is only used for Airtunes to my HiFi system, streamed from the iMac. I too have been suffering dropouts and these seem to have increased since upgrading to AirPort Utility 6.0 and the latest firmware updates for the TC and AE.
At the moment, the AE is connected wirelessly to the network created with the TC and the iMac's internal WiFi is turned off. I have also tried setting the AE up as a separate network, turning the iMac's WiFi on and connecting to it directly. I have also tried limiting the AU to 5GHz only. In the past I have also tried selecting individual WiFi channels.
None of these actions have cured the problem. I'm coming to the conclusion that the only way to het a really secure connection to the AE is to connect to it with an Ethernet cable, but that sort of defeats the object, doesn't it?
I really wish this would work as it should. It's so nearly brilliant.

Constant airtunes dropouts

Hi,
I tried searching the forums but have not found a solution to my problem. Pardon me if I leave out any pertinent facts. I have the latest OS updates, s/w updates, AirPort Express firmware updates, etc. that I know of. For some reason my AirTunes gets in modes where it constantly drops out. (On rare occasions it can go for hours without dropouts.) If I only play through the computer speaker it never seems to drop out, but who wants to do that!!
I have my laptop in the same room as the AirPort Express. Rebooting the computer and starting iTunes with no other apps open sometimes helps, sometimes makes no difference. When the sound drops out, iTunes also stops playing. I thought maybe the hard disk wasn't fast enough, so I converted everything over from USB to Firewire -- no difference.
How can I narrow down the problem? Is it a faulty AirPort Express unit? Is it a network problem? I can run speed tests on the same DSL line while iTunes is playing and I'm getting good results. But also, I tend to have static on my phone line and have always wondered if this could be a factor if it may also affect my wireless network connectivity. It just seems like the AirPort does not have a big enough buffer.
Could it have anything to do with the library size (~12000 songs using 86GB) or the fact that I have my library split between my internal and external drives?
I love my iTunes but I'm about to toss this out the window because this is driving me crazy.
iBook G4 1GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8) 640MB SDRAM (max)

Hi ChrisZ,
Thanks for the info about lossless; I had wondered about that.
On the interference front, the dropouts were bad tonight; I'm so tired of listening to music through the relatively tinny PB's speakers!
Here's the setup:
Airport Extreme connected to DSL router
Airport Express1 connected to stereo
Airport Express2 connected to USB printer
Powerbook1 runs 802.11g; other PB2 and iMac run 802.11b
PB1 is 24 feet from Airport Extreme and 20 feet from AX1
PB2 and iMac comparable distances. The AXes are set up to join the Airport Extreme network.
I used the same set-up for over a year with excellent results until several months ago, but now it's so bad that it's verging on unusable. We are regularly crippled by interference in which the music stops/starts constantly. Also, the signal strength indicator (normally 4 bars) jumps all over the place, going down to 3 and 2 bars. PB1 has Interference Robustness enabled; the others don't support it. It seems to help slightly.
I've been at the Genius Bar and have tried these things at their suggestion, and none have made a perceived difference.
-Turned off IPv6
-In Airport Admin Util:
--Changed channel from "automatic" to 1, 5, 9, 11 and others
--Increased multicast rate to 11 and 5.5
--Transmitter power 100%
--Interference Robustness enabled here
We have no microwave or other source near any of the airport base stations.
Firmware: 5.7 (extreme) 6.3 (AX)
Thanks to Joe for suggesting Air Traffic Control widget to check your signal strength.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/airtrafficcontrol.h tml
It shows 2 neighbors on channels 1 and 6, so I put ours on 9. I hypothesize that it's a 2.4 ghz phone or such.
What more can I do?
Thanks in advance for your help.
PB G4 17 inch; TiBook; iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1 gig RAM

Is this Holy Grail for AirTunes dropouts?

Many thanks to prior poster (afjafj) who suggested leaving AU always open so that Airtunes maintains constant connection to AX speakers via iTunes. Nothing else I've ever tried works so consistently! How about others?
Message was edited by: jcpom
Message was edited by: jcpom

If you're getting 10 megabytes (MB) per sec that's not too bad, if it's 10 megabits though it may be a bit slow.
AppleTv doesn't have a gigabit ethernet interface either, so on paper across 100Mbps ethernet 10MB/sec would be great considering non-data bandwidth in the equation. If it's 1MB/sec though streaming would be pretty much impossible.
AppleTv does not have blazing fast hardware anyway, and part of the problem is relatively slow disc storage which by the nature of the drive's used is not surprising - 2.5" drives are not going to be up to speeds of modern SATA 7200 rpm + drives.
AC

AIRTUNES DROPOUTS - how do i make them stop?

so i have an airport extreme and an airport express which is hooked up the A/V system that controls the house. we have the fastest internet connection available to us and rarely put a dent in the bandwidth. HOWEVER airtunes constantly finds reason enough to drop out. what. can. i. do?
thanks

+i should have mentioned this -+
+we aren't using a laptop. we have a new imac which is directly next to the airport extreme...+
+do the same directions still apply?+
Thanks for the clarification. Unless you are willing to temporarily move the iMac to the area where the AirPort Express is located, you won't be able to gather the data that we need to understand the signal and noise levels on your wireless network. If you had a friend who had a Mac running Snow Leopard, that might be an option.
+further, i tried to download istumbler and each time i try to launch it it crashes..?+
Your post indicated that you were running Snow Leopard, 10.6.2, and iStumbler 99 requires this operating system to function. I can't explain why it would crash. It's the most popular utility on the internet for measuring signal strength and noise and identifying wireless channels in use. Not sure what to suggest. Maybe delete the version you downloaded and try again.
Another option is to try Air Radar to accomplish the same measurement task. It's not free, but there is a 14 or 21 free evaluation period. If you try this, you will need to click the Scan button at the lower right of the main window to get things going once you have downloaded and installed the application. It's easy to miss.
Frankly, we're kind of stuck until we know more about the signal strength, noise and other factors very close to location where the Express is located. In the meantime, try to position the Express away from other electronics (they can interfere with your wireless signal) and out from behind a cabinet if it's buried out of sight.
In other words, if you had a water sprinkler at the center of the ceiling in the room, you want the Express to get as wet as possible. This will help get more of the wireless signal to the AirPort Express.
Post back on your progress when you are ready.

Heads Up Apple: Possible Insight into AirTunes dropouts

I started using airfoil to send audio from other apps to my airport express... Dropouts have ceased entirely (suggesting the problem is not airport express, but iTunes).
Prior to using airfoil, I had been using my 6.3 airport express on a number of different channels (no performance boost on any of them) in my dorm room to broadcast internet. I actually experienced more dropouts w/6.3 than I did with previous versions, but that's beside the point.
I know it ***** to have to use another program to get your speakers to play right, but it works... As opposed to Apple's solution.

Interested to read you use Airfoiil. Do you use it to play radio through AE, if so how do you get Airfoil to pick up radio output which uses Real or Windows Media.
I have downloaded a trial version and can happily use Airfoil with iTunes but it refuses to work with radio streams from the web. I've read their help files, and there's something that says you need to make your web browser your audio source, I've no idea how to do this or even if i should as most of the time i use ITunes.
Any ideas?

Good News/Airtunes

I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think the latest itunes upgrade(8.0.2) fixed the airtunes dropout problem that came in with the previous upgrade.

Not here. It worked for a day or two but then the same problem started again. Arrrggghh!! My airtunes has now officially been broken for months, ever since iTunes 8. What a fool I was to upgrade, and reverting to iTunes 7 is such a hassle. Please, Apple, fix this already!

Airport Express not recognized by Utility after changing security setting.

We use an Extreme with an Express to extend the network and run speakers. While trying to eradicate Airtunes dropouts I changed the security setting on the Express using the Airport Utility. After the update, the Express is no longer being recognized. Help!!! I've unplugged it and used the reset button to no avail. I'm a techno-dummy, so please be gentle. I really do appreciate any insight.

Hi,
It seems you have set a too strong security on the Extreme that is not supported on the Express.
I don't know what model of Express you have so try to use a less strong security on the Extreme.
(you can find the security specs of your express on Apple's website : http://support.apple.com/specs/#airport )
As you have reset the Express... you will first have to set it up again...
P.S. : Do the connection drop problems occur on the Express and / or on the extreme ?
As security settings "should" not be the cause for WiFi connection drop, something else is.
Can you give more info on what you already tried ? Ex : Multicast Rate, Transmit Power, Use wide channels, Closed network, Use interference robustness
Kind regards,

I finally have a stable WDS network!

After almost a year of irregular dropouts of my network (1 Extreme, 2 Expresses) I have finally resolved it. I had my Extreme (not Gigabit) replaced by the Apple store, after the most recent firmware update did nothing good. I was having regular problems with my networked hard drive, as well as needing to frequently reset one of the Expresses in order to keep it on the network. I had already replaced the Express once, assuming that it was faulty.
Initially, the guy at the Apple store thought that my firmware wasn't updated. Even though I had updated a few days earlier, my Extreme was asking for new firmware, with the newest version already installed. This convinced him to just replace the unit.
After setting up the new Extreme, I had another network loss. This occurred while I had Azureus running and I closed my laptop to put it to sleep. I've had dropouts in the past without Azureus running, so I didn't suspect it before, but I found another thread that seemed to implicate Azureus as creating instability. I stopped using Azureus and switched to Transmission.
I haven't had a dropout in over 2 weeks since those 2 changes. In addition, I no longer have Airtunes dropouts either. Finally, after almost a year of problems, both hardware and software related, things seem to be working correcctly.

Nothing quite like fixing your own problem a year later. Gives "finally" a whole new meaning

Airport network problem

I have the following set up in a WDS network at home:
Airport Extreme (main base station)
Airport Express1 (Relay)
Airport Experss2 (Remote)
we have 3 mac in the house (1 PB and 2 iBooks).
The system seems to work fine and we can connect to the internet etc
Problems:
1) Randomly one or other of the computers gets knocked off the network and the network message reads Airport has self assinged IP and may not be able to connect to the internet. Machine IP goes to 169.254.xxx.xxx. Interestingly in Airport Admin Utility all the airports still show 14.1.132.xx IP addresses.
This is the main issue
2) Air Tunes on Airport2 works briefly (say 5-10 minutes) and then invariably stops.
I have the network set up on channel 6 and set to 802.11b/g. Could this be a problem?
I was wondering if you had any suggestions for me or if you have seen this problem before

Most likely problem is radio frequency interference. Try using channel 1 or 11 and see if this helps.
Unfortunately, a WDS (especially one with a relay and a remote) is going to be far more prone to problems with getting reliable data transmission than a non-WDS network. It is a known contributing cause to the Airtunes dropout problem (which you are also experiencing).

Airport Express disappears from Airport Admin Utility

If I power cycle my Airport Express, it correctly finds my (non-Airport) wireless network and its light turns green. It successfully works with Airtunes, and also works as a wireless bridge to my TiVo. However, after a period of time (usually a few hours), it starts flashing orange, and can't be found by either Airport Admin Utility or iTunes. However, it still successfully bridges the TiVo to my wireless router. Does anyone have any clue what's going on? If I power cycle it again, it goes back to green for a while, but it seems it can't refresh part of the connection without a power cycle.
I should also add that when I first set it up I had major Airtunes dropouts, but then I changed from WPA2 to WPA on my network, and that seems to have helped.

Perhaps when you switch it to 5 GHz the signal loss is so great that your Mac Pro can no longer receive the signal.
5 GHz signals do not move through physical objects as well as 2.4 GHz signals.

IMac wifi signal fluctuates between -24 and -80 other clients stable.

I'm experiencing Airtunes dropouts. The problem seems to be fluctuations in signal strength as shown in the screenshot in this link: http://gallery.me.com/alex.slaets#100343/wifi&bgcolor=black .
Network:
3 Airtunes express in 802.11n only 5 GHZ mode, configured to extend the range of one wireless network.
Clients:
1 iPad.
1 iMac.
All software and firmware is on the very latest version.
Observation:
As shown in the image, the signal strength S/N remains stable at -24/-95 db for all clients in the network EXCEPT the iMac (22:FF) which fluctuates between -24 and -80 in 5 to 10 second cycles.
The iPad (C8:FB) is located near the iMac and its signal, remains stable.
Any ideas on what this might be ?

Alex.Slaets wrote:
Any ideas on what this might be ?
_*wireless interference*_ ?
any cordless phones nearby ?
perhaps one of your neighbor's wireless networks is interfering with yours. download iStumbler (free) or AirRadar (it has a trial period) and note the channels other networks in your vicinity are broadcasting on. *change the channel(s) of your network as far away as possible from those*.
JGG

Airtunes Dropouts

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