Very slow Mac when streaming music to Airport Express

I'm getting massive slow down on my Mac while streaming music to my stereo using my Airport Express (802.11n). The mouse is choppily moving around the screen, etc. The Airport Express is streaming through a D-Link wireless G router to my Mac which is connected to the D-Link network.
Has anyone experienced slow-downs like this? Could it be the channel my D-Link is on? Would changing the channel fix this?
Thanks

I'm actually using 10.5.8 on my computer. But I'm going to install Snow Leopard (with that combo update also) and I'll let you know if it works.
Here's a screenshot of Activity Viewer showing the dropout.

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Itunes freezes when streaming music to airport express and to loewe air speaker at the same time?

Hi,
(first post )
I was recently offered a Loewe Airspeaker. I already had an Airport Express connected to a hi-fi system.
The Airport Express + hi-fi is in the living-room and the Loewe Airspeaker is in our bedroom.
Both are connected to my network via wifi.
I was trying to stream music from my iMac to both the Airport Express and the Loewe Airspeaker.
When doing this, I am able to get the same tune on both devices, but iTunes systematically freezes
=>music continues to be streamed but interface on the iMac gets the endless multicolor wheel !
Has anyone seen anything similar before, for ex. is there a similar issue when streaming music to 2 different Airport Express?
Any idea on where this is coming from?
Any idea on how to prevent this?
Thx in advance
Rodolphe
A few precisions on the configuration:
the iTunes library and corresponding music are located on a Mac Mini configured as a media server.
The iMac connects to the mac mini via wifi (shared folder). Home network is organized via an Airport Extreme.
Both computers run Mac OS 10.7.2 Lion and are up to date.

Well, repying to my own post... Might have found the solution: I tried to do the same with a Macbook Pro 2010 using the very same setup. And it worked perfectly! No freeze, no nothing.
One explanation I see:
my iMac is dating back to May 2007, a Core 2 Duo 2,16Ghz with 2 Go of RAM.
So the computer's characteristics (or the Wifi component or the combination of all of this) might be not robust enough to allow streaming to those 2 devices...
Anyone's got anything to add?

Wlan router restarts when streaming music to Airport express

Hi guys,
Yesterday I received my brand new Airport express which I plan to use for streaming music from iTunes to my Stereo. Unpacking and installing the lovely looking AE was like x-mas eve and birthday all in one .
After the installation where I set up the AE to join my wireless network. My wlan is a WEP 64 bit encrypted one, I had some problems adding it to the network with the wizard of the AE tool, but this worked just fine after using the manual set-up procedure instead where I chose WEP 40 bit in the AE tool. I also upgraded AE firmware as a part of this process.
So, the AE pops up nicely in iTunes, and I started streaming music to them, and it worked perfectly... for 10 seconds. Then the music stopped, the play-bar in iTunes stopped, and I also noticed that my laptop (Acer laptop running Windows Vista) lost the internet connection.
After some investigations where I switched off volume adjustment on remote speakers in iTunes and reseting and re-installing the AE, I noticed that the reasons for the problems seems to my wlan router re-booted whenever I started streaming music to the AE. My wlan router is a Zyxel Prestige 660, and it has worked flawlessly for the last two years. The AE is connected to the network, it gets an IP address, and it shows up just fine in the IP list on the router, that is before it restarts... And once the router re-starts the logs are gone, so it's not possible to see what's happening in that end.
Has anyone ever experienced the same? What can the root cause be? Changing the wlan encryption is unfortunately not an option since the router is pre-programmed from my ISP. I'm considering changing my modem, but I'm reluctant to spending 150 bucks on a new modem if this may not resolve the issue.
Any comments or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Part 2: The mystic restart of the router was solved through changing to a Thompson Speedtouch 780 (luckily my ISP sent me a new wlan router and I didn't even have to pay).
However, the problem with the music breaking up when streaming from iTunes to the AE remains; The stream is broken after just a few seconds, and it also seems to mess up other internet traffic on my laptop . I've tried with the AE in a number of different locations, even 1 meter away from my laptop - nothing works.
As it is now, the AE is useless. What a disappointment .

HT4628 Intermittent reception when streaming music via Airport Extreme and Airport Express to powered speakers. Is this a problem with the Extreme?

i get intermittent reception when I stream music from I Tunes via Airport Extreme and Airport Express to powered speakers. I Tunes continues to play uninterupted on the Mac. The problem does not lie with the Express as it occurs on both of my 2 Express at the same time. is this a problem with the Extreme?

Well, repying to my own post... Might have found the solution: I tried to do the same with a Macbook Pro 2010 using the very same setup. And it worked perfectly! No freeze, no nothing.
One explanation I see:
my iMac is dating back to May 2007, a Core 2 Duo 2,16Ghz with 2 Go of RAM.
So the computer's characteristics (or the Wifi component or the combination of all of this) might be not robust enough to allow streaming to those 2 devices...
Anyone's got anything to add?

Can stream music to Airport express from Mac, but not windows

I set up an Airport express for music streaming from a pc at my uncle's, and he used it without issue for 1-2 years. It suddenly stopped working for him, and was flashing amber. I was unable to configure wirelessly, but finally configured it with my Mac and an Ethernet cable.
We are able to stream music to it now, wirelessly, from my Mac. But neither his windows 7 pc, nor his windows 8 pc can stream to it. The airport does not show up on iTunes on either computer. Also, airport utility on the pc does not see the device.
I have tried everything I can think of: different settings on the airport, disabling firewalls on the pc, etc.
Is there a way to get this working for him again?

Bump again.
I'm also running into this problem. I have an Actiontec MI424WR and an Airport Extpress A1084.
When using WPA or WPA2, the AE can't seem to connect to the Actiontec. Has anyone found a solution to this?
Side note, I had been using a Netgear WNDR3800 as a wireless access point plugged into the (wifi disabled) Actiontec. In this configuration the AEs connected fine, but my network performance was pretty awful. In trying to troubleshoot, I'm removing the Netgear device from the picture to simplify. Now that I've enabled the wifi on the Actiontec, all my other devices (iphones, ipads, computers) connect fine, just not the AE's.
Thanks for any advice.

Very slow printing from Konica connected via Airport Express

Hello folks,
I have a very strange problem with erratic printing to a network printer, connected to an Airport Express via ethernet.
The Network:
- Draytek modem/router hosting DHCP
- Time Capsule connected to Draytek. It's in bridge mode, and runs the WiFi network
- Airport Express 1 in "Join a Network" mode, ethernet clients allowed
- Konica Minolta Magicolor laserjet printer connected via ethernet to AX1
- Airport Express 2 in "Extend a Network" mode elsewhere in the office
All client devices on the network are getting IP addresses in the correct range etc. I have fixed the IP of most devices at the router level, so they don't change.
Client Macs print directly to the printer using IPP (or might be LPD, I can check if relevant) using apparently a correct driver and IP address.
WiFi network is very strong throughout, and the distance between Time Capsule and AX1 is just a few feet.
Here's the problem:
At the start of the day, the printer works just fine. Fast.
Then, inexplicably, you send a document to it and the print queue reports "Spooling....xx%" which increases painfully slowly compared to when it's working normally.
This happens randomly with both small and large files. A modest photo can take over an hour to fully spool and print when it's doing this.
Turning the printer off and on again tends to make it work properly, until the above happens again.
This is driving me mad. Is there a problem with:
(a) The WiFi network or airport hardware
(b) The printer
(c) The drivers
(d) The printing protocol
(e) Me
(f) All of the above
Any insight would be most welcome. The Konica tech reckons it's working, but I think he didn't spend long enough sending print jobs to it for the problem to manifest.
P.S.
One of my main questions is, when the print queue says "spooling", is this the process of progressively sending the file over the network? Or does spooling occur when the data is either already fully arrived at the printer, or hasn't left the Mac yet?
Could the printer's unwillingness to accept data cause the slow spooling? Why might this happen?

It should work. Enable Printer Sharing via System Preferences -> Sharing. The Mac does need to be turned on.
P.S. Try to just post one thread on your question instead of crossposting over several forums.

Itunes 8.2.23 upgrade, now won't stream music via airport express

i (mistakenly) installed yesterday's upgrade to itunes and now when i stream music to my airport express it will play a couple of songs and then i won't get any sound. the song is still "playing" in itunes but it isn't being streamed to my digital receiver. if i pause the song and start it again i'll hear it but after a bit a new song will do the same thing.
i seem to remember having this problem after the last update but can't remember what i did to remedy it. i think i reverted back to the previous version but i'm hearing that i can't do that from this version.

Hey I'm on the phone with the Apple Rep now ( who will remain nameless ) here are the steps:
1. System Prefs
2. Go into SECURITY
3. Click on FIREWALL
4. Select SET ACCESS FOR SPECIFIC SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS
5. Click the "+" Button to "Add" iTunes
6. Restart iTunes
You may need to "Add" Other Stuff that you normally use like Skype, Or Logmein.com, etc...
I believe that in the the future Apple may have a better fix for this... the rep is saying he will escalate it...
Seems to be working fine... we'll see who it goes long term and after some restarts... I'm not sure if it's because of the work we did re-installing and changing setting but I'm getting the soccer ball of death right now... be curious to see what others find out.
Message was edited by: Spitta9999
Message was edited by: Spitta9999

IPhone 4 dropping streaming music using Airport Express

We've got Airport Express to stream music to the stereo. Using it from iTunes and Spotify on both iPhone and computer. iPhone regularly stops working. What's weird is that it isn't dropping the connection and continuing to play on the phone, but the content stops altogether and has to be restarted. Any suggestions?

I having the same problem from my iPhone 4.
But when I stream from my iPad, it just works...

Streamed music to Airport Express interrupts

Hi,
Recently, I installed an Airport Express to stream my music from my iMac to the speakers in my office, at home.
Everything works good, but often the streaming just stops when I start typing something in the address bar of Safari.
In iTunes, this little icon gets yellow :
Both my iMac (from which the iTunes music is streamed) and my AE are wireless. Both are quite far from the TimeCapsule base station, but the signal is good for both (I download up to 50 Mbit/sec, so...).
When the music interrupts, I have to click "play" again and iTunes says "trying to connect to AiportExpress...." After a couple of seconds, the musics streams normally.
Sounds strange, no?
Thanks in advance for any support on this one!
M.

Wireless is shared bandwidth and if the stream is using a large chunk of the available bandwidth then it will have issues when you start using Safari.
Change over as much as possible to ethernet .. it is far more efficient and multiple computers can work at the same time.. the difficulty with wireless is that only one device can connect at a time.. so wireless works on a time slicing system.. fine for data.. really lousy for streams of audio or video.
If you cannot fix it with ethernet try looking at EOP (homeplug) adapters these are still better than wireless when they work.. however the only way to find out is to test them.. they behave differently in every setup.
I just saw your other thread..
The airport utility will show how fast the wireless link is.. to do this hover your mouse over the connection where it says good or average. etc.
You can see that mine show average but the RSSI is really low.. -85dBm is actually a really poor link.
If I use the old v5 utility I will discover that signal to noise is only separated by 3 or 4db.
You can be pretty sure trouble will come.. just a person moving around through the wireless beam will cause issues.

Problems streaming music to Airport Express via Airtunes in Mountain Lion

Ever since upgrading to Mountain Lion, I have been encountering some strange behavior regarding my ability to stream music to speakers connected to my network via Airport Expresses. Initially, the speakers appear in iTunes, and I can select them and stream music to them perfectly. Eventually, however, they no longer stream music and appear unselected in iTunes. When I try to select them again, I cannot. After clicking on them, they appear connected for a few milliseconds before disconnecting again. I have found that restarting my computer resolves this problem.
I believe this is a Mountain Lion issue because, even when I can no longer select the speakers, I can still stream music to these speakers from both my iPhone and my iPad.
I also have a set of Airplay enabled speakers (Zeppelin Air) and I can stream to these speakers even when the Airport Express ones are not functioning. I interpret this to mean that my computer, iTunes, and my router are all capable of streaming music.
I had hoped that iTunes 11 would fix this issue, but it hasn't. I have found posts to simiar problems on these forums, but they often involve receiving various error messages from iTunes. I never receive any error messages, streaming to the speakers just stops and cannot be restarted. Streaming worked perfectly in Snow Leopard and for the brief time I had Lion. I find needing to restart my computer repeatedly to be a rather inelegant solution to this problem. Any insight is appreciated.

What's also strange, is that if I log onto another user on the same computer, the streaming works fine. That means that the problem lies within my user account, doesn't it?
Are there any preference files that I can safely delete within my user library to reset any preferences that are ****** up?
Also, I don't know if it might have something to do with it, but I'm running Little Snitch. Don't see that there are any rules I've set up that might interfere with AirTunes, though!

Stream music via Airport Express vs. Apple TV

I purchased some Vanatoo Powered Speakers (amazing speakers) with Digital Audio in and was planning on streaming music from my iphones, iPad, mac, etc... via Airplay. I purchased an Airport Express and plugged it to the Speakers with an optical cable.
I have a network with an Airport Extreme and good signal, however, whatever the channel I selected, the music keeps dropping out every now and then during playback. I wanted to see if the problem would also occur with my Apple TV. I plugged it to the speakers and the problem was GONE! The Apple TV works much better and no dropped signal! Now I need to replace my Airport Express with an Apple TV! I don't understand why Apple cannot fix the problem of Airplay playback on Airport Express!

I have a same problem using the Airport Express to my DAC, but Apple TV is doing without any drop out.
I don't know the reason, but there is a suggestion in audiophile to install a 3rd party software, e.g. Audiravana plus, which allows the music to go to memory (RAM) and a slightly delay to play.
You can download for a free trail, only purchase if it helps.

Cannot stream music via airport express with iOS7

i just upgrade my ipad and iphone to the iOS7
i try to stream music with my airport express but when i open the music app in my ipad
or iphone the icon to send the music does not show.
any ideas

Thank you so, so, much - you've made my day!

How do I stream music to airport express from my iPhone

I have installed airport express on my macbook pro and can now play music on my stereo system using itunes from my laptop, but I also ant to steam music from my iphone4 to the stereo as well, I have some radio apps on my iphone four that I would like to do this with.

Which version of iOS are you running on your iPhone 4S? With the lastest versions an AirPlay icon (see image below) will appear in the Control Center when your iPhone is attached to a Wi-Fi network which an AirPlay ready device is present.
To access the AirPlay icon, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the Control Center.

Streaming music using airport express

Is is possible to stream music from Safari to an airport express like you can in Itunes?

Hi
Welcome to Apple Discussions
To stream audio from Safari through your Airport Express you'll need to purchase Airfoil. There is a demo version on the developer's site. I suggest trying it before purchasing. Also, I suggest reading the FAQ on the site.
Message was edited by: Hawaiian_Starman

Issue streaming music to AirPort Express

Hey guys.
I seem to be having difficulty with the above. I've had my device for around a year and have never had any trouble with it.
Over the past week I've been trying to connect iTunes to the remote speakers and it simply freezes at "Connecting to AirPort Speakers".
At first I thought my firewall may have blocked it, but when disabling it the same result is received.
The strange thing is, I can still see and change settings on it using the config softrware with no issues at all.
The AirPort connects wirelessly to my core switch, and my PC is plugged into the switch via ethernet.
Nothing has changed in terms of software or hardware. so I'm a bit confused as to why it literally just "stopped working".
Anyone have any ideas? (Any flamer posts will just get removed :D)
Thanks,
Andy

Update: this problem exists when just listening to music on iMac with iTues; no airport express or network involved. Something, somewhere in the software is causing this.

Very slow Mac when streaming music to Airport Express

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