The Verdict is: Nay

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Unfortunately using Airfoil does not solve the problem on the dropping out Airtune speakers. However, I have noticed several things about the issue:

First off, I always thought it was iTunes that was causing most of the problem. I can now see that this isn’t the case. From what I can tell, something happens, what this something is, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a microwave or a cordless phone or a computer or a solar flare or what, but something happens. This interrupts my Airport Airtune signal and it drops off the face of the earth. (Maybe it’s being moved to an alternate dimension.) Sometimes it pops back quickly, other times it takes a few minutes, and I assume that sometimes it never comes back at all.

During this time, full signal and internet capabilities exist between my computer and Airport Express, it’s just like Airport said “Oh, hey, I changed my mind. There are no speakers here.”

Unplugging and replugging the Airport resets everything (including the internet connection) and the remote speaker comes back.

What Airfoil IS better at than iTunes is finding the remote speaker again after it is gone. When using iTunes I would find often that restarting iTunes was the only way I could make it see the remote speaker, (barring a several minute wait for iTunes to look around again and actually find it.) But with a 25 Gig iTunes library this is no simple task.

The nice thing about Airfoil is that if the remote speaker cuts out my iTunes music continues to play through my computer speakers, so there is less stoppage as things go from working to not working and vice versa.

What I would really like to find out now is what exactly Airport is fighting. If I knew what it was that was giving Airport speaker amnesia I would be much better equipped to combat it. I know some things about it already, such as it’s more likely to occur in the afternoon or evening, while mornings seem to be relatively immune to this behavior. It never just happens once and it’s done. If it happens, it happens every x number of minutes, with x not necessarily being the same for each interval. (I haven’t timed it out yet, but I think it needs to be done.)

One way or another I would really like to get to the bottom of this, I’ve already invested enough money into it. (iTunes = Free, Airport Express = $129, Airfoil = $25, [AirClick = $50]*) So if anyone knows anything more on the whole dropout issue, drop me a line, I would like to hear your experiences.

* AirClick wasn’t specifically purchased for this purpose, but I use it to control iTunes quite a bit.

  • http://www.brianwong.com/ Brian

    I had the same problem. I think its not a software problem but rather a signal strength problem.

    The guys at the Mac store told me that to broadcast audio data, its different from wifi data. So although you can see full bar on your wifi signal, it does not mean that your Airtunes data is streaming at the optimum strength.

    There are two brick walls separating my base station and my sound system where Airport Express is placed.

    At first, I could not even get iTunes to detect the existence of the Airport Express.

    I bought a Belkin Wireless Extender and it fixed the problem.

  • http://www.brianwong.com Brian

    I had the same problem. I think its not a software problem but rather a signal strength problem.

    The guys at the Mac store told me that to broadcast audio data, its different from wifi data. So although you can see full bar on your wifi signal, it does not mean that your Airtunes data is streaming at the optimum strength.

    There are two brick walls separating my base station and my sound system where Airport Express is placed.

    At first, I could not even get iTunes to detect the existence of the Airport Express.

    I bought a Belkin Wireless Extender and it fixed the problem.

  • http://apatheticthursday.net/ Philip

    Thanks Brian.

    That really helps everything make a lot more sense.

    I’m out of the dorms this year and I haven’t had any problems with my Airport streaming.

    Glad you were able to get your problem fixed.

  • http://apatheticthursday.net Philip

    Thanks Brian.

    That really helps everything make a lot more sense.

    I’m out of the dorms this year and I haven’t had any problems with my Airport streaming.

    Glad you were able to get your problem fixed.

  • Z399y

    I was having a similar problem.  My AirTunes would stop playing after exactly 15 minutes.  I could use a stopwatch and time it to the second.  After some troubleshooting, I discovered that the cause was my home firewall (SonicWALL TZ210 Wireless N).  There is a firewall rule which controls traffic from LAN > WLAN.  This rule had a “TCP Connection Inactivity Timeout” set to 15 minutes.  When I changed the value to a higher number, AirTunes no longer stops playing.