AirPlay Music From AirPort Express Dropping Out
My AirPlay music keeps disconnecting. Here's my gear:
- AirPort Extreme 2013
- AirPort Express 2012
- MacBook Air 2013
- iPhone 4S
And my setup:
- Extreme is in the living room
- Express is in the adjacent kids bedroom
- Express connected to Extreme over WiFi - it does not extend the Extreme's WiFi network
My problems are:
- The Express' AirPlay icon occassionally disappears from my iPhone
- When the icon does appear, and I start streaming music to it, the music will stop playing anywhere from 15-30 minutes later. This happens if I stream from my iPhone or MacBook
What can I try to prevent the AirPlay music from dropping out?
I have struggled with a similar issue for about a year now. Under the veil of secrecy, I think that airplay is a solid protocol.
I use an AT&T Arris Gateway for a DHCP server with an Airport Express as a LAN node. Here's what seems to have solved my problem:
Deep inside the configuration pages for my Arris router (Firewall > Advanced) I found a "Flood Limit" option, which was stated to block "bursting new traffic." Essentially, the router was dropping packets after a certain limit had been reached (I believe this is a mechanism against DoS attacks). Disabling this seemed to stop the AirPlay from dropping out.
Long story short, you may have a router that is tampering too much with the packets on your LAN. Go through every setting on your routers/APs. Disable MAC address filtering, make sure these TCP/UDP ports are open, and steer clear of firewall features that are degrading the performance of your network. Also, wired connections between APs really help with streaming.