Communist Dropout Mac OS

What is Chromecast?

Apparently the way the express is designed, if you have your Airport Express set to join an existing network and that network looses connection to the internet (not your local connection to your router, but the feed of signal into the router from the outside), it will cause a dropout in the Airport Express connection to your computer. Symptoms include clicks, pops, dropouts, and or erratic audio performance. Running other firewire devices parallel to your interface: The firewire ports on a Mac (FW400 and FW800) run off the main logic board and share system resources. PreSonus interfaces are designed to be run in series with other firewire peripherals. Now, just type in sudo purge inside the Terminal window and hit Enter. This will begin the process of clearing your RAM and disk cache contents. You will get a prompt asking you to type in your password. In OS X 10.9 or higher, this command requires an administrator password, hence the use of sudo. A Mac with Google Chrome installed. A TV with a free HDMI socket. A plug socket or a powered USB socket on your TV. A Wi-Fi network. In order to Chromecast from your Mac to your TV, your Mac and Chromecast will need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. So, the first step is to connect your Chromecast to Wi-Fi.

Insert a drive or CD containing your preferred OS. When starting up your Mac, hold down the button that gives you boot options. This could either be the 'C' key, 'F12' or 'F8'. Boot the CD or USB Drive with the new OS install on it and continue from there.

Google's Chromecast allows you to stream video from the likes of YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu, as well as audio, and even your Mac's entire screen to your TV. It's a great way of showing slideshows from Photos or movies in QuickTime Player on your TV if you don't have an Apple TV to use with Airplay. In this article, we'll show you how to get started with Chromecast from your Mac.

How to set up Chromecast

Here's what you'll need.

1. A Chromecast device.
2. A Mac with Google Chrome installed.
3. A TV with a free HDMI socket.
4. A plug socket or a powered USB socket on your TV.
5. A Wi-Fi network.
6. An iOS device.

In order to Chromecast from your Mac to your TV, your Mac and Chromecast will need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. So, the first step is to connect your Chromecast to Wi-Fi.

Casting from your Mac to your TV uses a lot of resources. That's especially true if you cast, say, a Netflix show or movie while doing other work on your Mac. For better results, remove from your Mac everything that may slow it down. We mean old files, junk, and memory-hogging apps. So run the cleanup tool, like CleanMyMac X, at least once before you start high-quality Chromecasting.

Preliminary steps:

1. Plug the Chromecast into the free HDMI socket on your TV and also into a USB port or into the power plug, which should be plugged into a wall socket.
2. Make note of the Chromecast device number on your TV screen — you'll need it later (to see the device number, press the Input or Source button on your display's remote control).
3. Download the Google Home app to your iOS device.
4. Turn on Bluetooth on your iOS device: Settings > Bluetooth > Toggle on.
5. Open the Google Home app and follow the prompts.
6. When you see 'Choose your Wi-Fi network,' connect your Chromecast to the same Wi-Fi network you're using on your iOS device.
7. Once the setup is complete, your Chromecast and iOS device will both be connected to your regular Wi-Fi network.

How to Chromecast from your Mac

Now your Chromecast and Mac are on the same Wi-Fi network, your Mac should be able to ‘see' the Chromecast and stream to it. It's time to try it out. Here's how to use Chromecast.

1. Download Chrome if you haven't done so already.
2. If you already have Chrome on your Mac, make sure it's up to date by clicking on the More button at the top right of the window (three vertical dots) and choosing Help > About Google Chrome.
3. On your TV, use the remote control to choose the HDMI input that has the Chromecast connected to it.
4. In Chrome on your Mac, click on the More button again, and this time, choose Cast. That will send the current tab to your TV screen. If you have more than one Chromecast connected to your Wi-Fi network, you will need to select which one you want to cast to.
5. To cast your entire screen, click on Cast, then Cast to ▼, and choose Cast desktop.

If you are running the latest macOS, you will see a message on your desktop telling you that Chrome wants to access Screen Recording. If you agree, you will be sent to System Preferences and will have to check the box next to Chrome in the Screen Recording section of the Privacy tab in Security & Privacy. You will then have to restart Chrome and select Cast > Cast to ▼ > Cast desktop again. You will see another warning, but this time you can just click ‘Ok.'

To cast a specific file to your Chromecast, choose Cast file from Cast to instead.

CleanMyMac X also has an Optimization module that can suggest ways to make your Mac run faster or more smoothly. It works like this:

1. Download CleanMyMac X free version and launch it.
2. Choose Optimization in the sidebar.
3. Click View all Items.
4. Review each section in turn and check if there is anything running that you don't need. Pay particular attention to Hung Applications and Heavy Consumers.
5. Check the box next to anything that looks like it could be causing a problem.
6. Press Remove.

But why are we telling you this? Because you don't want your Mac to freeze up during the cast.

How to use Chromecast to cast Netflix and YouTube from your Mac

Some websites allow you to cast content from them directly to your Chromecast without casting the content of the whole browser tab. That means you can continue to use your Mac as normal while you cast. To cast directly, you will need to visit the websites in Chrome, as you would if you were casting a tab or your screen. Here's how to do it on YouTube.

1. Go to YouTube.com in Chrome.
2. Choose a video to play.
3. In the toolbar at the bottom of the video, you'll see a cast button. Click it.
4. Choose where you want to cast the video to.
5. The video will now start playing on your TV, but not on your Mac, and you can now use your Mac for other things.

It works exactly the same way on Netflix and other video streaming sites that support casting. Look for a cast button near the play controls on the video, click on it and choose your Chromecast.

How to cast a Photos slideshow from your Mac

1. Launch Photos and press the green button in the top left corner to make it full screen.
2. Choose a Memory from the Memories tab.
3. Launch Chrome, press the More button and choose Cast.
4. Click ▼ and choose Cast desktop.
5. Go back to Photos, double-click the memory you want to play, and press the Play button in the bottom right corner. The slideshow will now play on your TV.

How to turn off Chromecast

There's no need to turn off Chromecast. It will turn off when your TV turns off or sleep after a period of inactivity.

How to reset Chromecast

If you run into problems and need to reset your Chromecast, here's what to do. While it's plugged into your TV, hold down the button on the back of the Chromecast for 25 seconds or until the LED indicator flashes white. The TV will go blank, and the reboot sequence will begin.

You can also reset Chromecast from the Google Home app: choose your Chromecast device, tap Settings > More settings > Reboot.

Now that you've set up your Chromecast to work with your Mac, you will be able to cast from Chrome whenever your Mac and TV are switched on. Turning on your TV will power up the Chromecast automatically, as long as it's connected to either a USB port on your TV or a separate power source. All you have to do is select the input with the Chromecast connected to it.

Google's Chromecast is a great piece of kit for streaming from your Mac to a TV. You can, of course, do the same thing with AirPlay and an Apple TV, but that means buying an Apple TV box or a TV that supports AirPlay, both of which are more expensive than a Chromecast. Once you've set it up, all you have to do is launch Chrome and use the Cast command in the More menu to choose what to cast. Casting and using your Mac for other things at the same time can consume lots of resources, so to make sure your Mac is running at optimum performance, it's worthwhile using CleanMyMac X to scan your Mac and make sure nothing is slowing it down.

Would you explain how one specifies that iTunes output to multiple speakers?

You need to have your AirPort Express updated to version 6.3 before you can use the multiple speakers functionality. After that a 'Multiple Speakers' option will show up in the speaker selection dropdown in iTunes.

...speaker selection dropdown...

That would be popup, not dropdown. This is Mac OS, not Windows.

Just bein' me.

I've tried tons of things to get the AirTunes skipping on my setup to work. I tried it with multiple speakers a while ago and did not notice any improvement.
The only thing I've been able to do to make it work consistently is move my PowerBook to within a few feet of the Airport Express base station.
I think the submitters experience is just a fluke.

I read here on OS X Hints that turning off IPv6 in the network preferences speeds up the network. Maybe this also helps with AirTunes. At least I did not have any drop outs since then.

I notcied *exactly* the same thing. I had horrible dropouts on remote speakers, but, very consistantly, I could resolve them by selecting 'multiple speakers', and checking 'Computer' along with whatever other speakers I wanted to use.
No explanation for this, just verification...

I experience occasional dropouts from my Airport Express too. I finally determined the two sources of the problem:
- my microwave - whenever it is in use, AirTunes cuts out
- my neighbor's 2.4GHz phone... but fortunately he has discarded that unit
That, and changing channels on my 802.11b router (a NetGear MR314) eliminated all of my AirTunes skips.

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An interesting aside: I had to move my wireless router in my office because when the staff used the microwave, the signal cut off entirely. Microwaves are very nasty around base stations of any type.
---
-frick

This adds little, but the same fix works for selecting multiple Airport Expresses as well. I get far fewer dropouts when streaming to two Expresses than to just one.

I found that increasing the multicast rate (I jacked it to 11, which seemed appropriate somehow) pretty much completely got rid of the dropout problems with my Airport Express.

I would try changing the channel that your airport express works at - try channel 1, 6 and 11 and see if there's any difference.
Also I've found NetMonitor is great to actually see what's going on - it's quick to see if the network is stuttering or not.
http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html
I've made a diagram of streaming to my Airports showing the connection quality difference between streaming normal, with the multiple speaker option, and finally to 2 airports.
http://pear.co.nz/public/airport_express_graphs.gif
Interesting the normal streaming method with 1 airport is not nearly as solid and clean as using the multiple speakers option, even to only 1 express.
My guess it must use a different streaming method, to keep them all in Sync. I think it's amazing it can synchronise the computer sound to the airports at all!
I'm also guessing they're working their way to synchronising video with the sound output - it's only one more step away! Quicktime just needs the ability to delay a video and we'll be there.

I read someplace recently that if you change your Airport Base Station to do either 802.11b OR g that it'll be a fix for the iTunes dropouts. I think the default is to allow b AND g.
I switched to 802.11b only (for compatibility reasons)
It worked flawlessly on my 2.16 MBPro

I use a D-Link G router as a base station and two Airport Expresses and I also get dropouts. I tried the trick suggested here of setting iTunes to send music to not just the Airport Expresses but to the computer speaker as well. That did not help. I set the Network preferences to disable IPv6 with no result. Rebooting the computer helps when dropouts become frequent (every few seconds) but does not completely prevent reaccurances of dropouts. I also noted dropouts when the microwave oven was in use. I then used Airport Admin Utility to enable Interference Robustness on each Airport Express, and this seems to help. So far no more dropouts at all. This option isn't available through the Airport Setup Assistant, as far as I can tell. Maybe it was the combination of all of the above, but the interference robustness setting finally did the trick.

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Still had some dropouts after the steps above, despite the early results. I then changed the channel that the router broadcasts on, first using iStumbler to check which channels were in use by others around me first in order to avoid one of those. This last step has seemed to help reduce dropouts further.

My 'fix' for this problem is just as effective, and bizzarre, as yours - I open the Airport Admin tool (I don't have my mac in front of me at the moment, so not sure of the app name). That's it. However, I'm going to try the other suggestions as my solution is just plain silly.

I recently purchased one of these, using it with my Windows XP laptop. I've been extremely impressed with the ease of setup, but also ran into trouble with intermittent dropouts of network service.
Since reviewing some comments here and testing a few things, I seem to have eliminated the network problems. I took the following steps:
1. I was originally using a WEP network because I was unsure about the compatibility with Win XP. Since it was listed as being 'more compatible', I used it for my first stap. I have since switched to a WPA2 Personal network with no problems. Don't know whether this improves stability or not.
2. Since I was having significant trouble with iTunes, I upgraded to the latest point release. I doubt this was this issue, however. The network drops affected all software, not just the music streaming to my stereo.
3. There is an 'interference robustness' setting that I though might help, and was mentioned here previously. I actually tried that first with no luck. Since the network stability has improved, I decided to turn that off, hoping that my range will improve (not that I'm taking advantage of that).
4. I got rid of my wireless telephone. My suspicion is that this phone was the culprit. Since I rarely use it, I replaced it with a regular corded phone -- and have freed up a power socket in the process!
So far so good. My suggestion to anyone with similar problems would be to look for wireless phones close to your network hub, first. That will probably resolve your issues.

Same here, I tried some many things on the dropout AEX issue...
- Firmware Update
- Using Airfoil instead of Itunes
- Changing wlan channel
- Using network robustness
- Moving microwaves and wireless phones around
- Disabling stateful packet inspection on the router
- Playing around with MTU and Packet acks
- Upgraded the network from 802.11b to 802.11g
- etc.
Yesterday, I needed to downgrade my WLAN security from WPA to WEP128 because of a wintel laptop from work joining the wireless home network - and......NO MORE DROPOUTS SO FAR...
Hope this helps
Georg

I use my Airport express as a wireless hub, connected to a cable modem via the ethernet port on the Airport express. I used to connect my mac directly to the cable modem -- I would get a lot of traffic to my machine which was merely 'trolls' looking for something juicy to attack. The airport acts as a bit of a filter. Which brings me to my point: sometimes I have the problem with intermittent dropouts. When I disconnect the airport from the internet (unplug the ethernet cable), no more dropouts... I assumed the airport was having to deal with so much traffic that the poor little CPU inside couldn't handle decoding the m4a (I think it's m4a) stream as well.
Could be as indicental as most of the other suggestions...
DRM

Wow. Thanks for this hint. I've struggled with Airtunes dropouts for a long, long time. This idea of switching to multiple speakers instantly solved it.
So it's NOT A FLUKE. Such a simple fix after noise sampling, firmware upgrades, etc etc.
Apple engineering, are you taking note?

Hi everyone. The 'odd fix' doesn't work. Tried it on my Windows Desktop. It's also annoying. Here's what DOES work...
After much frustration trying to keep Airtunes connections working, I discovered a simple way to keep Airtunes running 100% of the time!!
I have an Airport Extreme (2007 Wireless-N), and an Airport Express. I run a Windows XP desktop PC with a WIRED connection to the Extreme. The Express is wirelessly connected across the room to my hi-fi. The Extreme and Express are about 50' apart.
I received the Airport utility version 5.0 with the Extreme. Not sure if this will work with version 4.2, which is the only version you can currently download at Apple.com.
Here's how I fixed the connection cutting out...
I leave the Airport Utility program OPEN. It's that simple. By not closing the Utility program while running my computer I get 100% connection all the time, and play Airtunes all day if I want.
Minimize, but don't close the program. It seems to keep the connection alive.
My only beef with iTunes right now is that sharing libraries and running music off a network is unintuitive and SLOWS the computer down terribly. If Apple could make iTunes more lean and mean for networking, it would be the killer app for music it wants to be.
K

1. Download CleanMyMac X free version and launch it.
2. Choose Optimization in the sidebar.
3. Click View all Items.
4. Review each section in turn and check if there is anything running that you don't need. Pay particular attention to Hung Applications and Heavy Consumers.
5. Check the box next to anything that looks like it could be causing a problem.
6. Press Remove.

But why are we telling you this? Because you don't want your Mac to freeze up during the cast.

How to use Chromecast to cast Netflix and YouTube from your Mac

Some websites allow you to cast content from them directly to your Chromecast without casting the content of the whole browser tab. That means you can continue to use your Mac as normal while you cast. To cast directly, you will need to visit the websites in Chrome, as you would if you were casting a tab or your screen. Here's how to do it on YouTube.

1. Go to YouTube.com in Chrome.
2. Choose a video to play.
3. In the toolbar at the bottom of the video, you'll see a cast button. Click it.
4. Choose where you want to cast the video to.
5. The video will now start playing on your TV, but not on your Mac, and you can now use your Mac for other things.

It works exactly the same way on Netflix and other video streaming sites that support casting. Look for a cast button near the play controls on the video, click on it and choose your Chromecast.

How to cast a Photos slideshow from your Mac

1. Launch Photos and press the green button in the top left corner to make it full screen.
2. Choose a Memory from the Memories tab.
3. Launch Chrome, press the More button and choose Cast.
4. Click ▼ and choose Cast desktop.
5. Go back to Photos, double-click the memory you want to play, and press the Play button in the bottom right corner. The slideshow will now play on your TV.

How to turn off Chromecast

There's no need to turn off Chromecast. It will turn off when your TV turns off or sleep after a period of inactivity.

How to reset Chromecast

If you run into problems and need to reset your Chromecast, here's what to do. While it's plugged into your TV, hold down the button on the back of the Chromecast for 25 seconds or until the LED indicator flashes white. The TV will go blank, and the reboot sequence will begin.

You can also reset Chromecast from the Google Home app: choose your Chromecast device, tap Settings > More settings > Reboot.

Now that you've set up your Chromecast to work with your Mac, you will be able to cast from Chrome whenever your Mac and TV are switched on. Turning on your TV will power up the Chromecast automatically, as long as it's connected to either a USB port on your TV or a separate power source. All you have to do is select the input with the Chromecast connected to it.

Google's Chromecast is a great piece of kit for streaming from your Mac to a TV. You can, of course, do the same thing with AirPlay and an Apple TV, but that means buying an Apple TV box or a TV that supports AirPlay, both of which are more expensive than a Chromecast. Once you've set it up, all you have to do is launch Chrome and use the Cast command in the More menu to choose what to cast. Casting and using your Mac for other things at the same time can consume lots of resources, so to make sure your Mac is running at optimum performance, it's worthwhile using CleanMyMac X to scan your Mac and make sure nothing is slowing it down.

Would you explain how one specifies that iTunes output to multiple speakers?

You need to have your AirPort Express updated to version 6.3 before you can use the multiple speakers functionality. After that a 'Multiple Speakers' option will show up in the speaker selection dropdown in iTunes.

...speaker selection dropdown...

That would be popup, not dropdown. This is Mac OS, not Windows.

Just bein' me.

I've tried tons of things to get the AirTunes skipping on my setup to work. I tried it with multiple speakers a while ago and did not notice any improvement.
The only thing I've been able to do to make it work consistently is move my PowerBook to within a few feet of the Airport Express base station.
I think the submitters experience is just a fluke.

I read here on OS X Hints that turning off IPv6 in the network preferences speeds up the network. Maybe this also helps with AirTunes. At least I did not have any drop outs since then.

I notcied *exactly* the same thing. I had horrible dropouts on remote speakers, but, very consistantly, I could resolve them by selecting 'multiple speakers', and checking 'Computer' along with whatever other speakers I wanted to use.
No explanation for this, just verification...

I experience occasional dropouts from my Airport Express too. I finally determined the two sources of the problem:
- my microwave - whenever it is in use, AirTunes cuts out
- my neighbor's 2.4GHz phone... but fortunately he has discarded that unit
That, and changing channels on my 802.11b router (a NetGear MR314) eliminated all of my AirTunes skips.

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An interesting aside: I had to move my wireless router in my office because when the staff used the microwave, the signal cut off entirely. Microwaves are very nasty around base stations of any type.
---
-frick

This adds little, but the same fix works for selecting multiple Airport Expresses as well. I get far fewer dropouts when streaming to two Expresses than to just one.

I found that increasing the multicast rate (I jacked it to 11, which seemed appropriate somehow) pretty much completely got rid of the dropout problems with my Airport Express.

I would try changing the channel that your airport express works at - try channel 1, 6 and 11 and see if there's any difference.
Also I've found NetMonitor is great to actually see what's going on - it's quick to see if the network is stuttering or not.
http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html
I've made a diagram of streaming to my Airports showing the connection quality difference between streaming normal, with the multiple speaker option, and finally to 2 airports.
http://pear.co.nz/public/airport_express_graphs.gif
Interesting the normal streaming method with 1 airport is not nearly as solid and clean as using the multiple speakers option, even to only 1 express.
My guess it must use a different streaming method, to keep them all in Sync. I think it's amazing it can synchronise the computer sound to the airports at all!
I'm also guessing they're working their way to synchronising video with the sound output - it's only one more step away! Quicktime just needs the ability to delay a video and we'll be there.

I read someplace recently that if you change your Airport Base Station to do either 802.11b OR g that it'll be a fix for the iTunes dropouts. I think the default is to allow b AND g.
I switched to 802.11b only (for compatibility reasons)
It worked flawlessly on my 2.16 MBPro

I use a D-Link G router as a base station and two Airport Expresses and I also get dropouts. I tried the trick suggested here of setting iTunes to send music to not just the Airport Expresses but to the computer speaker as well. That did not help. I set the Network preferences to disable IPv6 with no result. Rebooting the computer helps when dropouts become frequent (every few seconds) but does not completely prevent reaccurances of dropouts. I also noted dropouts when the microwave oven was in use. I then used Airport Admin Utility to enable Interference Robustness on each Airport Express, and this seems to help. So far no more dropouts at all. This option isn't available through the Airport Setup Assistant, as far as I can tell. Maybe it was the combination of all of the above, but the interference robustness setting finally did the trick.

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Still had some dropouts after the steps above, despite the early results. I then changed the channel that the router broadcasts on, first using iStumbler to check which channels were in use by others around me first in order to avoid one of those. This last step has seemed to help reduce dropouts further.

My 'fix' for this problem is just as effective, and bizzarre, as yours - I open the Airport Admin tool (I don't have my mac in front of me at the moment, so not sure of the app name). That's it. However, I'm going to try the other suggestions as my solution is just plain silly.

I recently purchased one of these, using it with my Windows XP laptop. I've been extremely impressed with the ease of setup, but also ran into trouble with intermittent dropouts of network service.
Since reviewing some comments here and testing a few things, I seem to have eliminated the network problems. I took the following steps:
1. I was originally using a WEP network because I was unsure about the compatibility with Win XP. Since it was listed as being 'more compatible', I used it for my first stap. I have since switched to a WPA2 Personal network with no problems. Don't know whether this improves stability or not.
2. Since I was having significant trouble with iTunes, I upgraded to the latest point release. I doubt this was this issue, however. The network drops affected all software, not just the music streaming to my stereo.
3. There is an 'interference robustness' setting that I though might help, and was mentioned here previously. I actually tried that first with no luck. Since the network stability has improved, I decided to turn that off, hoping that my range will improve (not that I'm taking advantage of that).
4. I got rid of my wireless telephone. My suspicion is that this phone was the culprit. Since I rarely use it, I replaced it with a regular corded phone -- and have freed up a power socket in the process!
So far so good. My suggestion to anyone with similar problems would be to look for wireless phones close to your network hub, first. That will probably resolve your issues.

Same here, I tried some many things on the dropout AEX issue...
- Firmware Update
- Using Airfoil instead of Itunes
- Changing wlan channel
- Using network robustness
- Moving microwaves and wireless phones around
- Disabling stateful packet inspection on the router
- Playing around with MTU and Packet acks
- Upgraded the network from 802.11b to 802.11g
- etc.
Yesterday, I needed to downgrade my WLAN security from WPA to WEP128 because of a wintel laptop from work joining the wireless home network - and......NO MORE DROPOUTS SO FAR...
Hope this helps
Georg

I use my Airport express as a wireless hub, connected to a cable modem via the ethernet port on the Airport express. I used to connect my mac directly to the cable modem -- I would get a lot of traffic to my machine which was merely 'trolls' looking for something juicy to attack. The airport acts as a bit of a filter. Which brings me to my point: sometimes I have the problem with intermittent dropouts. When I disconnect the airport from the internet (unplug the ethernet cable), no more dropouts... I assumed the airport was having to deal with so much traffic that the poor little CPU inside couldn't handle decoding the m4a (I think it's m4a) stream as well.
Could be as indicental as most of the other suggestions...
DRM

Wow. Thanks for this hint. I've struggled with Airtunes dropouts for a long, long time. This idea of switching to multiple speakers instantly solved it.
So it's NOT A FLUKE. Such a simple fix after noise sampling, firmware upgrades, etc etc.
Apple engineering, are you taking note?

Hi everyone. The 'odd fix' doesn't work. Tried it on my Windows Desktop. It's also annoying. Here's what DOES work...
After much frustration trying to keep Airtunes connections working, I discovered a simple way to keep Airtunes running 100% of the time!!
I have an Airport Extreme (2007 Wireless-N), and an Airport Express. I run a Windows XP desktop PC with a WIRED connection to the Extreme. The Express is wirelessly connected across the room to my hi-fi. The Extreme and Express are about 50' apart.
I received the Airport utility version 5.0 with the Extreme. Not sure if this will work with version 4.2, which is the only version you can currently download at Apple.com.
Here's how I fixed the connection cutting out...
I leave the Airport Utility program OPEN. It's that simple. By not closing the Utility program while running my computer I get 100% connection all the time, and play Airtunes all day if I want.
Minimize, but don't close the program. It seems to keep the connection alive.
My only beef with iTunes right now is that sharing libraries and running music off a network is unintuitive and SLOWS the computer down terribly. If Apple could make iTunes more lean and mean for networking, it would be the killer app for music it wants to be.
K

this was an awesome find. i found it worked perfectly.

Weird, but the multiple speakers option worked for me as well as having the Airport Utility open. FYI, I have a AX connected wirelessly to a D-Link DIR-655 and wirelessly stream music from a MacBook C2D 2GHz. Thanks for the info! :)

Hi all
Just reset my MBP and AirPort Express with Interference Robustness *on* and all seems well... either interference robustness has been improved mightily since this thread first appeared or those bizarre tweaks didn't actually work, really.
So just enable robustness on your machine and your wireless network nodes and you should be fine...

Read through all the posts, however no luck...
If you have the Wii console, turn it off.
Now I have no dropping.
Hope that help.
best wishes

I tried everything and nothing worked. In my environment, I use the airport and plug it into my receiver and I use an audioengine aw1 so that my subwoofer can also be wireless. It is the AW1 that is causing the interference as it uses 802.11 to send the bass signals. Switching channels seems to help, but occasionally, probably when there are other apartment networks in use, it still drops out.
The search continues.

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This may be obvious but I haven't seen it mentioned here. In iTunes goto Preferences > Advanced, and make sure you set the Streaming Buffer Size to 'Large'. I think the default is 'Medium'. This will help eliminate any dropouts caused to short connection interruptions.

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Nope, doesn't help.
---
ing. G.E.A. Vansteelant, MSc, BSc
Lead Assessor

I believe this refers to buffers for downloading streams from Internet radio, not for sending streaming music to an Airport.

Hi all,
I've been trying to fix the drop outs on my airport express and have read through all the helpful comments and tried to do all the things people have mentioned, but being a bit of a technophobe I don't understand a lot of the computer jargon.
Would anyone be able to help me try to fix my airport in a simple way......
I am using a mac.
Thank you so much in advance.
Very frustrated girlie! x

Here is something that I have learned. If I have even a momentary loss in internet connection (WAN not LAN) there is a dropout. Apparently the way the express is designed, if you have your Airport Express set to join an existing network and that network looses connection to the internet (not your local connection to your router, but the feed of signal into the router from the outside), it will cause a dropout in the Airport Express connection to your computer. You may not even realize that your are experiencing these momentary internet dropouts, because unless you are interacting with a web server or something else that requires a constant connection you wouldn't experience any trouble. I figured it out because I use an email provider for work that, once I login, requires a constant connection.
You can avoid dopouts caused from this by either fixing your internet connection to make it constant (by working with your ISP) or you can connect directly to the Airport Express without joining a network (in the Admin Utility setup). Of course then you can't access the internet because you are not part of your LAN that goes to the internet. You can also, create separate profiles on your airport express, one for joining a network and another for direct. This would allow you to switch back and forth. You might want to do this just to establish for sure that this is the problem.
Either way, I think this may be the cause of many people's dropouts. I got my ISP to fix my connection, and I have very reliable streaming now (for weeks now)... before I had constant problems on some days and then none on others.

I sort of did this same thing and it's working without any drops (so far). Basically I created a new, dedicated wireless network which is not connected to the internet between my imac and the airport express. Luckily, I dont need my wifi on my imac since I'm connected to a airport extreme router via ethernet which is connected to my DSL modem via ethernet as well. So I can play itunes remotely off the imac without changing my wireless network every time I want to to listen to music, or being unable to connect to the internet.
I'm not sure what you would do if you have to share the internet on your airport express or if its your only wireless router, but this seems to be working without any drops.
I hope it gets addressed either with a airport firmware update or an updated version of itunes, although I just downloaded an update for itunes (v10.1) yesterday. Maybe it has to do with the shift from AirTunes to AirPlay with that itunes update?

I spent a lot of time trying to make this work. In the end, the only network topology that provided consistent results was the following:
Internet -> Time Capsule -> AEX (using Ethernet not wireless) -> speakers
Time Capsule provides wireless and Ethernet connections. The AEX is connected by Ethernet with wireless turned off. The AEX is set to manual IP.
I have AudioEngine A5 speakers. I am thinking about buying AudioEngine W1 wireless connectors to bypass the entire problem.

Hi Guys,
Well hat do you think of this?
I have 4 Airport Express units beaming Airtunes to four different rooms. They have worked very well until recently. (I know, but I don't remember which OSX upgrade happened before the failed, doh!!). Then they started dropping out after 3 or 4 bars. I tried everything I could think of to isolate the problem, to no avail. However, (someone please tell me what's going on) ... I have just replaced my Mac wired keyboard with a Mac wireless keyboard and guess what, Airtunes works beautifully! The one thing that doesn't work is the volume control from the keyboard keys, (F10, F11, F12), doesn't work. I don't know what I'm doing, I haven't read the manual yet! (What's the betting that when the keyboard volume works, Airtunes won't!
Heigh ho, back to the treadmill ... and the flogging!

Hi All,
I've been through all of this, the suggestions on many other sites, two multi-hour discussions with the Apple wireless group (nice guys!), and more. Fighting dropouts from what used to be a near perfect situation to what has for months been an unlistenable situation. reconfigured AEB and AEX's per apple tech advice, etc. Still, no Joy.
Finally, after realizing my son's older macbook pro had no issues with dropouts, whereas both my old and my brand new mb pro do, started looking at the machine itself. Even a virgin Test Account given solid test files to play had the problem. After watching activity monitor and eventually the console, I was able to track down a script (the program that was running it shall remain nameless for now but I think its fairly uncommon) which would launch and create a console permissions issue just before each dropout.
Since I removed that particular software (a SYSTEM WIDE (not user based) utility) I have perfect, no dropout streaming.
So I guess what I am saying is watch your console while listening for airtunes drops and track down your culprit, I presume many different software products COULD theoretically cause this result. I never thought I would say this, but it 'does not seem to be the network hardware, but the machine doing the streaming and hidden components that are running in the background.'
At least this worked for me and I hope it helps someone else out there.
Good Luck!

Can you please tell us what script you deleted that helped? I'm losing my mind here. Thanks

I recently read this suggestion for a persistent problem I have had with dropouts, which started for no apparent reason a couple of months ago. Whilst it defies logical explanation, so far as I can see, it does work. I am quite certain that the resolution of this difficulty, which occurred on each occasion I used iTunes played through an Airport Express linked to my hifi system (Snow Leopard 10.6.8), was not a mere coincidence as some have suggested.

So here we are, five (5) years later and I'm on a MacBook Pro 17' Early 2011, iTunes 10.5.1, and a 2005 a/b/g Airport Express (AEX) and still the same problem of AirTunes / AirPlay dropout.
I've noticed two things - minimising routing and the tip above do help, but not eliminate, the problem.
My solution so far has been to migrate everything to the 5GHz band - meaning, yes, I bought a 4th generation Airport Base and a 2008 a/b/g/n Airport Express - it seems far more reliable (but still suffers from occasional dropout). However, I'd love to keep using the 2005 AEX but it's just so flakey it's embarrassing - for me when I have friends round, and for Apple who obviously don't think it's important enough to fix after HALF A DECADE.
I don't think it's being caused by interference because nothing else on the WiFi flakes out - only AirPlay. I can stream HD movies from Vimeo with zero dropout, if it was WiFi interference I'd expect to have problems doing that, no? I'd accept higher latency/buffering for listening to tunes if it meant not having dropout.
Next stop - AirFoil perhaps?
Old soundman's maxim - 'if you are able, use a cable'

Iim still having the same issue. I have 3 AEX's and 1 ATV hooked up throughout the house, streaming from an Airport Extreme. All was running excellent, and then about 2 months ago, all of a sudden the streaming is totally affected to all units, especially when I am streaming to more than one airport express. Not sure if this coincided with an upgrade from Leopard to Lion. Apple TV drops NetFlix all the time now. The internet connection is fine, since if I watch from the unit hardwired to the airport extreme, it functions perfectly. No idea what the problem could be. Interference? So frustrating. Would love any insight.