Why do I suffer intermittent audio dropouts when using AirTunes?

I had this problem, as well, and lost a good deal of hair searching for the cause. It eventually occurred to me that audio dropouts always seemed to happen around lunchtime. Turns out, my neighbor (who also works from home) reheats leftovers in the microwave for lunch. (Give it a try: run your microwave while playing audio over AirTunes, and see if it cuts out!)

I solved this problem by switching to 802.11n (only) 5GHz mode. The 5GHz spectrum is much wider, and does not suffer from interference with cordless phones and microwaves.

Note that this may not be the most practical solution: only the newest Airport Express units ship with 802.11n capability. If you need to connect 802.11b/g devices, such as iPhones or older computers, to your network, you'll need to configure a second, parallel wireless network. But, if you can confirm that this is the source of your problem, switching to 5GHz will absolutley resolve your issue.

I'll also echo Cameron's comment regarding WDS. In my experience, it's rarely necessary, and dramatically affects network performance.

Thanks guys ... both experiences match what I'm seeing, so thanks for the sanity check!

I've attempted to remove Azureus from the equation by moving my torrent downloads to a FreeBSD box. This box hangs directly off my ADSL router. Separate from that, I have the new Extreme serving my home wireless network and the Express as a client on that network. The internal wireless network should therefore now have plenty of bandwidth - although of course I could still swamp my internet link with torrents if I don't manage them correctly, but I don't care about that for now.

I only have a couple of days' worth of data but so far, so good. Unfortunately I can't use the Extreme's 5GHz band as I have an older Express ... I'm considering upgrading so that I can use the 802.11n spectrum, I suppose it'll depend whether this works or not.

Very interesting note about the microwave - I do remember last week that the laptop was in the kitchen while we were cooking and the audio died. I can't remember if the microwave was on but it's a distinct possibility. Mad!

I'll report back here in a week once I've got some solid listening data. Thanks for your replies and help. :-)

j.

Well, that seems to have done it. Torrents moved to bitflu on the BSD box - a lovely little program, by the way, and fast as all hell - have fixed this issue for me. Airport tunes flow freely. *Sighs contently*

It also turns out to be way more convenient as the torrents run when my MBP isn't here or on, which is often. I recommend setting up a FreeBSD box at home to everybody.

I have had this issue with airtunes, as well. I used to think it was bandwidth, but now that i have an 802.11(n) airport extreme, my machine is using the (b) channel to run airtunes and I still have the problem, so i honestly don't think that it's bandwidth.

SO ... I finally figured out the culprits:
1. microwave oven, as stated above
2. nintendo wii remotes, although the stoppages are short and intermittent.

unfortunately, there is no solution to these problems, but at least knowing what the cause is makes me feel better.

An update to my own question, based on Scott's comments above.

So I blamed having torrents on my Mac, and that wasn't it at all. You know what it was? Plain ol' interference/signal loss. The problem came back shortly after my post above so I looked at my setup again. After speaking to the man in the Mac shop, whose first question was "do you live in a brick house?" (yes), I realised that my Extreme and Express were separated by at least:
- Lots of brick
- Probably a metal lintel
- A piano

So, I moved the Extreme. It's now much closer to the Express and there's no brick in the way and guess what? Absolutely flawless since then. Not a single dropout - and that was probably 6/8 weeks ago.

I also find using Azureus results in drops.

My base station is separated from my sound system by two brick walls. Since I can't move either the base station or my sound system, I bought a Belkin Wireless Extender.

As I type this, I have music streaming through the whole house but I still sometimes find that at night, the connection can be unstable. e.g. sometimes, iTunes cannot even detect the Airport Express speakers.

If anyone has any suggestions of making the signal more stable, I'd be interested to know. I am contemplating getting another wireless extender or even another airport express.

Hi

I have the exact same problem as described by John Noble. My network is currently consisting of a cable modem and my Airport Express, which is working as the wireless router.

I have tried lots of things, such as making sure that no applications uses all my bandwidth. So, without running torrent software or any other download application I am still puzzled by the intermittent audio drop-outs. Clearly these have nothing to do with bandwidth in my case.

At first, I noticed that the problem only occured in Windows Vista and not in Windows XP. The drop-outs have been a problem for quite some time now, and I even tried with Windows 7, which unfortunately had the same "amount" of interferences as Windows Vista.

I got used to the idea of running Windows XP, as this obviously was the only way I could listen to my music uninterrupted. Recently, though, without any major software changes, the problem also started to occur in Windows XP, leaving me despaired once again.

I have also tried changing channels in the settings of my wireless network, reducing and enhancing the encryption settings, enabling stability on the network, but all in vain.

Also, I tried letting the Airport Express create a wireless network, as well as having it ljoining another wireless network, but the problems sustained, although it seemed that there were a greater amount of interferrences when I let the Airport Express join an existing wireless network, so as it is right now, my Airport Express have create the network I use at home.

Furthermore, I tried recognizing a pattern in the interferrences and a possible link between the use of i.e. a microwave and the likes, but also without any luck. This doesn't seem to be the problem either.

I'm really running out of ideas on what could cause the interferrences, so any suggestion would be helpful!

Thanks.

I had the same problem listed here. First, let me state that I think this problem, like many potential networking problems, is highly individualized to your specific setup and operating environment. I have a Dell Studio Slim set up as a stand alone iTunes 8.1 music server. It is a quadcore with 8GBs of RAM and is doing nothing (absolutely nothing) but acting as a iTunes music server.

When I started this mess, the Dell Studio Slim is attached to the network via a NetGear 802.11n 5Ghz USB wireless adapter. I am running iTunes 8.1 on the Studio Slim and everything is ripped via the Apple Lossless Codec. I also have the latest NetGear 802.11n 5Ghz DSL modem / wireless router. The AirPort Express is configured as a client on the network and is attached via 802.11n 5Ghz.

After configuring the AirPort Express, I attempted to stream music from the Dell Studio Slim to the AirPort Express and in to my whole house audio. Like everyone else on here, I started to get lags or hangs when playing music almost immediately.

After reading here and on Apple's support site, I was convinced that I had a streaming problem to the AirPort Express. I then tried every tweak I could find for QuickTime and iTunes. Nothing helped. Not even a little. Next I decided it was a streaming interference problem. So, I bought a NetGear wireless bridge and attached the AirPort to it via Ethernet. No improvement. I then attached the AirPort to the DSL Modem / Router via Ethernet, in an attempt to confirm that it was a interference problem to the AirPort. Again, no help. As a last ditch effort, I moved the DSL Modem / Wireless Router in to the same room as the Dell PC and attached it via Ethernet. BAM ! ! ! No more hangs or lags. I've had the system set up in this configuration for over 20 hours of playback and no problems at all. The PC is attached via Ethernet to the DSL Modem / Wireless Router and the AirPort Express is back to being attached to the network as a wireless 802.11n 5Ghz client. Everything works as advertised!

FIXED!!! I have had the same problem for 6 weeks, and deteriorating.

I downloaded maintenance 3.8 from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx..., ran all features of the diagnostic program, and have not had any drop out since.

Clearly it has cleared up all scripts and caches etc on my machine. I wish I had not had to search so hard for this and endure the difficulties, and that apple would have promoted this solution more visibily to clearly what is an Itunes 8 issue or an evolution of wear and tear on the machine, requiring a cleanup. Hope this helps. Matt

Thanks! I had no problems with my Airport Extreme and AirPort Express for over a year, until I bought a second AirPort Express, plugged it in, and suddenly was getting intermittent gaps in my music. I tried many things, but ultimately what worked was to switch ONE of the AirPort Expresses to "join" the network, instead of "extending" it. Worked like a charm, no more drop outs. I guess the system just couldn't handle two of them extending the network. Swinder