Hi @timmychadwick, welcome to the Sonos Community!

Do you have any other AirPlay devices, and are you able to connect to them from the Mac? Conversely, if you have an iPhone or iPad, are you able to connect to the Move from those using AirPlay?

It may be worth also rebooting the router, followed by the Move - is there any change when everything is back online?

Hello Xander, 

Yes, I have successfully used four Harmon Kardon portable Wifi/Airplay speakers to connect to iTunes via my Mac, for many years. I can also connect my Yamaha amp via iTunes Mac.

I can connect my iPad and iPhone to the Move speaker, but then I can’t Crossfade my music - inexplicably Apple doesn’t offer crossfade on iPad, iPhone  etc - it only works off iTunes Mac.

I have rebooted the router. I have also went to Mac System preferences to select the Move speakers as the output. No luck - iTunes bombs/quits as soon as I select the Move speaker, as a speaker in iTunes.

Does anyone else use El Capitan and have the same issue with a Sonos speaker?

Using the Sonos App is also not a solution as half my playlists aren’t showing, due to Apple DRM issues (I think).

Very frustrating…

Thanks for your help - any ideas? 

As an alternative (and I am not sure if your playlist comment is connected to this), have you set up a Sonos Music Library that points to your iTunes folder?  That is generally more robust than using Airplay to play tracks from your iTunes library. 

Hello John,

Yes I have.

Unfortunately only roughly half my playlists appear and I have far less than 40000 songs, as per Sonos requirements. If all my playlists showed, this would work, although I like using my Mac computer as another speaker, so using iTunes to stream is certainly first prize for me.

Having read the forums, this can only be Apple DRM issues, that block some of the playlists - I don’t get any run errors from Sonos, which is pretty odd?

All my iTunes music is stored in the music folder…

All the other speakers I have owned had no issues with Airplay when streaming from my Mac, so must say, I am disappointed with Sonos, it’s supposed to be a premium product...it should just work?

Thanks 

I think it generally does work.  You are using Airplay 2, not Airplay 1?  Here are the requirements for Airplay 2 - it looks like your setup meets the requirements, but you may want to check.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208728

I doubt that the playlists issue is DRM-related, not if the tracks play individually.  Are any of your playlists ‘smart’ or ‘curated’ playlists, or just bog-standard iTunes playlists?

Thanks John.

I have iTunes 12.8.2.3 installed, so it should work based on Apple’s support document.

“Generally does work” is good, unless you are one of the unlucky ones, like me

Well if its not DRM, what is it? My playlists are not fancy, just created from my music. Not smart playlists…

I am amazed I’m the only one who can’t stream from my Mac, to Sonos, using El Capitan.

Appreciate you trying to help, sounds like a software flaw to me (both Sonos for not giving specific runtime errors etc. and Mac’s support doc being incorrect)

Sorry John, I omitted to respond on the Airplay 1 or 2 question.

I assume if I’m on 12.8.2.3, that it must be Airplay 2? iTunes does not give one any clues as to whether it’s Airplay 1 or 2…

I assume the Move is in network mode not Bluetooth mode?

Although it won't matter with most routers, are the Move and your Mac connected to the same WiFi band (2.4 or 5 GHz).

On the playlists front, I vaguely recall that you may need to run a consolidation of your iTunes library.  Which folder does your Sonos Music Library point to? The folder picked up needs to include the iTunes Music Library xml file.

Thanks John.

Yes, it’s in WiFi mode (white indicator) and same Wifi band is being used.

Thanks, will double check that xml file is included…

Hopefully someone at Sonos can figure out why I can’t stream from Mac iTunes to Sonos Move, via Airplay.

Thanks again...

Hello, can some from Sonos please respond with a solution? 

Thanks 

Hi timmychadwick,

The Sonos Move (and all other Airplay-capable Sonos players) use Apple Airplay 2. It would seem that based on the version of iTunes you’re running that it should be able to establish an Airplay 2 connection to the Move.

Since your iPhone and iPad are able to make that connection successfully, that points towards something on the Mac being the culprit here. 

Is the iTunes application crashing/closing when you click on the Move on the Airplay list? If that’s the case, I’d recommend getting in touch with Apple as this is an issue with the iTunes software rather than the Sonos Move.

If something else is happening, please let us know.

Did you check whether the Move and Mac are on the same WiFi band, as I suggested?  I have just seen a post on another thread where being on different bands seems to have been an issue.

I remain unoptimistic about this but I think it is worth a check.

A Mac application named “Bonjour Browser.app” will at least tell you which speakers are advertising Airplay(1) and Airplay2 on your network.  (Newer version now called “Discovery.app” in Apple’s App Store?)

It shows drop-down lists for all the services being advertised.  The drop-down list labeled “AirTunes (_raop._tcp.)” will show speakers advertising (either version of) AirPlay.  If you click on each speaker’s drop-down arrow, you can see its advertised parameters.  If a speaker publishes its “pk” field, which I believe is its Public Key (crypto), it is (IME) an AirPlay2 speaker.  AirPlay(1) speakers didn’t have “pk” because all their streams were encrypted with the same (supposedly-secret) key.  This can’t tell you what iTunes is doing internally, but it will tell you what your system software “sees” from the speakers.  Of course, if iTunes is crashing, you don’t really care if you answer the AirPlay(1)/AirPlay2 question above, because “it isn’t your problem to fix”.  But just in case, now you know.

Thank you Tracker