Contributor I

AirPlay cuts out on pause

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
August 3, 2019
107 replies
15289 views

I just got a Sonos One (Gen 2) after reading that Airplay was finally working well with it. I was hoping to use it as my speaker when streaming video from my MacBook Pro, but have been hounded by audio issues–even with it connected via Ethernet to my Airport. The audio cuts out if paused for more than a few seconds. The easiest fix has been to go to Volume in the Menu Bar, switch the output device to something else and then back to Sonos. It's a pain to have to do this over and over. The audio comes back without much delay.

I noticed that there is a substantial delay when I go to unpause music that's been paused for a bit as well, but not as bad as when unpausing Netflix or Youtube. The audio also cuts out in minute drops every now and then, which probably just comes from AirPlay sucking up my shitty wifi's bandwidth as I've read in other posts.

Given all the other unresolved issues I have read about and the hassle that was setting this up over the phone since the app's automated setup didn't work, I am thinking I am probably just going to return my speaker. I would rather have a cheap Bluetooth speaker that I don't need to run an additional application for or even have plugged into the wall all the time.

I feel mislead. I don't get the hype for this thing.

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Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi all.

This was brought to my attention on another post - thanks @joycean

I have done some investigating and found out the following:

AirPlay 2 requires that a buffer be filled prior to playback. Airplay 1 does not. As live system sounds cannot be buffered (you’d need time-travelling software code), when AirPlay-ing from macOS system settings AirPlay 1 is always used.
AirPlay likely times-out if no data is sent (ie. silence), though I cannot find a figure for this period.
AirPlay 1 is not supported by Sonos, but tends to work. Therefore, if you are using AirPlay 1 and sending all system sounds to Sonos, it works, usually, but may have issues like those described here. As AirPlay 1 is not supported by Sonos, we will not be addressing these issues.
macOS Applications (like Safari, Apple Music and Spotify) do support AirPlay2, but you must initiate the connection from that application, not the Mac’s settings. The media stream can then be buffered to the speaker and synced for playback.

In our own testing, we were unable to produce this issue when using AirPlay 2. If you experience these issues while using AirPlay 2 (initiated at the application level rather than at the system level), we would very much like to hear about it. Please get in touch with our technical support team if this is the case, as this is something that we would want to resolve (be it a networking or software issue).

It would be interesting if any of you could recreate the issue as you have before, but while having one media paused (YouTube for example), start something else playing over the AirPlay 1 connection - when you restart the paused media, does it play through Sonos immediately? I suspect so, as the second media playing will have kept the connection to the speaker live. I suspect @eldiets1’s fix of having a minimised window does exactly this.

I hope this information helps you all to use your Sonos speakers with your Apple products in a satisfactory way.

J

j.woAuthor

Contributor I

Tl;dr: Streaming video breaks the Airplay connection to my Sonos One. Please let me know if anyone has experienced this and has a fix.

T

thirdeye

Lyricist II

I am having the same problem and it drives me crazy as I pause a lot.

I

IBMDude

Lyricist III

Same here. Pausing for more than a few seconds cuts out the Airplay and it disconnects. I use the overcast app for my podcasts and I do pause. A lot. Same for not finding Airplay when I walk into the room after a while. I have to switch my iPhone to Airplane mode and back, to find the speakers again. This is bad, Sonos, and needs an update, pronto. Especially since the problem is quite replicable.

Ken_Griffiths

Just out of sheer curiosity, as another user, who likes to use AirPlay with my Sonos devices every now and then, I have been trying to reproduce this matter by AirPlaying an album from the Apple Music app on my old iPad Air running iOS v12.4.3 and from my iPhone XR running iOS v13.2.2 to my Sonos One (Hallway) speaker ...and I can repeatedly play/pause … wait a few moments and resume the music just fine, with no problems at all.

Anyhow, can I just very kindly ask how long people here are pausing their music for, so I can try a few more tests and report back.

So far I’ve only paused the music for 15s, 30s, & 60s and that’s not been a problem on either of my mentioned controller/devices.

Happy to test this some more, if you can provide further details of the pause-length.

T.I.A.

Ken_Griffiths

I chose the Apple Music App by the way, as I currently understand that definitely uses AirPlay v2, I haven’t tried any Apps that may still be using the old AirPlay v1 that have still not been updated by their developers… just for your added info.

Airgetlam

I’m pretty sure there’s a timeout in the AirPlay 2 protocol, but I’ve not done the research that you have….yet.

Bruce

I

IBMDude

Lyricist III

Just out of sheer curiosity, as another user, who likes to use AirPlay with my Sonos devices every now and then, I have been trying to reproduce this matter by AirPlaying an album from the Apple Music app on my old iPad Air running iOS v12.4.3 and from my iPhone XR running iOS v13.2.2 to my Sonos One (Hallway) speaker ...and I can repeatedly play/pause … wait a few moments and resume the music just fine, with no problems at all.

Anyhow, can I just very kindly ask how long people here are pausing their music for, so I can try a few more tests and report back.

So far I’ve only paused the music for 15s, 30s, & 60s and that’s not been a problem on either of my mentioned controller/devices.

Happy to test this some more, if you can provide further details of the pause-length.

T.I.A.

Edit:

I tried it with Apple Music, and the problem is still the same as with Overcast, i.e. I pause, screen on iPhone turns off. Come back a few minutes later, start the music (Apple Music) or Podcast (Overcast), and it takes too long to start to start playing.

Issue is the same on my old iPhone 7 and with the new iPhone 11. Doesn’t matter whether it is an Apple native app like Apple Music or a 3rd party iOS app like Overcast.

Turned off WiFi on the Beam in the Sonos app, and made it hardwired, and the issue is still there.

The issue is that after I pause, the music/podcast might pick up within a second, or it might go on playing on “silent”, i.e. the progress bar keeps moving but there is no audio, for as long as a minute, before audio kicks in again. All that audio that was on silent is not buffered and played, but is simply lost.

Frustrating!

E

eldiets1

Lyricist I

I have not been able to figure this problem out either. HOWEVER I do have a fix. I have been trying to figure out what the issue was and why it might happen. Sitting here watching a podcast and then it hit me. What if your computer told your Sonos something was always playing but no audio was actually playing. Boom - play this video when you connect and minimize the tab.

Enjoy only connecting to sonos once….now if only we can have a default to Sonos audio feature

I

IBMDude

Lyricist III

It is officially a Sonos issue now. I just rejigged my home theater with a Yamaha receiver. Airplay on it works absolutely flawlessly. Like it should. Sonos just hasn’t implemented Airplay right and has a ways to go.

K

kraih

Lyricist I

Same issue here with a Sonos Beam+Sub. Pausing the audio stream interrupts the AirPlay 2 connection somehow and i have to deselect/reselect Sonos as AirPlay target to reestablish the connection every time. Very annoying. Streaming source doesn’t seem to matter much, but in my case it’s mostly Audible on an iPhone.

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