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.

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Y

yaou78

Lyricist I

Same problem with One SL and macmini M1 , big sur last version

This product doesn’t work. I’ll be refunded and buy something else

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hello Corry,

in the documentation article about Airplay https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1230?language=de it is clearly being stated by Sonos to use systemwide sound output on a Mac.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The text in that article will be altered soon but as we’ve been advising this usage for a long period, we’re now planning to investigate deeper into this usage case and the associated issues.

Also when switching to my grouped speakers, the mute on my One SL is being lifted. This speaker is muted to activate an Airplay group with two Play:3s but not to play itself.

Do you have a solution to this issue?

It seems a software engineer has made the assumption (probably long before AirPlay support was introduced) that a speaker being added to a group wouldn’t be added to a group if it wasn’t going to play, so is automatically unmuted. I will feed this back to the relevant team for consideration. Thank you again.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

R

rigoli.mail

Lyricist I

Hello Corry,

in the documentation article about Airplay https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1230?language=de it is clearly being stated by Sonos to use systemwide sound output on a Mac.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The text in that article will be altered soon but as we’ve been advising this usage for a long period, we’re now planning to investigate deeper into this usage case and the associated issues.

Also when switching to my grouped speakers, the mute on my One SL is being lifted. This speaker is muted to activate an Airplay group with two Play:3s but not to play itself.

Do you have a solution to this issue?

It seems a software engineer has made the assumption (probably long before AirPlay support was introduced) that a speaker being added to a group wouldn’t be added to a group if it wasn’t going to play, so is automatically unmuted. I will feed this back to the relevant team for consideration. Thank you again.

Hey Corry P,
Thanks for engaging in this community discussion.

I’m happy to add some troubleshooting/test notes.
I suspect it’s an AirPlay issue and wish I could connect to my Sonos Amp via Bluetooth instead.
I have several other sets of Bluetooth speakers connected to my Mac Mini (Jabra conf speaker w/mic, Sony earbuds w/mic, even a massage chair with speakers).
The responsiveness (how long it takes from when I press pause/play/next to when the speakers stop/start playing is better over Bluetooth connections vs AirPlay).

Bluetooth start/pause delays: ~0.8 sec / no noticeable delay (android sonos app/amazon music service)
Airplay start/pause delays: ~2.2 to 6+ seconds / ~0.8 sec (amazon app on mac and amazon.music.com on chrome - similar delays)

Apple has a history of issues with ‘sleepiness’ and impact on devices. I use a mac mini and sometimes the video display (I use a wall mounted TV) gets to an unusable state after a long sleep. I work from home (who doesn’t these days...) and often let my mini sleep overnight. Most days the display wakes up fine. I’ve tried quite a few work arounds including energy settings (no display sleep).

Alexa even seems more responsive, but you have to give verbal commands which isn’t nearly as convenient or expedient as pressing pause/play/next on the keyboard. Plus, having the visual music interface adds to the experience.

Like several others, a longer pause can fail to recover and play again (no sound, but Sonos device still showing selected). It’s as if AirPlay forget’s to send the sound signal to Sonos. If I toggle between other output devices, the sound immediately plays. When I toggle back to the Sonos Amp it sometimes will start playing again. I’ve had scenarios when I had to toggle several times to get sound over the Sonos Amp again.

What I haven’t determined is how long you need to wait after a pause, but pause to take a phone call and come back, likely you won’t have sound; or the delay is so long, you think the connection is no longer working.

Decided to do some pause tests.

configuration: using amazon music app (v8.0.0.2229) on macOS (v10.14.4 mojave)

Test steps:
1. play song in amazon music app
2. press pause
3. wait target time
4. press play and start timer
5. wait & listen

Below are pause and sound continuation times:
30 seconds / ~7.5 second delay to continue playing
60 seconds / 16+ second delay
90 seconds / 22+ second delay
120 seconds / 29+ second delay
180 seconds / 6+ second delay (hmm, though I was still doing stuff on the computer)
300 seconds / 1:19 second delay (this time I walked away from computer during the pause)
300 seconds (retest, for fun) / 1:04 second delay (again I walked away from computer)
600 seconds / 2:28 second delay (I almost gave up)

Conclusions:
AirPlay is delaying sending signal to Sonos product after a pause (Amp in my case).
Longer pause → longer delay until signal is sent.
Continuing to use the Mac during pause time impacts the test; delays are not as long.
When I use a Bluetooth connection I simply don’t get these delays.

Suggestion, allow Sonos devices to be discoverable and connect like other Bluetooth sound devices. Don’t depend on Apple to “fix” the issue with AirPlay.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Conclusions:
AirPlay is delaying sending signal to Sonos product after a pause (Amp in my case).
Longer pause → longer delay until signal is sent.
Continuing to use the Mac during pause time impacts the test; delays are not as long.
When I use a Bluetooth connection I simply don’t get these delays.

Suggestion, allow Sonos devices to be discoverable and connect like other Bluetooth sound devices. Don’t depend on Apple to “fix” the issue with AirPlay.

Thank you very much for doing those tests - I’m passing this info along to the right folk.

Pretty weird, to be sure.

The Move and the Roam are the only devices Sonos make that can stream via Bluetooth. Unlike the Move, the Roam is able to share it’s Bluetooth-received stream with the rest of a Sonos system, so the addition of one of these to your system would allow you to use Bluetooth instead of AirPlay.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

A

AudioLondon

Lyricist I

Having the exact same issue and couldn’t be more frustrated. I bought a Sonos One and used it in the kitchen, mainly with Google assistant, and thought it was great. I then bought into the whole Sonos ecosystem and spent >£3000 on various speakers for every room in the house. I am pretty sure I will be sending these back as it seems clear from all these posts that this isn’t going to be fixed any time soon.

Every time I want to use Airplay to listen to something (e.g. YouTube) when using my mac I have to connect via settings. If I pause for more than a few seconds, when I press play again the video continues and no sound comes out. I have to reconnect to listen again. This is beyond frustrating. This issue in addition to not being able to increase or decrease the volume with the mac volume buttons just really adds up to a dealbreaker.

So very disappointed, thought I was onto a real winner as love the aesthetics and sound. However core functionality issues are not being resolved.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

@AudioLondon

I appreciate your concern. As mentioned, we are now investigating this issue a bit further due to the instructions we have been providing on our own website. I cannot give any indication as to how long this will take, however.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

S

StevenFromDunedin

Lyricist I

I am also having the same problems outlined by @rigoli.mail. I’m using a Sonos Beam, Version:13, Build: 62186220.

A quick search revealed others are also having similar issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/cz5n5j/airplay2_stops_working_after_long_pause/

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/airplay-from-mac-no-longer-working-after-pause-6854461

@Corry P, thank-you for being active on this thread. :)

A

Anonymous

I am using MacBook Pro (2016) to Sonos One (Gen 2).

One work-around that I’ve come up with, inspired by the 10 hours YouTube video, is to create an HTML-document that plays a sine wave that is inaudible while the web page is open. One benefit over the YouTube video is that this runs forever. You don’t need to think about restarting the video.

<title>AirPlay fix</title> <script>const audioContext = new AudioContext(); const oscillator = audioContext.createOscillator(); const gainNode = audioContext.createGain(); oscillator.connect(gainNode); gainNode.connect(audioContext.destination); gainNode.gain.setValueAtTime(0, audioContext.currentTime); oscillator.start();</script>

Save into a .html-file using TextEdit, make a bookmark for it in your browser, create a separate window in your browser, open it from the bookmark, and have it running in the background in that separate window.

Hope this helps!

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @alexanderte4155

Thanks for sharing that!

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

R

rodquev

Lyricist I

Hey! Wanted to share my experience. So.. I bought a One less than a week ago and have had most of the issues on these forums haha, still love the sound and looks, so won’t be returning it and would love to eventually have a 5.1.2 system.

Anyway, I’m having the same issue with AirPlay. I didn’t see some of these posted, so might as well share some tips:
-Pressing play/pause with the touch controls usually makes the audio go through in a few seconds.

-Using the Sonos app or a plug in like Siri, Yonomi (free) or Soro for Sonos ($5.00) on iOS, you can play/pause and it seems to have the same effect.

-Airfoil ($29.00), if the setting to disconnect after 5 minutes of no audio is not activated, then no issues here even after 20-30 min. So in essence, it totally seems like its an integration issue.

Please keep in mind that I understand some of these options are not ideal, but at least while Sonos engineers come up with a solution, these seem to work.

My hardware (for context and for engineering):
-2012 Macbook Pro with Catalina.

-2017 iMac with Big Sur.

-iPhone XS

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