Airplay from macOS can not connect to Era 100

​@gimball 

Below are my specifications for my Mac’s and the test procedure I used to try and reproduce your issue; which I could not. I ran the tests on each of my Mac’s. Airplay was successful in each test scenario. There’s obviously a network, software or version issue that is preventing you from using AirPlay to an individual Era 100 from your Mac. 

 I ruled out that the WIFI is turned off for the speaker as you say you can reach it via Airplay from your other device. I might ask if you have any Range Extenders on your network and/or if WIFI is disabled on your Mac?

Range Extenders can be problematic and yes they may affect one device and not another.  Also if you have a Mesh WiFi make sure that the satellites do not have DHCP rights to create/assign IP addresses.

Sonos does have the ability to do a screen share session wherein they can see your setup in real time. If you haven’t been offered such by Sonos; I would request it. 

Apple Music ver. 1.5.2.56

MacOS Sequoia 15.2

• Mac Studio_M1
• MacBook Pro 16 Inch_M2
• MacBook Pro 14 Inch_M3
• Mac Mini_M4

I removed Era 100’s as surrounds to a bedroom Sonos system which resulted in Era 100’s reverting to separate rooms (Sony 2 and Sony 3)

Using the Airplay speaker selection icon in Apple Music:

1. Airplay to each individual Era 100 as a stand-alone room by checking the individual box
2. Airplay to Era 100 simultaneously by checking the room box for each
3. Stopped Airplay to one Era 100 by unchecking the room box and leaving the other room box checked
4. Reversed #3 above

All tests successful 👍

Good luck to get your issue resolved.

Edit: You may need to contact Apple support for assistance as Airplay is their product and you may have a corrupted MacOS. Apple Advisors can also screen share in real time. One more possibility the Network Interface Card (NIC) could be failing on your Mac

I have already had an L2 session with Sonos who pulled a lot of logs. They seemed to be in agreement that this is a speaker issue and would have to investigate further.

But now I finally had the time to sit down and test this more extensively, and I am more convinced it’s some kind of issue with the network stack of the Era 100 controlling Airplay. This is based on the system and network logs from my laptop.

The Era is discoverable without issue in macOS. And initialization of Airplay works:

IP 192.168.1.200.56380 > 192.168.1.70.7000: Flags [S], seq 2697771256, win 65535
IP 192.168.1.70.7000 > 192.168.1.200.56380: Flags [S.], seq 3849195894, ack 2697771257

 Then, the speaker actively rejects PTP traffic:

IP 192.168.1.200.320 > 192.168.1.70.320: PTPv2, v1 compat : yes, msg type : announce msg
IP 192.168.1.70 > 192.168.1.200: ICMP 192.168.1.70 udp port 320 unreachable

IP 192.168.1.200.319 > 192.168.1.70.319: PTPv2, v1 compat : yes, msg type : sync msg
IP 192.168.1.70 > 192.168.1.200: ICMP 192.168.1.70 udp port 319 unreachable

Connection attempts cause flag changes in mDNS advertisements:

# Initial state
"flags=0xc04" "model=Era 100" "fv=p20.82.3-60160"

# After failed connection
"flags=0x404" "model=Era 100" "fv=p20.82.3-60160"

Given that:

• Airplay from this laptop to other Airplay 2 Sonos speakers (Port, Beam gen. 2) works;
• Spotify direct play (very similar) from this laptop to Era 100 works;
• The exact issue persists across networks (I set up the speaker and laptop on an entirely new hotspot network);
• The issue persists across Mac laptops with different OS versions (2x M2 laptops and an older Intel laptop).

It’s highly unlikely that this is anything other than some kind of issue with the speaker. Seeing as you allegedly do not have any issues, and others including myself have the exact same issue, I can only guess that some batch of Era 100s have this botched stack.

For fun, here's some output from Console showing this behavior:

# Initial discovery and setup works
[0x6276] Prefer Infra for connection
[0x6276] Connect over Infra with "Era" ( preferredConnection = Infra, isInfraAvailable = 1, isAWDLAvailable = 0, isNANAvailable = 0 )

# AirPlay setup (port 7000) succeeds
Connect success: CID 0x80C10000, Peer NULL

# PTP rejection occurs
error: httpconnection_asyncConnectionConnected:1408: got error -6722/0xFFFFE5BE kTimeoutErr

# Speaker indicates timing synchronization failed
error: apsession_ensureStartedInternalStage1StartTransaction:2729: got error -6722/0xFFFFE5BE kTimeoutErr

# Speaker actively rejects PTP
TimeSyncClockAddUDPv4EndToEndPortAndGetIdentity(0x7949c9c80, <private>, 192.168.1.70, ...)

Here’s hoping I can get this message to the L2 team / whoever from Sonos that cares.

Unfortunately, my other post is being queued for review by mods (I don’t know why), but my network logs shows that the speaker itself is rejecting the Airplay connection. So it has little to do with my Mac or network setup. I also tested this across different Macs and an entirely separate network.

Out of curiosity, I just tested MacOS M4 mini, Apple Music Airplay is working to Era-100.

Windows 11 PC (Intel), Apple Music Airplay to Era-100 doesn’t work.

IIRC Airplay can use multiple methods to establish a connection, including Bluetooth and Direct WiFi, bypassing the LAN?

Checking here, Amp, Port, Arc, Beam, Five, Move, One, Ray are listed, but Era-100 is not listed, maybe its not fully certified for Apple AirPlay yet?

https://www.apple.com/uk/home-app/accessories/#section-speakers

https://www.apple.com/uk/home-app/accessories/#section-receivers

What version of macOS are you using?

And the Sonos product page for Era 100 advertises Airplay 2 support.

MacOS 15.2, Apple Music 1.5.2.56. Both PC and Mac are wired, and have Bluetooth enabled.

Also noticed that your network traces are IPv4, I did a tcpdump on the Mac, and its using IPv4 and IPv6 for discovery, but uses IPv6 addressing when I AirPlay from MacOS to Era-100.

Can confirm I’m in the same boat.

Macbook: 16-inch, 2021 - MacOS Sequoia 15.2

Sonos Era 100: 16.5.1 (build 82.3 - 60160)

Macbook will not connect to the Era 100, restarted everything. No change.

If my phone is playing music to the Era, and I connect the macbook, it stops the music being played - but never connects itself.

I’ve been following along after spending hours doing the same tests and troubleshooting many described here. 

My problem is Airplay from three different Macs to a pair of Era 300s, but everything else sounds the same. I can Airplay to any other speaker in the office, except these. And I can successfully Airplay from multiple iOS devices to the Era 300 pair. 

What’s also strange is that I have the same setup at home: another stereo pair of 300s. Same network (all Unifi) and that pair can Airplay just fine from the Macbook. 

If I separate the stereo pair - same deal: Both speakers are showing the same type of error messages.

• In each case, the logs report a timeout during the initial connection phase—for example, I see repeated lines like: “Stage 1 failed, error: -6722/0xFFFFE5BE kTimeoutErr”
• That’s followed by messages indicating that the transport session is disconnecting (error -16613) and that the connection is being invalidated. 

That trick to clear the Queue didn’t work for me. 

I don’t try to Airplay all that often to these - but I think this started maybe 3 months ago (ish)? Looks like that’s about the same time as the OP. 

Fingers crossed for an update to fix this some day in the future!