RT-AC87R Airplay Issues

[twolf]

I have an RT-AC87R with the stock firmware 3.0.0.4.376_2061. Hooked up to the router is 2 16-port unmanaged switches that feed ethernet to the whole house, plus 2 Unifi AP-Pro access points. I have the 2.4ghz radio on the RT-AC87R turned off, and the 5ghz is only for AC devices. I have a litany of devices on the network to include 10 DirecTV receivers (wired through DTV's SWM kit), 3 Xbox Ones (wired), 3 Xbox 360s (wired), 1 Playstation 4 (wired), 5 Smart TVs/Blueray Players (wired), a couple of tablets (wireless), 8 laptops (wireless), 8 cell phones (wireless), canon printer (wireless), Dolry Airplay adapter (wireless), and Marantz receiver w/ Airplay (wired). I think that is it. I'm also using a 6rd tunnel for IPv6 through Charter.

Whenever I use airplay, the audio skips for 1 second every three seconds - so music plays for 3 seconds, then one second of silence, then another 3 seconds of music, then another second of silence, etc. The device sending the audio does not detect any skipping at all and just continues to play the song. This issue is present on both the Marantz receiver and the Dolry Airplay adapter. I have tried multiple phones and my laptop. To see if the problem was with the Unifi APs, I plugged my laptop into a switch (with wireless disabled) and airplayed to the Marantz receiver via iTunes. Still the skipping occurred.

On the RT-AC87R I have the "Optimize for Xbox" box checked on both the 2.4 and 5ghz pages as well as "Enable IGMP Snooping" enabled on both bands in the professional tab. In the "IPTV" tab under LAN, I have both "Enable multicast routing (IGMP Proxy)" and "Enable efficient multicast forwarding (IGMP Snooping)" enabled. From the research I've done, these are the settings people recommend I have enabled in order to get Airplay to work.

I'm at a loss as to what could be causing this skipping. When I purchased the RT-AC87R I hoped it would fix my problem (I had an RT-N66U previously to this) because Asus specifically says that it supports the Bonjour protocol, and supports TimeMachine (which I don't use since I have all PCs). For a while I thought it was the Unifi APs, but obviously ruled that out. The Canon printer works fine via AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. I haven't switched to a Merlin build yet to enable spanning tree protocol, although that didn't work on the RT-N66U.

Does anybody have any suggestions on what I can do in order to get Airplay to work properly?

 

[RMerlin]

First thing to try is to upgrade to the latest firmware version, which is currently 376_2769.

 

[sfx2000]

Does anybody have any suggestions on what I can do in order to get Airplay to work properly?

Try using the 2.4GHz radio on the AC87, and ensure that the source is on LAN port 2 thru 4 - that path takes things directly thru the Broadcom core, and bypasses the Quantenna solution.

Otherwise, breakout the N66U and use it as an AP.

Airplay works just fine with 802.11n across most devices, it doesn't demand that much bandwidth, but it's fairly susceptible to latency and dropouts.

Just saying...

 

[yooper2001]

I can't get it to stream anything across 5 GHz for any length of time....even copying a 4.7gig file....transfer rates randomly drop to zero then speed up six to seven times in the two minutes it takes to copy. Maybe just maybe they will fix this in the next firmware.

 

[Richard1864]

Update the firmware on all your adapters, receivers, computers, etc. There have been updated to almost all of your devices listed fixing various specific AirPlay issues. Get all those updates installed and see if that helps.

 

[oric1]

I can't get it to stream anything across 5 GHz for any length of time....even copying a 4.7gig file....transfer rates randomly drop to zero then speed up six to seven times in the two minutes it takes to copy. Maybe just maybe they will fix this in the next firmware.

Are you on iOS 8.0 or iOS 8.02? The wifi is broke for 5Ghz. Fixed is coming on 8.1

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6546549?start=825&tstart=0

 

[adamrhodge]

Similar setup with not as many devices...nothing but problems with anything airplay related going over the ASUS (87U, 68U before). I'm done. Anyone using Apple products should avoid ASUS completely. The firmware is crap.

 

[twolf]

First thing to try is to upgrade to the latest firmware version, which is currently 376_2769.

Merlin,
I went to ASUS's website and the latest firmware was 376_2678. Interestingly enough, when I tried to use the firmware to check for updates, it returned that there were no updates, even though there clearly was one.

After updating the firmware, the skipping still persists. All devices have the latest firmware. I've even tried an iPhone 5, 5s and 6, all on all 3 wireless networks (2.4ghz on AP-Pro, 5ghz on AP-Pro, and 5ghz AC on AC87U). I've tried my laptop on both 2.4ghz and 5ghz on the AP-Pro as well as wired. I even tried downloading Airfoil as some users reported that Airfoil worked better than actual Apple stuff. That didn't work either.

Do you think using one of your builds with Spanning Tree Protocol would make a difference? I know it didn't make a difference on the N66U, but its worth a try.

Alternatively, since I'm still within the return policy of this router, would I be better off going with the Netgear R8000? It seems as though Netgear has much better Apple support. I just love the Asus routers for their power and the fact that I have ZERO NAT issues with the consoles. Part of that is the IPv6 support, but still. I haven't used a Netgear router in a long time, and never with this many devices so I'm not sure how it'll work out.

I know this sounds dumb to make a major change based on one feature - but you have no idea how annoyed I get not being able to jam out to tunes in the shower or blast music from the living room as I'm cooking in the kitchen. If I can get the same performance AND get Airplay to work by switching to Netgear, I might just have to do that.

 

[sfx2000]

The airplay problem - quick question...

Does it dropout and pick up where it should be, or does it stop and then start up again?

What are you streaming from specifically - e.g. iTunes 11.4 on Windows 8.1 on Wireless/WiFi etc?

Does it happen from one/some/all source devices? Streaming destinations, are they both online when this happens, or does that matter, e.g. happens in any event?

Remember, Bonjour is only for discovery (AirPrint/AirPlay/etc), if I recall once up and running, it's basically a UDP stream from there.

It might be more to do with other traffic/nodes on the network, rather than the RT-AC87U, and if it's happening across different radios/AP's, this again rules out just the AC87U.

 

[RMerlin]

Merlin,
I went to ASUS's website and the latest firmware was 376_2678. Interestingly enough, when I tried to use the firmware to check for updates, it returned that there were no updates, even though there clearly was one.

Grab it from the RT-AC87U support site (this is the exact same firmware as used by the RT-AC87R):

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=RT-AC87U&p=11&s=2

Automatic update uses a different update site, which doesn't automatically get the very latest version. Asus tends to only publish some specific versions to it, to avoid having users upgrading every few weeks when new updates are either only minor, or can potentially have new unresolved issues.

Do you think using one of your builds with Spanning Tree Protocol would make a difference? I know it didn't make a difference on the N66U, but its worth a try.

I didn't add STP support, I merely added a webui option to allow manually disabling it.

 

[sfx2000]

And other things to look at:

AirPlay sources - for debug/troubleshooting purposes, keep only one active, make sure the other source end-points are not trying to access the same destination end points

AirPlay destination end-points - power down one or the other, see if the problem still exists

AirPlay source - try turning off bluetooth on the source, see if that helps

iTunes/AirFoil - one or the other, they're both sources, so close the one you're not using

Last thing - and this may seem to be a bit drastic - do a systematic power down/power up on the routers/ap/nodes on the network - bringing everything down, and then bringing things back up in a controllled manner, starting with the ingress router, downstream switches, downstream AP's, and then bring up the nodes one at a time - believe it or not, this can help with odd issues like you're seeing.

 

[sfx2000]

And if you're streaming from an iOS device (iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone), try turning off "Ask to Join Networks" in the Settings/WiFi section.

 

[twolf]

I've now done everything you've all suggested. Thank you for all your help. I'm really at a loss here. I had a day off and nobody else was home so I was able to completely control the network. Even with the ONLY 2 things being plugged into the router being my laptop and the Marantz receiver, it still skips. The source acts as if everything is fine. Firmware on everything is up to date.

I read elsewhere on the interwebs that Airplay does not like IPv6. Maybe that's the problem? Now that I think about it, the problem started right around the time I setup Charter's 6rd tunnel. I could test it, but that would involve disrupting people's gaming sessions (I'll likely have a riot on my hands). Overall, I would not sacrifice IPv6 for Airplay

I did notice that IPv6 wasnt actually working with the stock firmware, so I loaded up Merlin's latest build and suddenly IPv6 was working. Before, devices were getting a LAN IPv6 address, but not a WAN. Thank you for a great build Merlin!

 

[sfx2000]

Hmmm... AirPlay/AirPrint and Bonjour are inherently IPv6 friendly, so I'm at a loss here...

I'm thinking that this might be an AC87U issue with the basic design (good thread over there).

One thing I might try is, if possible, using your older router and see where things go.

BTW - IPv6 is cool, but if you can, try turning it off and test, I think you'll see the same results there with the 87U

sfx

 

[twolf]

I finally fixed it! I've tested this with every setting and every way I could possibly think of, especially with all of your suggestions. I disabled IPv6 and was disappointed that it didn't fix my AirPlay issues. The. I stumbled upon a thread about Marantz receivers.

For some reason, Marantz receivers REALLY like a static IP and don't like DHCP. Apparently, using DHCP causes these receivers to not work with AirPlay. I had already assigned the receiver a static IP on the router side of things, so I just setup the Marantz to use that IP and BAM! It worked!!! The even weirder thing was that it solved the problems with the other AirPlay receiver.

I've been working on this issue longer than I can remember... Feels good to finally have it fixed. Thanks for all your help!!!!

 

[sfx2000]

I finally fixed it! I've tested this with every setting and every way I could possibly think of, especially with all of your suggestions. I disabled IPv6 and was disappointed that it didn't fix my AirPlay issues. The. I stumbled upon a thread about Marantz receivers.

For some reason, Marantz receivers REALLY like a static IP and don't like DHCP. Apparently, using DHCP causes these receivers to not work with AirPlay. I had already assigned the receiver a static IP on the router side of things, so I just setup the Marantz to use that IP and BAM! It worked!!! The even weirder thing was that it solved the problems with the other AirPlay receiver.

I've been working on this issue longer than I can remember... Feels good to finally have it fixed. Thanks for all your help!!!!

Good to know - and happy all is sorted... airplay can get weird, even in a 100 percent Apple environment.

enjoy the music!

 

[internetman2014]

I too have been having many issues with Airplay since installing the 87U. 5ghz is mostly unusable. If I restart the 87U, airplay sometimes works for a while before cutting out again (it might cut out after a few hours or after a few days). Sometimes restarting the router works, sometimes it doesn't.

2.4ghz works, but it is just unbelievably slow. Video buffering on airplay takes 5-10 minutes, and then it needs to re-buffer 20 minutes into the video (for 5-10 minutes again). Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn't.

Not sure if its a faulty unit, or firmware. I do not have a marantz receiver like the OP. Running 2769 firmware. I haven't changed any other settings. I have tested this with my macbook, iphone, apple tv and 87u all next to each other, so no possible interference. All devices connected using wireless n.