AirPlay issues with the new audio engine on Apple TV

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#:
Player Version#: 8.21 (6341)

AirPlay is basically unusable with the new audio engine on my Apple TV 4K 1st gen. Audio drops out for a second every minute or so, then stops altogether after several minutes of playback. It does seem to finally fix some audio sync issues I’d previously had with AirPlay, though.

Interestingly, neither stability nor sync is a problem when I use old AirPlay 1 receivers, it’s only when I use AirPlay 2 speakers (a Sonos One stereo pair) that these issues crop up.

I’ve tried the latest iOS beta - perfectly stable and in sync on the same speakers.

Oct '23 update: nothing has changed since June as far as the new Plex audio engine is concerned: if you’re using modern Airplay 2 devices (Homepods, Sonos speakers, etc.), you still won’t be able to use the new engine. What has changed is that the workaround — switching to the old audio engine — only works on tvOS 17 if your Apple TV is connected via WiFi. That’s Apple’s new tvOS 17 bug that affects every app, not just Plex: Airplay 1 apps and receivers produce no sound at all if your Apple TV is connected via Ethernet. Since the old audio engine only supports Airplay 1, it doesn’t work over a wired connection in tvOS 17.0.

TvOS 17.1 update: Apple has fixed the issue, AirPlay 1 works over Ethernet again after 17.1 update. No changes in the new Plex audio engine, still not usable with AirPlay.

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2

Been having this same issue, just started for me to today and had been bashing my head against the wall trying to isolate and did find it was only on AppleTV with AirPlay. Replicated this on Sonos speaker pair and a home pod 1st gen.

This is happening on 2 different appletv 4k

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I presume the audio issue goes away when you enable the Old Audio Engine in the Plex for Apple TV Settings ?

4

I have the same issue as the other posters.

Correct, the issue stops for me when Old Audio Engine is enabled.

5

Yes, I had to switch back to the old audio engine and the audio playback is stable again. It’s actually even better now with the new audio offset feature allowing me to manually correct occasional audio sync issues. I’m glad the manual audio offset is enabled for the old engine, I find it very useful.

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Have the same issue with the engine

Switching to the old one stops the strange cut lug issues ; but volume control is now almost random

Sometimes I can turn it all the way to 0% and the audio will be too loud ; other times it will come out of one (usually left, but not always!) speaker and other times it’s too quiet even at maximum volume.

Tested on a new ish 4K Apple TV, new HomePod pair
And same issues with the last 4K atv going through two HomePods mini

Hoping we can use the newer audio engine as it seemed good when it worked intermittently; and volume control was precise and muting worked perfectly too when needed as well

8

Yes it goes away

As does this issue

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also weird/possibly relevant;

I am able to play using new or old engine on a far older Apple TV “HD” or the one with the touchpad style remote, airplay works and volume control too;

the audio issues seem worse on my newer hardware to the stage that I’m barely using Plex now as I fear it might damage my speakers, or just simply bother my neighbours as the volume is impossible to regulate; volume control is impossible

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Honestly I have given up at this point.
The new audio engine is so broken in so many ways that they pulled it from iOS with a few days of it being launched.
With tvOS they kept it going for some reason.

At this point I’m starting to think that Plex just assume we’re all using Infuse instead so there’s no need to fix anything.

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@chrisallen
I saw in another topic there’s gonna be a new version of MPV player soon?

I know there’s only a handful of posts in this thread however there’s at least another five threads on the same subject.

Any chance anyone at Plex will be buying any HomePods anytime soon, to reproduce the issue?

It would be nice to get more than 2 minutes of audio when using HomePods.

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Ouch! This sounds like a painful issue. I don’t have a HomePod myself. But I do have AirPod Pro 2’s that work while watching content and don’t drop out. (there is an issue with plex only doing spatial stereo on tvOS which we are aware of)

I’ll take a look at those other threads and see what I might be missing. Perhaps AirPlay to another Apple TV might suffice to simulate your HomePod setup?

13

Thanks for the reply.
To add, I also have AirPods Pro 2 (and AirPods Max) and as you mention beyond the lack of Spatial Multi-Channel they’re fine. But (un)fortunately I have never reproduced the issue with AirPods which I have to use exclusively due to the HomePods issue (or infuse).

In of one of the linked threads someone found this right as the issue occurred

image
image1196×418 593 KB

Also to be clear, as with the video stutter issue, there are no issues when rolling back to the old audio engine. That of course means switching between audio players whenever we want to switch between HomePod usage and Spatial Audio with AirPods. Hence most of us currently use Infuse.

Again thanks for your attention. It finally feels like someone is listening.

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@chrisallen

If the above snippet isn’t enough of a clue please let me know and I will grab some full logs on my next days off which will probably be midweek.

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The snippet helps but having full logs would be great as they tell a bigger picture of what led up to those log lines… feel free to DM them to me.

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I asked this in the fireside chat happening right now. Plex Fireside in the Forums - #37 by chrisallen

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One more question on those logs.
I’m sure when I posted the above screenshot, the op that took them said he had enabled verbose logging. Will that be necessary?
Also do you require client (Apple TV) logs also?

I would just rather get it right first time. :joy:

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For now getting Client logs (Apple TV with you playing audio to the Homepods) with verbose logging enabled would be best. Feel free to include server logs that cover the same testing period as that should tell an accurate server/client picture.

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glad the DLNA server works fairly well, right now im getting reacquainted with VLC as the client and PMS doing fairly well serving the files ;; still, hoping the Plex staff work out how to get the new audio engine working properly as it was definitely a lot nicer and had working Volume control too vs whatever is happening on Plex client for tvOS

new tvOS and HomePod OS should be out too any second, possibly solving or making things even more convoluted for the problem solvers!

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Just installed tvOS 17, Airplay doesn’t work AT ALL with the old audio engine now (no sound), still the same issue with the new one. It was in beta for 3 months, how is this possible?

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Because seemingly at Plex nobody owns HomePods or simlar.

I did submit logs for Audio cutting out late last week and did get a reply thanking me for the logs and he hoped to look at them this week…So there is hope.

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