Airplay connections lost after exiting Apple Music in Tahoe Mac OS 26 - Still not Resolved in MacOS 26.2

[whitby]

I have a fairly large collection of Airplay devices (7 HomePods, 3 pairs of Sonos speakers and a Naim MuSO II). I have a 24" M1 iMac that is used as our music server is configured to use a number of these devices by default. I play using Apple Music when using this machine. In Sequoia and before I could leave them configured and when I slept the machine and then woke it up later, the Airplay configuration was intact and music would play through the devices without any issue.

Under Sequoia, when I wake the machine and go to Apple Music , the Airplay speakers are shown as connected but when I play the music selected, it plays through the iMac speakers even though they are not shown as selected. In order to get it to work, I have to deselect the Airplay speakers, reselect the iMac and then select the Airplay devices I want to use again. I have tried with and without the Sonos speakers and all HomePods are on the latest release. I complained about this in the beta and it has not been fixed. The behavior is identical on any of my MacBook Pros and Mac Mini M4 Pro. The problem does not occur on my iPhone or iPads. This is a Mac OS issue.

Has anyone else seen this? It has long worked under Sequoia and before with no issues whatsoever.

 

[whitby]

I have filed a bug report with Apple, as I have noticed the same issue on 3 of my friends systems so allowing me to discount local network oddities. Apparently (as of this moment) no one on MacRumors either has the issue or noticed anything.

 

[Imperial926]

I have filed a bug report with Apple, as I have noticed the same issue on 3 of my friends systems so allowing me to discount local network oddities. Apparently (as of this moment) no one on MacRumors either has the issue or noticed anything.

Yes, same here. Thank you for posting. If anything it's even worse after the HomePod firmware update and 26.0.1 minor Tahoe update. Lots of restarting and still defaults to the Mac instead of the chosen AirPlay destination. Since this badly undermines the Apple Music experience I assume it will get sorted fairly quickly.

 

[webbga]

My issue is not with airplay, but air tags. I have seven of them and I have to restart my iPhone before the will search inside the house. If my wife is using the car and has the car keys with her I can see her location, but inside the house i continually get the message to move to a different location even when I am right overt the air tag. A hard reset temporarily fixes the situation, but it returns within a short period of time.

 

[whitby]

Just a note that this appears to be resolved in MacOS 26.2. See note below. Not correct.

Update: 20 December 2025.

I spoke too soon! Problem still present on all Tahoe MacOS 26.2 machines. Airplay setup lost when exiting Apple Music and then re-opening. AirPlay setup up looks correct (as originally set up prior to exiting Apple Music) but then plays only on the internal machine speakers, despite showing other AirPlay devices selected. Requires all AirPlay devices to be de-selected then re-selected to work. Incompetence at work!

 

[Phronk]

I'm having exactly the same issue with Apple Music defaulting to computer audio even when an AirPlay source is selected. In addition, it occasionally does the same thing randomly while music is playing, so I have to reselect the AirPlay speaker. I'm glad you filed a bug report, and I hope it's fixed soon.

 

[ps3zocker]

Same issue here, on macOS only. It manifests in weird ways.

- AirPlay works fine for some time, then suddenly the sound is gone but Music still shows the song as playing (need to disable AirPlay and reconnect), sometimes this self-repairs after a few songs and I get a heart attack
- Music toolbar shows connection to AirPlay, but plays through the Mac speaker
- Music toolbar shows connection *error* symbol but it will play correctly via AirPlay???

I had issues with AirPlay before Tahoe, but never this bad. I already started to blame my Unifi setup, but I‘m glad I found this thread.

 

[whitby]

Thanks for posting here as I was beginning to feel as if I was the only one that had the issue. It only occurs on MacOS ( all my Macs are on MacOS 26.2) and it appears that IPad OS and iOS are not affected. My problems are identical to those described above. AirPlay is now very difficult to use on MacOS and I cannot believe Apple have allowed it to continue for so long. The problem never occurred on Sequoia and started with the introduction of Tahoe. As an aside I am using an Eero mesh network which was never an issue in Sequoia!

In summary my issues are and remain:

1. AirPlay setup in Music is not retained after closing Music and reopening Music even though the AirPlay setup looks set up correctly. The AirPlay speakers are ignored and Music plays through the Computer speakers whether or not they are selected.
2. If I deselect the AirPlay speakers and select the computer speaker (if not already selected), Music plays through computer speakers but I may not be able to control the volume from Music.
3. Reselecting the AirPlay speakers does not work. I have to deselect them, exit Music and then go back into Music to get AirPlay speakers to work, however I often cannot control the volume. I sometimes must wait an undefined amount of time after closing Music, then reopening to get volume control and the AirPlay speakers to work.
4. AirPlay speakers will suddenly stop playing even though the progress bar shows the Music playing. They will then suddenly restart again.
5. Music stops playing for no reason. You have to press play again. Only happens when Airplay speakers in use.

As an aside the remote on iOS no longer shows album art covers when controlling a MacOs library.

In other words it is a complete mess and I end up using my iPad rather than my iMac I use as a music server.

 

[ps3zocker]

I have since then installed the current macOS 26.3 beta and, of course, no change.

 

[ScottMcG]

I'm glad I found this post because I now know it's not just me. I have had tried everything I could think of to resolve this issue. I haven't been able to resolve the issue of selected AirPlay speakers being ignored but I have been able to temporarily restore volume control by restarting my laptop. It doesn't last for long, however.

 

[ScottMcG]

And I just regained volume control after clicking on an album in the New Music playlist and playing a song from that album. Upon going back to the New Music playlist, I retained volume control of my AirPlay speakers.

 

[whitby]

I thought I would note here, in this long recumbent thread, that as of today, May 9, 2026, and Tahoe 26.4.1 the AirPlay configuration issue seems to be resolved. I can now leave an AirPlay set up in Apple Music on any of my MacOS Tahoe systems, exit Apple Music, come back to it later and not only is the configuration intact, but, and this was the issue before, it will actually work instead of ignoring the configuration and playing on the internal speakers. And, magically, the AirPlay volume controls seem to work, rather than being completely ignored. Can anyone else, who had the issue, confirm or otherwise this observation?

Apple must have been secretly working on this, I am sure, because,apart from Tahoe upgrades and HomePod upgrades, none of my other AirPlay devices (Sonos and Nailm) have been updated.

I am crossing my fingers that this is a real fix and not a temporary aberration. AirPlay is very flakey and has always been a bit erratic but not as bad this has been for the last few months. We will see.