iTunes 'multiple speakers' button malfunction

[inscrewtable]

I thought this was an iTunes issue but it seems to be something in my library, perhaps...

This is really puzzling. I have a pair of speakers connected to my airport express which is joined to my extreme network.

Everything looks fine, green lights on both airports in the airport utility. 'multiple speaker' showing at the bottom right corner of iTunes, but suddenly it won't let me select the express speaker, the button is there but it won't check.

The only thing I could see that was different is that I had updated to iTunes 10.3.1 and noticed that air tunes is now called air play.

So I booted up from my bootable clone which is only a few days old thinking I had not updated iTunes, however it turned out that I had as I got the 'license' screen. But lo and behold the button was working fine. So now I'm really stumped.

Booted back into the G5 and the button refuses to stay on. This is puzzling because there does not appear to be any difference in any of the configurations between the clone and the hd.

Tried Logging out and into my testing account and it worked fine. So I guess that narrows the problem down to my home library? I trashed all the preference and cache files relating to iTunes as well as the iTunes folder and everything in it, but the problem persists.

So, it's not the itune app and it's nothing to do with airport. I tunes can see the express speakers. When I click the checkbox it accepts the mark for about a tenth of a second. I will repeat that it works fine in another account.

I'm bewildered. Any suggestions what else could be causing this. Is there some other file in the ~/Library that I've missed?



This is mac G5 running 10.5.8

 

[borisiii]

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I seem to recall that a firmware update was required on the airport express for full AirPlay support. Open airport utility and make sure it is up to date. That's the only thing I can think of that might prevent you from connecting to it.

If that doesn't solve it I would remove iTunes and redownload it, since it works on your clone.

 

[inscrewtable]

yes this is certainly the most odd problem I've ever come up against. It can't be the iTunes app because I can log in as another user and the button works. But I did redownload it anyway. It can't be the firmware on the express because the express works fine on the clone and on the HD as a different user.

Because I've completely run out of options, I am currently updating the clone which means that when I boot back into it that the button should not work, I'd be happy if that were the case because at least I'd be expecting it.

I mean if I can simply log out and log in as a different user on the G5 HD and the button works normally, then all that's left is a home Library problem. Surely. But I've exhausted all library options.

It feels like some sort of OS9 extension conflict.

 

[borisiii]

It's still worth checking the firmware. Until my time capsule and airport expresses were on version 7.5.2, some of my computers would randomly fail to connect at certain times then work fine later.

 

[inscrewtable]

Solved

I knew there was some quantum weirdness going on.

OK, so the button works on the bootable clone but not on the mac, so as there were no other options, I smart updated the bootable clone from the mac, yes the mac where the button wouldn't work.

After the clone was updated I booted into the clone and found (not to my surprise) that the button worked, contrary to what one might expect.

Finally I then erased the mac and then copied the bootable clone back to the mac HD. Booted back into the mac and everything is working nicely including the pesky button!

I am given to understand that doing the above procedure has the added bonus of defragging the HD as well. At any rate everything seems to be running better than ever. This is I suppose a testament to the bullet proof app SuperDuper.

I am now at peace with myself and one with the universe.