AirPlay Receiver: Cover art and seeking sync, but no audio plays to any target speaker

[JamieSBenson]

What version of Music Assistant has the issue?

2.7.6

How is the MA server installed?

Home Assistant OS Addon

Mandatory: Carefully read the Troubleshooting FAQ and confirm that

• I have examined the logs and tried to resolve this issue
• I have fixed any errors in the logs that relate to tags
• I am not running MA across a VPN, VLAN, subnet, behind a firewall, or using local SSL or have any other complex network setup
• I am not using or have disabled tools such as AdGuard, Pi-hole or pfSense and retested
• I have checked my network setup to ensure mDNS/multicast is not being blocked
• I have reviewed the Open and Closed Issues and Discussions to resolve this yourself?
• I have reviewed the applicable player or music provider documentation
• I have reviewed the MA Status Page
• I have tried restarting MA and rebooting the host

As Applicable: Carefully read the Troubleshooting FAQ and confirm that

• If using HA, I have confirmed the internal URL is set correctly
• I have tried a wired connection for issues related to interrupted or poor playback quality
• If the problem relates to a device then I have checked the device settings
• If it is a frontend issue, I have tried a different widely used browser
• For voice problems, I have sought help elsewhere before returning here
• For playback problems, I have recycled power to the physical device

The problem

I have set up the alpha version of the "Airplay Receiver" provider. Regardless of the connected player I select (Auto or specifying), I am unable to get audio to play over Airplay. The track information syncs, cover art is shown, volume changes and track changes sync, but either no audio will play, or MA will begin playing whatever was previously in the queue for that player. Once this occurs, MA is playing the audio of whatever was in the queue formerly, but the cover art and track information shows what is "playing" over the Airplay source. I am not then able to stop the music that is playing, either from the device sending via Airplay, or from the MA interface.

Attempting to pause this ghost queue results in an error in the UI and log: 'The active source (%s) on player %s does not support play/pause', 'AirPlay Receiver', 'Kitchen' [0m

If there is nothing in the queue for the selected speaker, MA will have silence playing, but still shows the correct media information and syncs volume and track information, and I am unable to play or pause or seek from the UI (buttons are greyed out).

How to reproduce

Enable Airplay Receiver provider
Stream to MA from an Airplay-enabled device

Music Providers

Apple Music
Spotify

Player Providers

Airplay Receiver

Full log output

d5369777_music_assistant_2026-02-02T18-00-58.553Z.log

Additional information

I have MA running in HAOS. I have a network with additional complexities, but for troubleshooting this is running on a network boiled down to just using default address assignment, all devices on one network (no separate VLANs), mDNS is enabled and there's no firewall or traffic rules at play.

I've tried streaming from an iPhone and a Mac running iOS 26.0.1 and MacOS Seqouia 15.7.3 respectively.

What version of Home Assistant Core (if used) are your running

2026.1.3

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

On what type of hardware are you running?

Proxmox

Have you included ALL of the information specified in the Troubleshooting FAQ or explained why you cannot

• Yes

[OzGav]

Can you test the beta server as imporvements to AirPlay have been made? You can install the addon side by side just dont have them both running at the same time.

[JamieSBenson]

Unfortunately it still doesn't work in the current Beta release. No more error in the UI, but otherwise the same end result. Log file is attached.

music-assistant.log

[MarvinSchenkel]

What kind of devices did you try with this Airplay receiver? In the latest logs, I see you are trying to play to a Sonos device. Sonos is very picky about the audio it receives, so that's something we should look into. Are there any other devices you tried that are failing to play audio?

[JamieSBenson]

Tried with Sonos, direct web player on my laptop, and an Airplay target to a Denon AV receiver, all had the same output.

[MarvinSchenkel]

We'll have a look at it in due time. The Airplay receiver is pretty alpha still, so we will have to iron out these first few issues.