I had this problem with an A6.  I believed, but could not prove, that my Apple AirPort responded for the A6 if it felt the A6 had gone to sleep but was still active ("Bonjour Proxy"), and this confused the source device.  I believed, but never knew for sure, that giving the A6 a static IP address assignment, and, IIRC, preventing it from going to sleep, helped.  Given that my experience is so sketchy and so long ago, hopefully someone else can advise you!

(Note you did not say what your source device was.  My source was an older (10.6.8) Mac, which may have had mDNSresponder bugs, who knows...  The situation was complicated by having a DSL modem DHCP the IP address assignments, the A6 was connected to the Airport as wireless access point only, and both went through an Ethernet switch to which the Mac was hard-wired.  Who dropped or failed to respond to the Bonjour discovery packets, or maybe didn't wait long enough to receive replies?  I'll never know.)

Hi

My source device is an iPhone 8. My router is a Sagemcom 3890V2. All devices are wirelessly connected.

It definitely seems like the devices are in "sleep" mode, and do not wake up unless power cycled (or connected with Spotify connect). Maybe it is a router issue. Maybe it is a B&O software issue...?

Hi,

Not a solution but some details more.

I've a little experience with wide Airplay networks and what I can say is that anything which is not Apple branded will result in random Airplay results.

My setup has several Airport express scattered around the house and is pretty reliable. But it also includes standalone airplay speakers which regularly behave weirdly. Disconnections, disappearances, dropouts… Turning then off/on or de/selecting them, solves the problem and makes them appears again.
Sometimes they can work as expected for weeks and start again to fail without obvious reason.

I've tried several brands of speakers, from cheap to well know brands, with the same result. 

I even installed a wifi repeater with a dedicated network for each speaker only, works better but not 100% reliable.
Also tried 2,4 and 5 Ghz networks without obvious results. 

Dry walls have internal metallic structure who could maybe act has a Faraday cage, but speakers are less than 3 meters from the router/repeater through one wall max, and Apple Base Stations doesn't suffer any perturbations.

All this to say that I've come to the conclusion the wifi hardware from third party devices may not be perfectly adapted to Airplay protocol, thus creating the problems you mentioned.

Thanks,

 

Just to elaborate:

It is actually not just an airplay issue.

Even the B&O app is not consistent in connecting to the speakers. If I open the app, often times it will say "product not available on the network" and this being while I can see they are connected, when logged in to my router.

Right now as I type this, my A9 is not available in the app. The M3 and M5 are. But only the M3 is available on airplay. The A9 could however be connected to via Spotify connect, which in my experience has worked most consistently. (but it cannot function as multi room, sadly). So now I am streaming via Spotify connect to my A9 only - while the B&O app states that "the product is not on the network"

It is a tad frustrating...:-)

matador43 wrote:

Sometimes they can work as expected for weeks and start again to fail without obvious reason.  I've tried several brands of speakers, from cheap to well know brands, with the same result.

Interesting.  I have some Sonos One-SL's, not for very long yet -- but they have not (yet) disappeared from my network.  Did you try with any new-ish, i.e. AirPlay2-supporting, speakers, or were your tests all more than two years ago?  It may very well be that AirPlay is unreliable, and AirPlay2 is less problematic?  That would jibe with, e.g. the AppleTV, always being visible.

trackbeo wrote:

It may very well be that AirPlay is unreliable, and AirPlay2 is less problematic?

Maybe you're right. I dont have or didn't try Airplay 2 standalone speakers. The ones I have are AP1, not even 5ghz compatible so yes thats old hardware. But they also sound well and I might end up just wiring them to the wall or to an AE base for them to work better. So far, having to make them reappear from time to time is not too much work.

Don't know if it can answer to your question but in my Airplay Network I have olds (AP1) and new (AP2) Airport bases mixed. All working flawlessly appart from a new model base sometimes not visible from Airport Utility Software but still working and visible as an Airplay speaker. 

I believe like you that the problem is related to the non Apple devices going to sleep and a "handshake" problem when they need to wake up. But its really an ignorant guess.

Two observations thought:
- When I start music and the TP speakers don't wake up, then end up connecting after a while by themselves. Sometimes long seconds, sometimes minutes, often never.
- Depending on how I start music (Remote software on mac, old iOS or recent iOS) the speakers are more likely to start or not. Older iOS (up to 6.X) work almost everytime.

MWJ wrote:

It is actually not just an airplay issue.

It looks like a local area network issue.

In order to discover Airplay receivers such as B&O products, an Airplay sender such as a Mac or an iPhone sends Multicast Domain Name System QUERY packet on the network, Airplay receiver(s) respond(s) to this query with their network information and capabilities using the same multicast protocol. The sender caches the information and refreshes it when needed. B&O App has the same approach to discover the B&O products on the network, as well as Google cast. (I don't know about Spotify).

If these packets are lost then the devices appear unreachable for the respective service, while the router/switch will show them stil connected to the network.

If you have a computer on your network, I would start using the ping command against each device to see if you have packet loss, abnormal latency variation. It is not the most scientist way, but unless you know how to drive packet analyzer tools like Wireshark, it is a good start to diagnose network issue imo.

I would also temporarily wire the computer as well as one of the B&O products to identify if the problem is with the Wifi or the router/switch itself, e.g you could wire the M5, if the M5 is always present as AP receiver for the wired computer vs. A9 and M3 which are not always reachable via AP, it could then indicate a wifi issue. If the problem persist for all devices, wired included, then it is surely a router/switch issue.

Thanks! I will try to see if I can isolate the problem. 

But then: what will be the fix? Another router? 

MWJ wrote:

But then: what will be the fix

To soon to tell