[l008com]

I've got a newish MacBook Pro 13"
It's running 10.7.2 and the newest version of iTunes.
It can't connect to an airplay device on a network. Any network.
I've tried several other people's airports or appleTVs. My MacBook Pro won't select the airplay speakers. I also don't get an error. When you choose another set of speakers (it does see them), nothing happens.
On ever airplay device I've tried, I've been able to get every other computer to play through the speakers. Even right now, with the airport express I just hooked up in my kitchen: My iPhone can play through. My iPhone can tell my Mac Pro to play through via the Remote app. But my MacBook Pro won't select the speakers.
I've tried each user account set up on this computer, none of them work.
I looked for any user-independent prefers or app support files I could delete and replace, but I couldn't find any.
Any other guesses how to fix this one broken feature in iTunes?

[l008com]

I just redownloaded and reinstalled iTunes 10.5.2, but it didn't help.

[l008com]

Here's a video of it not working:
Broken AirPlay in iTunes - YouTube

[ibook_steve]

Are you talking about speakers connected to an Airport Express? If so, have you checked the AE's settings or simply rebooted it? Or disconnected and reconnected the speakers to it?

If you're talking about actual Airplay speakers (wireless speakers that can be used with Airplay), then that would be something to check with the manufacturer.

Steve

[l008com]

I'm talking about several different airport expresses in several different locations. This laptop can't play to any of them. But every other computer can. It's definitely not a problem with *every* airport express.

[ibook_steve]

You didn't answer my question. Have you tried rebooting any of the AEs and checked their settings? Tried unplugging and replugging the speakers? Connected the machine in question directly to the AE and seen if it works over ethernet?

Steve

[l008com]

Yes an airport reboots every time you change a setting. There is no setting in an airport to disallow ONE computer while allowing every other computer to connect to the AirPlay speakers. There's no way this is a base station problem, it is definitely something wrong with my laptop (iTunes or otherwise)

[ibook_steve]

If wifi works and you can get on the Internet, it is not the laptop.

You could try reinstalling iTunes.

Steve

[Waragainstsleep]

Does it work with a fresh user account?

[turtle777]

Borked OS X install is my guess

-t

[l008com]

It does not work with a fresh user account. Also I did reinstall iTunes, as noted above. I was hoping for some suggestions more specific than "OS X is borked". This isn't windows, I'm not going to reinstall my whole OS because one thing doesn't work. The computer in question is running Lion Server, but I can't imagine adding the server packages magically kills iTunes' ability to connect to an airplay system.

[turtle777]

Well, given what you already tried, I can't think of anything else.

Sure, you could waste countless hours searching for a different solution. But perhaps, a reinstall of OSX might be faster.

Why don't you do a test install on an external HD, boot from it and see.

-t

[l008com]

Soooo I had an interesting day trying to fix this problem.
I went to delete iTunes again, so I could reinstall it. Lion will not let you delete iTunes, not even with authentication. It says iTunes is required by the system. So I booted off a netboot volume, opened up the iTunes installer package, and manually deleted everything iTunes installed.

So that didn't work either, I could no longer log in after doing that. I guess the iTunes installer "reinstalls" some things that the system needs. So at that point, I had no choice but to reinstall 10.7, then 10.7.2 combo updater, and iTunes 10.5.3.

And guess what. Still won't work. I'm wondering if there is some part of OS X Server that doesn't allow you to play through AirPlay. I can't imagine what would cause that but at this point that's all I can think of.

So, is anyone else running 10.7 Server out there?

[l008com]

So.
Disabling 10.7 Server's firewall fixed the problem.
This is a little messed up, since the firewall shouldn't interfere with outgoing connections.
But it's REALLY messed up because the firewall is configured to allow ALL outgoing and incoming connections. OS X Server's firewall hasn't behaved properly since 10.5.

[Waragainstsleep]

Lion Server is giving me grief at the moment too. I'm trying to get WebDAV sharing to work on a non-standard port but I can't even get it to run at all just now.

[turtle777]

Wow, that OS X Server firewall is the culprit is pretty ridiculous.

-t