Airplay 2 Support for Apple Airport Express breaks Roon

For all the AirPlay users out there, Apple released AirPlay 2 for the AirPort Express.

Roon users should be careful.

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It looks like the new firmware upgrade giving Airplay 2 capability to the (now discontinued) Apple Airport Express wifi router that dropped today seems to have killed Roon compatibility. I have two AEs…both were working before just fine before the firmware upgrade, now neither works.

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Thanks for the update! We are caustiouly watching this AirPort update and carefully deploying it with clients. It’s good to see the update, but hope all works well.

Considering that Roon had to do a workaround to get Airplay working again when Airplay 2 hit the Apple TVs in tvOS11, I’m not surprised by the events. It looks like short of figuring out how to do proper Airplay 2 support, they will have to do a similar workaround for legacy Airplay 1 service in the new firmware.

Roon service to my Airport Expresses wasn’t a critical feature for me…more of a “nice to have”. But hopefully it’ll get fixed soon.

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Yep, after (foolishly) updating my Airport Express this morning Roon isn’t working for me either. I hope @support can get this fixed soon.

If anyone needs it, here’s the info on how to roll back the firmware on an airport device:

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I’m not getting the option to change the firmware on my airport express :frowning:

I figured it out. I had to hold down the option button while hovering over the firmware version. Its all good now.

I was just about to mention the option key. Glad you got it sorted.

I lost connectivity 3 months ago to my airport express’.

I’ve tried everything. It is ROON!. I can get all my other devices to play. Roon ‘acts’ like its playing, but no fiber’s’ light or sound from any of them.

Ver 78000.12 is on my 2nd gen apples. Running latest OSX and alll updates.

Xpress says connected to correct IP on Xpress, but when i hit the stream quality it says "airport10,115…when the address is 192.168.1.177

Is this meaningful?

And it does not allow a change in versions like shown in “downgrading software version in apple.”

I will have to get rid of roon if this is not resolved as the ‘remote feature’ is the reason i own it. ROON needs to own this upgrade issue and resolve. I’ve spent over 3 hours on this. Thx,

Found the version method. Will try.

YEP! That did it. Base station at 7.6.4 , while “added to existing” Xpress extension on rev 7.6.7.

The two did not have the same version trees. Hmmmm. So not the same - but works great.

Now a Apple phenomenon; I have had drop-out issues after my last upgrade…all unexplained.
I lost one Xpress on upgrade completely and get this, if added to the network…ALL NETWORK TRAFFIC STOPS>

Remove it… voila. CRAZY. all 3 others, perfect. So, the Apple Xpress version upgrade is bugged firmware is it?

SO… while i certainly can’t blame ROON, it behooves ROON to send out technical bullitens after compatible players update THEIR firmware. Then have a repository of fixes like this. Not “try this’s” and refer to a external link. is that a word?

There must be hundreds of audio nerds like me going “what the H___!”

Such an easy fix, but now we’re talking’ forward/backward compatibility again dude.

Wow…4 hours of playroom on this? Not the ‘APPLE’ way.

Glad I got you back. Such better sound. Love it!

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Hi everyone,

We’ve just released build 363 of Roon which includes a change to address playback issues to devices that support Airplay2. Note that Roon does not support Airplay2 — This change addresses devices that recently added Airplay2 support. Please take a look at the release notes below and give the update a try.