Airplay won't work through one of my Wi-Fi Networks

[markw10]

I'm trying to use Airplay and have an AppleTV and an iPhone 4S. The way my home network is set up is I have the main Wi-Fi network which is connected to my cable modem and is using an Airport Base Station Extreme. I have an additional home network which is in another part of the house where the AEBS does not work as well. That network is running on a Cisco/Linksys E3000.

The problem is if I connect both the Apple TV and my iPhone to the main network using the AEBS Airplay works fine. If I connect both devices to the other Wi-Fi network it doesn't work. I had the idea that as long as both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network it should work fine so this puzzles me. Since the Linksys E3000 network is stronger in that part of the house I would prefer to use that Wi-Fi network on the AppleTV and the iPhone.

Does Airplay require a AEBS? I had the idea it should work on any router.

Is there something I have to change in the settings for the E3000 to have it work with Airplay?

Thanks for your help.

 

[adbe]

Does Airplay require a AEBS? I had the idea it should work on any router.

Any WiFi router should work with AirPlay.

I have a (rebadged) LinkSys of some kind currently driving my house WiFi. Half of my devices are wired, half are wireless. So my set-up is decently far from the hassle free spec, and i have no trouble with AirPlay, including using AirPlay to drive whole house audio through a bunch of (wired) AirPort Expresses.

Unless you have some weird firewall config on the Cisco, my guess is that either:

1) The router has two WiFi networks, a main and a guest, and your iPhone and ATV are not connecting to the same networks, even though it seems like they are.

2) You've misconfigured the subnet mask for your IP range. That can break Bonjour which I believe AirPlay relies on to find local devices.

I would recommend checking the IP addresses that are being DHCP assigned to both devices by the Cisco box. They should be in the same subnet. The IPs will typically be 192.168.x.nnn. The 'nnn' will be different across devices, but the 'x' should be identical. The subnet masks (assuming 192.168.n.x IPs) should be 255.255.255.0

 

[brentmore]

Any WiFi router should work with AirPlay.

I have a (rebadged) LinkSys of some kind currently driving my house WiFi. Half of my devices are wired, half are wireless. So my set-up is decently far from the hassle free spec, and i have no trouble with AirPlay, including using AirPlay to drive whole house audio through a bunch of (wired) AirPort Expresses.

Unless you have some weird firewall config on the Cisco, my guess is that either:

1) The router has two WiFi networks, a main and a guest, and your iPhone and ATV are not connecting to the same networks, even though it seems like they are.

2) You've misconfigured the subnet mask for your IP range. That can break Bonjour which I believe AirPlay relies on to find local devices.

I would recommend checking the IP addresses that are being DHCP assigned to both devices by the Cisco box. They should be in the same subnet. The IPs will typically be 192.168.x.nnn. The 'nnn' will be different across devices, but the 'x' should be identical. The subnet masks (assuming 192.168.n.x IPs) should be 255.255.255.0

It may also be helpful to check Apple's list of ports it uses for its services:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1629

Airplay uses 80, 443, 554, 3689 and 5353