AppleTV 4K Audio Playback is silent

[Traace]

Description:
When playing music via AirPlay to a AppleTV 4k, the audio stays silent.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Get a AppleTV 4K running tvOS 17.1 and two Homepods 2 running audioOS 17.1.
2. Create a Stereo Pair and setup a fixed direct connect with AppleTV. They are now appear as only one AirPlay Device in the network: "Traace aTV"
3. Install owntone from .deb Packages or via Docker to a Debian Bookworm Server
4. Import Music Library to owntone
5. Pair owntone with AppleTV 4-Digit Pin
6. Start to play some music via AirPlay to AppleTV from Webinterface
7. Notice that AppleTV doesn't output any audio. Notice that the Homepods light up for a breef moment. Notice that meanhile owntone repots a happy playback.

All Devices are in the same subnet. There is no firewall between them.

Logs:
owntone.log

What I already tried to fix the issue:

• Disable IPV6
• Moved from .deb installation to docker
• Switch between AirPlay Version 1 & 2
• Home Settings: Allow Playback from anywhere, without password
• Restarted Homepods
• Restarted AppleTV
• Verified that playback works fine from MacOS 14.1 and iOS 17.1

Version of owntone:
28.8

Platform:
Debian Bookworm X86_64

[ejurgensen]

Thanks for a good report.

Playing to my ATV4 with tvOS 17.1 works ok, both with Airplay 1 and 2, but mine isn't in a group. So I think that is likely the reason the results are different. There is some talk about this in issue #1413 where it looks like people have varying luck with playback. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a breakthrough in finding a solution.

I'll close this issue so as to keep the discussion on making grouping work on the other issue.