Volume decreases repeatedly when playing streams over AirPlay to Pioneer Av receiver

[lawman-here]

What version of Music Assistant has the issue?

2.3.6

What version of the Home Assistant Integration have you got installed?

2025.1.2

Have you tried everything in the Troubleshooting FAQ and reviewed the Open and Closed Issues and Discussions to resolve this yourself?

• Yes

The problem

When I use Music Assistant to play internet radio streams on my Pioneer VSX-930 via Apple AirPlay, the device's volume decreases after some time repeatedly by 1 dB each time. This does not happen when I switch to other sources in Home Assistant (e.g. Spotify or Television source), and the problem still exists when I disable the Music Assistant integration in Home Assistant and operate the device via Music Assistant only.
When I watch the receiver's display, then it looks like that the device gets volume decrease signals from Music Assistant, because the display is normally dimmed and gets bright when receiving signals from a remote control or network.

How to reproduce

Just play music streams with AirPlay to a Pioneer AV receiver or maybe other AirPlay devices. Unfortunately, this is the only AirPlay device in my home.

Music Providers

RadioBrowser
Spotify (seems to decrease slower than radio browser)

Player Providers

AirPlay

Full log output

No response

Additional information

No response

What version of Home Assistant Core are your running

2025.1.2

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

On what type of hardware are you running?

Alternative

[lawman-here]

I'm updating my Home Assistant instance currently to 2015.1.3, so only the Music Assistant docker container is running. During this, I cannot recognize this behaviour. Maybe the reason is a wrong interaction between Music Assistant and Home Assistant?

Edit: I think the reason is clear: when I deactivate the pioneer integration in Home Assistant, then this issue disappears. Obviously, the entity created by the Pioneer integration and the Music Assistant Air Play entity "are fighting to each other" regarding volume level. A possible solution would be, in my opinion, if there would be an option in Music Assistants AirPlay device to disable volume control completely.

[OzGav]

You should not be using a second integration. Remove the HA integration and just use AirPlay from MA

[lawman-here]

Wirhout the HA Integration, I'm not able to control other receiver features, like source control or volume control when listening to other sources than Airplay. So your suggestion is at the moment my solution, but it's far away from being a good solution. A switch in the Music Assistant's Airplay device to disable volume control would be my most preferred solution, because I guess that with disabled volume control in the Airplay device, this issue disappears even when using the HA integrating for Pioneer in parallel

[OzGav]

There is a plan to be able to link the volume control in MA to an entity in HA but that will be some way off. This seems to be a feature request now so if you agree please close this and know that what you are after is on the roadmap.

[marcelveldt]

Did you ever tried to send an airplay stream to the pioneer from another source ? So maybe just use your phone or another airplay compatible sender to send audio to the pioneer and see if the same issue pops up.

[lawman-here]

So maybe just use your phone or another airplay compatible sender to send audio to the pioneer and see if the same issue pops up.

I tried that with the Android app AirMusic - this app uses AirPlay to stream audio from the phone to an AirPlay receiver. I reactivated the HA core Pioneer integration and streamed internet radio with AirMusic to the Pioneer VSX-930 This works without issues, the volume level didn't change.

Maybe one thing is worth to be mentioned for a possible solution: as I wrote, the MA AirPlay device works without lowering the volume level when I deactivate the HA Pioneer integration. BUT: when I listen to music via AirPlay and I change the volume on the device itself (by turning the volume control), then the volume level jumps back, after a few seconds, to the level which was set in the AirPlay device. I think that is the problem here, that the AirPlay device tries to set the volume even if there was not a volume adjustment with the + or - controls or the volume slider. Just a thought, either I am right or wrong :-)

[marcelveldt]

I may have found a way to prevent this issue, it's available in the newest beta: 2.4.0b24
So if you want to give the beta a try, please let me know if this fixes the issue

[lawman-here]

Thanks @marcelveldt, I installed the latest music assistant beta and reactivated the HA Pioneer integration. In the first five minutes it looks great, so far no volume adjustment. I will observe it the next days and give you a feedback.

Edit: the issue is unfortunately still not fixed, volume decrease is still there. Started at -43 dB, now, 3 minutes later, reached -50 dB

[marcelveldt]

Thanks @marcelveldt, I installed the latest music assistant beta and reactivated the HA Pioneer integration. In the first five minutes it looks great, so far no volume adjustment. I will observe it the next days and give you a feedback.

Edit: the issue is unfortunately still not fixed, volume decrease is still there. Started at -43 dB, now, 3 minutes later, reached -50 dB

Can you go into Settings --> Providers --> Airplay and then in the advanced settings, set the loglevel to debug ?
Then try playback for a while and send me the full log as file.
You can get the full log from settings --> core modules

[lawman-here]

@marcelveldt, I'm trying a different solution first. I recognized that it is now possible to disable power, volume and mute control in the AirPlay device. I disabled all three control options, now it seems that it is working now. Drawback: no volume control by using the AirPlay device inside music assistant as well, but for me this is not an issue. I prefer to control the device with the home assistant app. Therefore, I can now control these settings with the Pioneer integration only, and the AirPlay integration from music assistant in HA is only used for selection of music assistant sources like internet radio.
But I send you the log files later as well.

[marcelveldt]

You can also expose the pioneer as "volume control" (see settings of home assistant plugin within MA) and then assign that as the volume control to the airplay player.

[marcelveldt]

Anyways, the logging would still be nice to have because then I can see what your device is sending and fix it.

[OzGav]

If you can supply the logs please do otherwise let us know so we can close this.

[lawman-here]

music-assistant.log

Can you go into Settings --> Providers --> Airplay and then in the advanced settings, set the loglevel to debug ? Then try playback for a while and send me the full log as file. You can get the full log from settings --> core modules

Please see attached the log file

[lawman-here]

You can also expose the pioneer as "volume control" (see settings of home assistant plugin within MA) and then assign that as the volume control to the airplay player.

I tried that, but the volume decrease continues. Only disabling the volume contol in the AirPlay device configuration solves that issue:

Log file with exposed volume control
music-assistant (1).log

Log file after disabling volume control in the AirPlay device

music-assistant (2).log

[marcelveldt]

I added an option in the airplay settings to ignore the volume reporting from the airplay device.
This will fix this issue. Available from 2.4.0rc1 (so will be in 2.4.0 stable release)

[OzGav]

@lawman-here please confirm this has been fixed.

[lawman-here]

@lawman-here please confirm this has been fixed.

Hi @OzGav , I updated my docker environment to version 2.4.0rc4, and I can confirm that with the options

the issue is fixed.