Casting (uPNP/chromecast) is slow to unusable

Support
1

Issue description:

My setup:

  • 2 Philips TAW6505 speakers
  • Latest Symfonium play store version
  • Samsung galaxy A55
  • Navidrome 0.60.2
  • Unifi network, U7 pro wifi to which the speakers and the phone is connected
  • Tailscale on my phone to access my navidrome server.

The initial problem:

  • I can see all of the speakers in the cast tab, connecting to them allowed me to change the volume but playback did not work through chromecast (it worked, although slow, with uPNP)
  • The fix: tailscale split tunnel (don’t route symfonium through tailscale on my phone) and use a subnet router (192.168.0.0/24) on my navidrome server. Configure symfonium to connect to my local ip (192.168.x.x) instead of to the tailscale ip (100.x.x.x)

Now, if I wait long enough (30 sec to 1 minute) after connecting to the speaker through chromecast, music starts to play but the play button is very slow in changing the music state, and putting on a new song again results in a 30 sec to 1 minute delay.

What I’ve tried:

  • Enabling “proxy via symfonium”
  • Disabling private DNS in my phone settings
  • Checking if mDNS is enabled in unifi settings
  • Enabling/disabling multicast to unicast
  • Enabling/disabling IGMP snooping
  • Transcoding the FLAC files to OPUS

Other apps (home assistant, ensembl) are able to cast without any issues.

Logs:

Upload description: pladijs chromecast

2 
2026-02-21 11:16:03.589 Verbose ChromecastRenderer  Starting playback of: http://192.168.0.159:4533/rest/stream.view?id=yueS3XojKBdOCGq8ynRP3q&u=REDACTED&t=REDACTED&s=REDACTED&v=1.13.0&c=Symfonium&f=json (audio/flac) [0-false]

The app just gives the server link to Chromecast and is not involved at all in speed or anything.

3

It seems more responsive (both uPNP and chromecast) after setting ND_BASEURL=”http://192.168.x.x:4533” in the navidrome docker compose file, but selecting a chromecast device still gives a 10-20 sec delay. uPNP is hit or miss, either it works immediately or I have to disconnect-reconnect-disconnect-reconnect. Once uPNP is connected and starts playing, changing songs is instant.

4

What happens if you cast a file present on the phone and not Navidrome?

Try to disable transcoding engine in the settings too.

5

If the file is present on my phone I still get this for the first 10-15 seconds:

Screenshot 2026-02-28 at 10.49.27
Screenshot 2026-02-28 at 10.49.27676×116 20.3 KB

After that, the file sometimes starts playing, sometimes not.

Disabling the transcoding engine didnt help.

I have music assistant running on the same server as the navidrome instance, and casting works without any issues.

6

This is not a casting issue then it’s a connection issue and the fact that server to chromecast works have no incidence on phone to chromecast.

Provide new logs that start without casting then select the device and wait for it to not be red then cast.

7

I have sent the logs like you asked, I tried casting a local file

8

The logs makes no sense are you sure there’s no other app or tools on your network that attempts to control those devices ?

When casting from the server it connects instantly then start loading then auto pause then disconnect for no reason and can’t reconnect for the long duration.

When casting from local it’s the same but disconnect even faster.

All happens outside of the app.

Check your play services version on the phone and if there’s updates for the tv