iTunes 8 Remote Speakers Problem

Yesterday, I decided to upgrade to iTunes 8 to check out the new Genius functionality (which I'll try and review later). After thinking I had a good install and all was good, this morning I tried to play some tunes via my Airport Express and received this error message...

An error occurred while connecting to the remote speaker 'speaker_name'. An unknown error occurred (-3256).

After researching possible solutions for some time; opening up UDP ports, temporarily suspending Windows firewall and thirds party firewalls (anti-virus), nothing worked. There is a lot about this issue on Macs, but not much for Windows.

I finally stumbled on a post, which I've lost, with regards to a Mac, that suggested the Airport firmware be upgraded to the latest version. This resolved the issue!

To check the firmware version, open the Airport Admin Utility and select the base station...


The firmware version will be at the end of the description field, the latest version at this time is v6.3 (download from Apple).