Homepod disconnects or stops playing music from itunes randomly

Hi Bryan.

I received your e-mail and the link to the app. And... for the first time in over a year, my HomePods are playing without stopping! I'm so happy I could cry, LOL.

I will send you a proper e-mail reply sometime later tomorrow, once I've had time to do further testing. I haven't fully tested it with both Apple TVs streaming as well, but I have no doubt it will work great. (I'm from Orlando, but I live half the year here in Germany... so it's already bedtime for me right now).

On a quick side note though (based on the last 2 posts): Just yesterday I upgraded my HomePods to 14.1 and immediately did test to see if the problem was fixed, and as Kwoodhouse just mentioned, it wasn't. There was also an iTunes update that hit yesterday. And as usual, I tested that, knowing full well that it wouldn't actually be fixed. And of course it wasn't.

I'll shoot you a message tomorrow.

Thanks! :-)

Okay, I've now had more time today to thoroughly test Bryan's app, and it works perfectly. Music has been streaming from iTunes to all of my devices for several hours now without a single problem. And it's the first time since summer 2019 that I've been able to do this. :-)

A little background (not that it's important, but may be helpful to know for confirming testing): I have a fairly elaborate setup. Throughout my home, I stream music to 3 different Apple TV devices (for the music to play through the TVs and also through the attached subwoofers, and to also have a visual display on the TVs of the music playing)... plus 5 different HomePods throughout the home... plus 3 different Libratone Zipp Mini 2, rechargeable-battery speakers, one in each bathroom. (They sound great and I like not having to plug in a speaker when it's sitting on a bathroom counter). Plus, also having it play thru my monitor's attached speakers on my laptop setup (directly from iTunes). So, all in all, there are 12 streams to simultaneously play.

Ever since this bug occurred, I could of course still stream music to all the speakers from my iPhone or iPad, however this is not the best option for me. Since I'm working all day in the home office (on my main laptop with large monitor), it's much easier to control everything there from iTunes. Plus, since I have numerous speakers and need to control volumes separately for each, it's a real pain to do this on the iPhone or iPad since the speaker list that pops up is so ridiculously tiny. It's way too frustrating to control all the speakers that way. (I can't believe they haven't made this box much larger in subsequent versions of iOS).

Over the past year I have wasted way too many hours trying to debug this problem on my own. I've played with my wifi settings... tested a different laptop... tried switching between 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz... played with ipv6 vs ipv4 settings (which by the way, this is another issue that doesn't seem to ever go away with iTunes, but that's a whole other story, LOL)... tried resetting the Apple TVs and HomePods numerous times... disabled firewall and security settings... messed around with iTunes Match... signed up for Apple Music... turned off Bluetooth... messed around with Home Sharing... turned off nearby devices thinking maybe they are causing interference... and the list will go on and on, LOL.

So, it's nice to finally know the real reason, and to finally have a (temporary) fix for it. However Apple should be ashamed of itself for the way they have treated this issue. I wanted so many times to just say F*** Apple and switch to a different system, but I'm too deep in Apple's ecosystem at this point to really do that.

I'd like to send a HUGE thanks to Bumbeen who finally got the root of the cause... and to Bryan who create the small app as a temporary fix (until Apple finally corrects it themselves, which I doubt will ever happen). Thanks guys!! :-)

This pretty much describes my setup as well. I originally bought an iTouch and an AirPort Express for the purpose of streaming my iTunes library down to an amplifier. The ability to control it with the iTunes Remote app is pure joy.

Now here I am years later with an entire audio system of Apple network gear, Apple TVs, HomePods, etc. And of course my family has gone through at least 3 generations of iPhone and iPads. When it works, it is fantastic. My neighbors think it is magic when I control the music library on the deck from my phone.

Why Apple can't seem to recognize or address the issue is beyond frustrating.

The HomePod and Apple TV are marketed as AirPlay enabled devices. They should just work with iTunes, regardless of the platform.

Thanks to everyone for all for the info!

Most of the replies I've seen seem to be about streaming music from iTunes to the HomePods. I'm having lots of trouble with another aspect of my HomePods: I have about a dozen Shortcuts in my iPhone and use Siri to trigger them to send commands to my home automation. I can trigger them 100% reliably from my iPhone, but getting my HomePods to trigger them is an entirely different story.

As an example, If I ask Siri on any of my three HomePods to "turn on flashlight" (which is just a simple Shortcut in the iOS app to turn on the phone's flashlight), Siri will respond "Just a sec...", then several seconds later "Still trying", then another several seconds before "This is taking too long". (The exact responses vary, but it's always the same results.) Usually by the third time I ask Siri to do this, it will succeed and my phone's light comes on. From that point forward, the HomePod works absolutely perfectly every single time. Or, at least, until I let it sit for a minute. Then it's right back to not working.

I've tried every bit of troubleshooting I could find in this thread and elsewhere and haven't had any luck. Is it possible/likely that my Siri shortcuts are getting caught up in the same sort of network issues you're seeing with streaming?

(FWIW, the HomePods and my iPhone are all up to date with the latest non-beta software.)

Thanks again!

This has plagued me for months as well. But today I did two things that must have helped, because the HomePods have stayed connected and playing music all day. I send music from my MacBook Pro to four HomePods and two older Apple TV's connected to speakers.

So first, I separated my Wifi nextwork on my Linksys Velops to a separate 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz network. Everything is my house is now connected to the 2.4 GHz network. I'm not sure this is part of the solution, but I thought I'd mention it.

What did seem to work though was NOT using Airplay with my older Apple TV's. If I only check the four HomePods, they stay connected. They've been playing all day today, when normally they would disconnect (all at the same time) after a minute or two.

There are probably more combinations I can try to circle in on the cause, but for now I'm just enjoying the HomePods staying connected.

warm greetings!

I’ve had the same issue since HomePod is 13.2

ive now tried every HomePod os till 14.2 and I am hopeless that Apple care about this issue.

it’s still an issue.

Brayn May I please try your app out?

To me the simple conclusion is not to buy any apple product until apple has done its job! it is not the users to do their job, but it is apples issue... just selling products won't be enough... they have to have a proper support, else wise the will loose customers...

Hey folks - Well it seems like all the latest 14.2 platform releases does not fix the Windows iTunes to HomePod/AppleTV dropout problems. For me, this is just the latest in series of "it should just work" issues and irritants with Apple products.

(I can't add my spouse to my Apple Home. So she can't control lights, etc from her phone. And changing my AppleID password seems to have freaked out the HomePod to the point where I have to reset it, etc. So that is the Saturday project. This stuff is basic.)

Several people have asked for the link to the Volume Adjuster program that has been discussed in this thread. I really appreciate the positive feedback on the software. It seems to work very well and I've received some very happy, sometimes joyous, emails.

So I'm posting the link here - hopefully it does not get removed or pulled by the mods.

This is for Windows only. It is a small program that periodically adjusts iTunes volume by 1%. This seems to keep the signal between iTunes and HomePod/ATV hardware alive.

http://www.loseyourmind.com/volume-adjuster-for-itunes.aspx

Peace. -- Bryan

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

I agree with Turingtest2

When mine updated, I experienced several glitches and unexpected behaviors… I simply needed to get into my home app and make sure my devices were on the same Wi-Fi network…

Gave it about five minutes and it was working

Hey Folks - I updated the web page with some testing information. I added a chart with the various combinations of iTunes and tvOS that I have tested with. Bottom line, the iTunes to HomePod/ATV timeout issue still happens with the recent tvOS 14.2 release. I still have more testing to do with the latest version of iTunes. But I doubt 12.10.10 will magically fix it.

http://www.loseyourmind.com/volume-adjuster-for-itunes.aspx

Thanks for the support. -- Bryan

So the first post from Mar 26, 2020 perfectly sums up the issue, and its now Nov 27, 2020 and the problem is still here. I have two homepods both running 14.2 and a 4k Apple TV also running 14.2. I have a brand new Windows 10 PC running 10.0.019041 and have just installed iTunes 12.11.0.26. Running any music lists from my phone works perfectly (as its handing off the list to the Homepod/TV which is then streaming from the internet direct to itself so totally disproves any issues with wifi), but whenever I stream from my PC the speakers will randomly disconnect/reconnect/disconnect etc etc. I was about to purchase some homepod mini's for other rooms in the house, but at this rate I'm seriously thinking of dumping them and getting a sono's which I know works flawlessly. I love my Apple speakers but it MUST work with iTunes as intended and as supported by the software.

Before anyone asks, yes, I've been through all the stages of switching things off, rebooting etc, etc. The fact that the speakers work flawlessly over wifi when communicating directly to the internet tells me there's nothing wrong with the wifi. They can play all day long with zero issues like that. Its only when you try to stream from your iTunes computer does it keep disconnecting/reconnecting.

Storrm68 - You situation is similar to mine, though the music is coming from my MacBook Pro to HomePods and Apple TV's. And you may have tried this, but just in case, what turned out to be my problem was the Apple TV's being used for Airplay at the same time as the HomePods. Once I unchecked the Apple TV's as Airplay speakers, the HomePods stay connected. And I have some HomePod Mini's now, that also stay connected. So it's still a bug that the HomePods and Apple TV's don't Airplay well together, but if this works, you can still at least use your HomePods.

Thanks Jim for the reply. In my case I've only got my PC, dining room homepod and living room homepod selected as output speakers. I've just recorded a quick video to show the behaviour. Without touching anything you will see the speakers disconnect/reconnect continually all on their own. Skip to 1.27, 4.52, 19.35 and 22.40 to see the speakers disconnecting/reconnecting.

https://youtu.be/nfvstqfyzcc

Yep, incredibly frustrating. And not uncommon. Again, I'm on a Mac, but other Windows users seem to have found a temporary solution using the volume adjustment background program that Bryan Kinkel posted in this discussion. Might be worth a shot.

Works here: See Change HomePod settings - Apple Support and try turning Hey Siri off and then back on again.

tt2