Level 1

48 points

HomePod Mini Internet Connectivity Issues

I am having issues with HomePod mini not connecting to the internet. My other HomePods have no issue when I ask a question etc. But when I ask one or both of the HomePod mini's it says " I am having trouble connecting to the internet.

I followed the trouble shooting steps apple provides but it goes back to "I am having trouble connecting to the internet." after a couple of hours. Then it is normal again.

If anyone has a solution or has also experienced this issue?

HomePod mini, 14

Posted on Nov 19, 2020 8:10 AM

Top-ranking reply

Cardo

Level 2

424 points

Posted on Dec 19, 2020 11:02 PM

Having been struggling with the issue of HomePod minis repeatedly losing connection, and the two software updates not fixing it, I think I may have discovered the cause, at least in my situation.

The issues I’d been seeing were with my Minis in my living room, which are a stereo pair and are the farthest away from an access point (I have multiple APs throughout the house), is they would regularly lose the internet connection. This would cause issues ranging from the stereo pairing breaking, to Siri saying she was having trouble with the connection, and it would cause issues with my HomeKit setup and give me disconnected notifications for my HKSV cameras, when one of the Minis had been acting as the HomeHub.

I have a 2.4GHz / 5GHz network using the same SSID (WifI name) on both networks so devices can seamlessly pick the better band without having to provide multiple connection passwords.

What appeared to be happening is my Minis were flip flopping between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, losing connection each time before eventually reconnecting. No other devices in my house appeared to be having this issue, as modern WiFi devices are designed to cope with this setup.

However, what appears to have been causing the disconnection issues was a feature called “band steering”, referred to as “Smart Connect” on my Netgear APs. This is a feature where the AP will try to push the device onto the “better” WiFi band to improve the connection. However, in the case of the Minis in my living room, they weren’t dealing with the band steering tidily (for whatever reason) and this was causing them to lose the connection.

Having disabled band steering (Smart Connect in my settings) things have settled right down. I’ll admit it has only been around 35 hours since I made this change, however we have not encountered connection issues with the Minis and I’ve stopped receiving HKSV camera disconnected notifications, where I had been receiving around 10 to 15 per day, previously.

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re having connection issues with your HomePods and your router has a band steering feature, I would try disabling this to see if it helps.

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259 replies

Domdodo

Level 1

11 points

Nov 24, 2020 3:48 PM in response to dazw30

No kidding, people have had it with the "holding your phone wrong" solutions. I have one on order and it will be returned after the first time it happens. Instead of thinking about a PR response, Apple needs to fix this immediately.

dmw8

Level 1

4 points

Nov 26, 2020 4:46 AM in response to j_mcclendon

Everything was working quite well with my Homepod Mini until I upgraded my old Netgear Orbi RBK50 system to the latest RBK853 with WiFi 6. However, as I experimented with and disabled the newer wireless functions such as WPA3-Personal [SAE] and the wireless AX mode features everything suddenly came back on-line and seems quite stable.

Nov 26, 2020 1:42 PM in response to dmw8

Figured I would give an update as my problem seems to now be resolved. I use an Asus Blue Cave. Noticed in the router utility that “smart connect” was selecting the 5ghz band for my HomePod Minis. Turned off smart connect in the router utility. Gave my 5ghz a slightly different network name. This results in everything that was connected previously switching to 2.4ghz and I could manually connect the things I wanted to the 5ghz band. Restarted the HomePods when I was done and haven’t had a single “I’m having trouble...” message from Siri since then. Just my experience but hopefully it helps someone else with the Blue Cave.

Nov 26, 2020 3:32 PM in response to j_mcclendon

If you look in router.asus.com under your client list, are your minis on the 2.4 or 5ghz. I also have a pending case with Apple support after having them collect logs to send in. Since it’s only been 24 hours I’d like to be sure. This is the longest they’ve worked as expected since launch. Seems like a miss on Apples part (love apple) for them to give the mini an N Wi-Fi chip.

Dec 1, 2020 2:01 AM in response to j_mcclendon

I am having the same issue.. I have 3 home mini and they are all have the same problem they loose connectivity after 24 hours. The only resolution is a power cycle.. They are connecting to a cisco 2702i-z-k9 AP on 5Ghz channel 36 with 80mhz wide. RSSI -44db SNR 49db and you can ping the HomePodMini This same AP has Iphones Ipads AppleTV and Even Home Pod and all these function with no issues (all these devices connect at 802.11ac). Only the 3 home pod mini are loosing connection (they connect at 802.11a) . They are still associated to the AP. They loose connectivity to network. You can NOT ping the HomePodMini. My DHCP Lease time is 1 day. Could this be a DHCP renewal issue as time correlates ?. I can still Airplay to them when the issue occurs but the stereo pair does not work. After a power cycle all 3 work perfectly for about 24 hours before the issue reoccurs. After doing some captures (see below) I have noticed that the home pod mini reports channels on 5Ghz that are NOT available in AUSTRALIA 120,124,128 I would have thought the setup process via the IPHONE would have set the WiFi region in the home pod mini from the WiFi region from the phone. Is this NOT the case ?? Is this a bug ? Looking forward to a software update to fix this issues as getting sick of rebooting every day.

Dec 2, 2020 3:22 PM in response to Bradley Price1

My router was the Asus Blue Cave. Just switched (begrudgingly) to an eero 6 system after seeing them on discount for Black Friday. So far my issues seem to be resolved. I’m fine with this as the WiFi is a little better in some areas of my modest sized place but I for sure wasn’t planning on upgrading my router for awhile. Hopefully apple figured out a fix so the official solution isn’t to buy otherwise unneeded hardware.

Dec 6, 2020 8:53 AM in response to Marky5

Marky5, thanks for the suggestion but I never set up a profile picture. Now my pod won’t reset. Following the process of keeping my finger on the top until you hear her say the pod is about to reset, that function does not happen. It just comes back up and I have to redo the setup again. Also, the pod does not allow me to choose the WiFi network so that I could try using the 2ghz network.

Any other suggestions?

Dec 6, 2020 2:14 PM in response to Bradley Price1

Valid point Bradley. I agree that would help and could benefit those of us who have open case numbers with Apple. I will inform my senior advisor when he calls of our router discoveries from this blog. However, let me ask you this, are you using an Apple Music subscription for your music source? Router aside, the starting and stopping of play when you have an iPhone right next to the mini using airplay, seems more like a device software issue. Because I do not have Apple Music, I could not test the performance of the mini with streaming Apple Music through a cell phone. I was streaming music from my iTunes library via an iPhone 11 and an 8 with no success.

Also, to address your suggestion, I am using a no-name box from HTC (Horry Telephone Cooperative) in SC. However, I went throughout my home and disabled half of my wifi connected devices, rebooted the router and still had the issue. I did this before I went online to search for a forum with HomePod Mini issues.

I have to admit, this is the first time in 20 years of using Apple products that I had to resort to seeking technical assistance from a Web forum to trouble shoot an Apple product. Apple's tech support is 2nd to none. They are the best in the industry and all calls stay in the US. What other technology company does that?

Bradley, thanks again for your time and input. Bob

Dec 7, 2020 4:22 PM in response to Charlie Crackle

Before I upgraded the firmware I ran a test.

The DHCP Lease time is 7 Days. Connected 802.11a (5 Ghz)

3 x Home Pod Mini Power cycled at 11.00.am

a continuous ping every 5 seconds to each Home pod mini

11:00am next day pings stopped to all 3 home pod mini

Exactly 24 hours later.... All 3 x Home Pod Mini stopped responding to the Ping..

I will upgrade the firmware now and re run the test....

Marky5

Level 1

4 points

Dec 8, 2020 3:33 AM in response to francofornia

I have posted this before, lots.

have you tried this.

go to the home app on the device used to set up the mini.

go to the little house symbol top right.

go to home settings.

press on your picture used or where the picture should be.

turn off “recognise my voice”.

see if this works, if it does, it’s a little inconvenient but at least the mini I’d working for now, then, you can always turn on recognise my voice again.

good luck.

Marky5

Level 1

4 points

Dec 11, 2020 3:26 AM in response to SOLar233

Has anyone tried my fix?? Go to the home app, tap on the little house top left. Go to home settings. Tap on your picture, if no picture still tap on your user name, turn off “recognise my voice” turn it back on. This works yet no one seems to try it!

Marky5

Level 1

4 points

Dec 11, 2020 3:27 AM in response to Blum92

Dec 11, 2020 5:22 AM in response to j_mcclendon

Just got off the phone with the Apple Support, THERE MIGHT BE A SOLUTION.

Haven’t tried it yet, but wanted to let you know anyways.

I was told it have a look at the time settings on the device with which I set the homepod up. To my surprise, there seemed to be something wrong, no time zone was set, only the sign that something was loading. A reset of the privacy settings and a restart of the phone solved this issue.

Now the correct time zone was automatically set. Now got to reset the homepod mini (you can do that in the home app) and set it up again with my phone working properly...

Let’s see if it helps.

Apparently the problem is causes by Siri having trouble to connect to the correct apple servers (location and timing). I didn’t completely understand that part.

Feel free to tell me if it works for you, I’ll try it when I’m back home tonight.

Dec 11, 2020 9:28 AM in response to j_mcclendon

I bought 5 HomePod minis for use throughout the house. They generally worked the first couple days, but then issues started. One by one each (except one) had problems -- from "trouble connecting to the internet" to just flat out not even powering up anymore. I've already returned 2 after doing all the troubleshooting recommended (resetting, restarting, etc) and even wiped a new iPad clean to operate as solely the "home" device. I'm now down to just 1 of the 5 working. Any recommendations (other than Sonos)?

Dec 11, 2020 6:09 PM in response to Charlie Crackle

Exactly what's going on with mine. They all seem to have a mind of their own . The odd thing is that out of the 5 that I have, one actually works perfectly. All others I've tried everything ... only for a couple to work for a couple songs and then kaput. By the way I have a new (2-month old router) and 1GB fiber connection ... but have tried re-setting all of that too. Back to Sonos (the only non-Apple tech in my house), I guess.

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HomePod Mini Internet Connectivity Issues