HomePod Popping Noise

I agree with you there. There are probably more issues going on with the OS 15 updates.

In my case, I've never heard a pop (or seen kernal panic logs) when the HomePods were set up only as the speakers for the connected AppleTV, and while all other services were disabled (Touch for Siri, Listen for Hey Siri, Intercom, Share Analytics data, etcetera). Issues arise as soon as those features are turned on again, or when using airplay (with another device, including other HomePods in the house) start streaming to the OG HomePods.

Really hoping for a fix in the upcoming 15.3 update. Actually considering adding a HomePod mini for use of Siri, Doorbell and Intercom in the same room as my stereo pair of OG HomePods.

Hi,

2 HomePods here in stereo configuration attached to an Apple TV4K (2021) and using it for music and normal TV (eARC).

I installed 15.3 on release day and since then I did not experience any pops with reboots. I check the analytics daily and there are no entries so far.

Prior to 15.3 the left HomePod randomly popped and restarted when playing sound from TV.

So far, so good (fingers crossed)

Yes, if you have not yet updated your speakers to 15.3, I'd definitely suggest you do so now. I have been running it since 1/25/22 and have not experienced a single popping sound on any of my 6 OG HomePod speakers. I used to have them several times a day from random speakers. It seems that this update has certainly addressed that most worrisome and irritating bug.

HomeKit seems a little more snappy as well. Although I continue to experience the occasional drop out of speakers -- HomeKit saying they are playing when they are not, for example -- the speakers are more stable than they have ever been in the year I've owned them.

I remain suspicious of the router issue. I didn't see a huge difference in glitches experienced under use of my AirPort Extreme network and my eero Pro 6 mesh network (that I spent almost $800.00 to replace the AirPorts with). Indeed, I continue to be suspicious that the eero Pro may have actually made the problems a little worse. I saw all kinds of reports of the same problems regarding the popping noises, etc. from people with newer routers, including the eero's. The problem lay with Apple and its buggy software, I'm pretty much convinced. And, 15.3 seems to be doing a good job (so far... knock on wood) of dealing with most of the bugs that have plagued the speakers for as long as I've had them.

Go the cheaper option first. Update to 15.3. But there is no reason these speakers should require a completely new router and very fast internet connection to simply work from my own personal experience. There may be other problems/issues with your current network that I would troubleshoot first. My AirPort Extreme network which was over ten years old handled them just as well as my newer mesh network does, and in some ways, I wish I had just stuck with them and saved some money and time updating my entire network. I have a pretty fast connection speed as well, with absolutely no other devices showing any connectivity problems at all. Apple's buggy software should not cause its users to spend more money on perfectly acceptable hardware just to deal with their problems. As a customer, I feel that is a fair demand. Apple has corrected most of the issues with this latest, fairly stable, update. Hat's off to them.

The Smoking Gun? .. .. 

FYI.. .. 

I called Apple Support yesterday to discuss this as I had read all the info on the internet, this forum and was out of ideas but not quite satisfied that I had done all I could to try and resolve it. Actually, I'm also concerned that this issue will damage the speakers in the HomePods if I keep using them due to how loud the pop is, so I rang them up for a dicussion.

It took three different advisors but finally we had a good conversation and the advisor agreed that its an issue that Apple needs to address and created an escalation case that goes to their engineering area and said he would reach out to me once he hears from them. After we hung up I decided to conduct a test that I had not yet done and that was to use a different source to play through the HomePod. 

Here is what I documented after the tests.. . 

Instead of using my Apple TV I decided to use a different source to see if that made any difference so I played music from my iPhone’s Music app instead. Here are the results.. .. I have two OG HomePod's connected as a stereo pair.

- The Left HomePod made the loud pop sound about an hour after I started. I wrote down what time it was.

- I immediately went to the left HomePod to listen if there was any music playing from it and it was dead silent. No light swirling on top either. I simply waited and it took about 20 seconds before playing the music again and when it did, it was in sync with the other HomePod that did not make the noise.

- A little later, the left HomePod did it again and same as before, it went silent and then simply started playing again in about 20 seconds. No swirling light on top, nothing, just pop, then silence, then playing music again and the music matched the other HomePod in terms of where it was in the music track

- I checked the left HomePod’s Analytics & Improvements/Analytics Data and found an event that matched the time when I heard the pop, the event is called “panic-full-2022-01-23-14120 and when clicking it, it said…{“bug_type”;”210”’”timestamp”;”2022-01-23 14:12:03.00 with a bunch of other data following that....a LOT of data actually.

- There is also another entry that coincides with the second loud pop I heard, that one was time stamped 15:00:37 which matched the second loud pop from the left HomePod.

- In looking at the left HomePod’s Analytics Data, I see where it did the HomePod OS update on Dec 30, 2021, (assuming that OTAUpdate means Over The Air Update) which seems to coincide as to when the popping sound first started happening.

- An interesting note: In the Analytic Data, I can see what is called a ''panic-full“ entry with many many dates but the interesting part is that the "panic-full" only started happening after the Dec 30 OS update to 15.2. The update was Dec 30 and the first "panic-full" occurred just after that on Dec 30. I've owned these HomePod's since March 2021 and they never made this sound until after the Dec 30 OS update to OS15.

** Continued in my next post ** (due to a 5000 word limit per post)

It is one day shy of a week that I updated my HomePods to 15.3. (I have 6 OG HomePods and 6 Mini's). I had not experienced a popping noise on any of them prior to the initial 15 update.

I have to say, based on practically a week of playing the HomePods with the 15.3 update the overall system seems far more stable--more-so than it has ever been. I have not experienced any popping in any of the OG speakers (the Mini's never demonstrated this problem for me) since updating them on 1/25/22. I show no panic logs since then either. I have had several days in between where I have listened to them playing throughout the house for long periods of time without any glitches whatsoever. Indeed, surprisingly, they've worked as they are supposed to... I am absolutely shocked to be quite honest as over the year I've owned them I have been trained by the constant bugs to expect an exasperated moment several times a day or evening of having to fiddle with them to just simply work.

I have had several glitches, the worst which occurred today as illustrated below... but overall, this is the most stable update Apple has put out for these speakers, and best of all NO POPPING. HomeKit seems a little snappier as well, although still some issues...

1/27/22 - Dressing Room Mini didn’t resume playing with all the other HomePods and showed as “paused” in HomeKit. Resumed playing when I told Siri to also play in that room specifically. 

1/27/22 - Both paired OG HomePods in the Living Room were silent although showed as playing in HomeKit. When requested to play, Siri reported “there is a problem with Apple Music” although all other speakers were playing sound.

1/28/22 - The Right paired OG speaker in the living room was silent although HomeKit reported it playing. Manually touching the top turned everything off but when touched again it started playing.

1/31/22 - Although HomeKit reported all speakers as playing, only the OG HomePods in my office and the Mini in the Hallway were actually making sound (although the lights on the tops of all were lit). When I asked Siri to stop playing the response was delayed and wouldn’t turn off, instead saying, “this is going a little too slow.” I was unable to get the speakers in the office to stop playing until I touched the top of the unit. I then manually restarted all speakers using HomeKit.

1/31/22 - Telling my office speaker to “play something I like everywhere” resulted in speakers everywhere else except for the office playing. When I told Siri to play in the office as well, the speaker responded, “now also playing in the office” but no sound was coming out even though HomeKit said it was playing. I again restarted them using HomeKit. When asked to play after the second start they began playing; however, it was observed there was a noticeable lag in beginning to do so—I could hear the other speakers begin playing throughout the house and the left speaker began playing after the right one did, and the office speakers showed greyed out (not playing) in HomeKit for about a minute before being noticed as playing by that app.

Well after 10 full days of no popping noise from my HomePods on OS15.2, I decided to update them to 15.3. I'll never know why they stopped popping after I reset the entire system and updated the firmware in my two routers but I wanted to stop paying attention to it so decided to update. Before updating I checked the Analytics on both of them and there weren't any panic attacks during those 10 days.

My settings are rather bland, all Siri related settings are off, Reduce Bass is off, personal requests is off, all Accessibility settings are off and Audio Setting is set to Stereo. So for me, I have not realized any difference by going to 15.3 but did it just to keep them up to date.

I just bought another pair of them and will be installing them this Sunday, they have already been updated to 15.3 by their current owner at my request.

Thanks to all who took part in this thread, it was very helpful!

I had the same issue since several months. I have 7 HompePods (Classics) in my house. Popping Sound appeared on all 7 since summer this year. Some days ago I did a hard reset on each HomePod and reconfigured. Since then it completely dissapeared.

Thanks for the detailed post Gene! These are the sort of issues I've also lived with for 10 months before a total factory reset of the Apple devices and router firmware updates. Since you have so many HomePod's placed about your house, some of your issue may be influenced by the inability of a strong and continuous WiFi signal, especially if you are telling them to connect to 802.11ac (5Hz band). Just guessing but also guessing that if you have that many, you have probably already conducted a WiFi dead/brown out zone analysis of your house and the HomePod placements. However if you did not, I would suggest it. I used Netspot to conduct my test and after seeing the dead or brown zones, I bought a second WiFi router and connected it as a slave, via Ethernet, to my main router and it worked like a charm to eliminate those dead/brown areas.

I wanted to blame all the flakey issues I was seeing on the HomePod's till I sat back and remembered that until I bought the HomePod's, I had never used the Home app and I do believe that app is buggy. It tells me my phone is on a different WiFi network than the HomePod's and when I check, they are on the same network. Sometimes I pick up my phone and the Apple TV show we are watching through the HomePod's automatically appears on the Lock Screen, showing navigation and sound level buttons. I can then set the phone down, pick it up 20 min later and nothing shows so I unlock it, still nothing shows so I press the Home app and find that its trying to connect to Apple Music, which I do not subscribe to.

Apple may have a good release with 15.3 for the HomePod's but I believe they need to spend time working on the Home app now, its very frustrating and I'm happy I don't have a house full of connected HomeKit devices, if I did, my alcohol bill would skyrocket!