HomePod Popping Noise

Just checking in to report the same problem. I’m using two HomePods as stereo pair and they both suffer from the popping problem alternately. Tried resetting them via Home App as well as manually.

It does seem to be a widespread hardware issue which would be unfortunate. The problem occurred shortly after the warranty for both expired.

Has anyone disabled lossless and still experienced the issue? I seem to think the issue started around the time lossless was released on the HomePods. Hopefully a fixable bug, the HomePods are wonderful sounding.

This has not helped me a single bit. As a matter of fact, I never experienced the popping noises until I upgraded my OG HomePods to 15.0 - 15.2. I was initially using an AirPort Extreme Network. I had intermittent reliability issues with the HomePods... for example, a speaker would drop out, they all wouldn't play (I have 6 OG HomePods paired in different rooms, and then I have 6 Mini's in placed singularly in other rooms). The support technician at Apple suggested an eero pro mesh network as the AirPort Extreme was older technology. After I installed my eero pro 6 mesh network things seemed to be working well for about two weeks. Then, I updated to iOS 15 and things became extremely buggy. Only one paired OG speaker would play, HomeKit would say all the speakers were playing but when I'd check multiples would not be playing, the music would start and then just go silent, Siri would say she couldn't connect to Apple Music, etc. Then, I began to hear a popping noise coming from the OG HomePod's intermittently... and the HomePod would just restart itself and begin playing again. Recently, (just in the last two weeks, I've observed that some of the HomePod's are popping when they aren't even on/playing). I do not have "Lossless" ticked to be on because I noticed that my HomePods would play about three songs and then everything would just go silent. So I turned that option off. I do have the "Sound Check" turn on and "Dolby Atmos."

It would be extremely odd that ALL the OG HomePods would "break" at the same time. This makes me think this is a software issue that was introduced with iOS 15. I also have some concerns this may be HomeKit related... as that app seems quite buggy... lags in updating the screen to show HomePods playing, suddenly saying one HomePod is "paused," etc.

There seems to be two different "pops" -- one that has been reported since before iOS 15 going all the way back to 2019, and those of us who have just begun experiencing them with the introduction of iOS 15.

As for me, I have found that while I have better speeds overall with a mesh network over my previous AirPort Extreme, changing to a mesh network did little to resolve the unreliability of these speakers and their numerous bugs. As a matter of fact, I'm wondering if the popping noises might not be related to having a mesh network--again I never heard a pop of any kind on my AirPort Extreme setup. I'd be very interested in seeing data on how many people experience the popping noise on the OG HomePods are on a mesh setup versus those who are not. Just anecdotally, most people whom I have observed reporting this issue are on mesh setups, and many are on eero setups. But the problem has definitely gotten WAY WORSE with iOS 15. And, I for one, would like for Apple to simple correct the bugs before introducing new features that no one is asking for... especially when the basic product can't seem to function reliably as advertised.

Bought two OG HomePods in March 2021 at my local Apple Store, set them up as a stereo pair and only use them to listen to my Apple TV. Siri is turned off, Reduce Base is turned off and my Apple TV is connected to my network vie Ethernet and the router is only 10 feet from my HomePods. I have a very basic system in this regard. I have two WiFi routers where the second one (of the same brand) is Ethernet connected to the first and used as an Access Point (AI Mesh mode), it is this router that feeds the Apple TV via Ethernet. I have no known WiFi or Ethernet issues in my house.

While I have found the Home app to be buggy right from the start (March 2021 for me) it has become worse to the point of being very frustrating to use. I only use it for the HomePods. I've reset the total system (Apple TV, both HomePods, my network and deleted and re-downloaded the Home app, twice.

TV OS15 was announced during WWDC 2021and released in the fall. In thinking through my issues, both my HomePods started their very loud popping sounds in the past couple of months, this seems to coincide with the OS15 update. The bugginess of the Home app also became much worse when the HomePod popping started.

When my HomePods pop, the light on the top of them flashes but since they don't both pop at the same time and they are a bit away from where I sit, I cannot tell if they reboot with each pop or not. Will have to test for that. The popping seems random and they each take their turn at doing it. Scares the crap out of everyone in the room, it's very loud and my thoughts are that the woofers are at risk when this happens. Each pop is just a fraction of a second, I don't get the second or two "farting" sound others have reported on YouTube.

These are my observations. I need a couple more OG HomePod type speakers and was going to buy two more (used) till this started happening. I don't want to end up with four dead HomePods though :-0

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)

This happens to me as well in addition to the HomePods randomly stopping play. They sometimes come back or need to be restarted via the home app (or unplugging).I believe its some software glitch. It seems to have started when Apple released support for Lossless.

From my experience, the panic-full logs are only kept for about a month and are then deleted.

I only experienced a few such full kernal panics but did check the Analytics data after hearing pops. The first one was on the day I set up my HomePods (December 11, 2021), then two on New Years Day and two more on January 21. The one from December 11 is nog longer in the list of Analytics Data.

I think what's important here is the correlation between the OS15 install and the start of the kernel panics and the popping noise. Some people have their devices set for auto OS upgrade and some do it manually so the start of the "pops" will vary but I would like to know if any have experienced them before OS15 was loaded into their HomePods. I realize there are/will be other causes for kernel panics but in my case, the first one I saw coincided with the date of OS15 being installed and that coincided with us hearing the pops. The first analytic data listed on my phone for one of my HomePod's is Oct 7, 2021 - they stay for 90 days from the way I read it.. .. "analytics-90Day-2021-10-07". Not sure about the full panic entries.

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.

tonyclerico: Well, I was hoping you were going to say the popping did not occur until after OS15 because then there would be hope Apple could solve it. Until a root cause is known, it is still possible that a s/w solution can be found but I am really hoping its not a hardware issue. I was about to buy two more till mine started popping, I've now put that on hold and may start looking at Sonos instead.

My two HomePod's sit no more than 10' from the WiFi router but I think I will reboot the router "again" and do a factory reset on the HomePod's and this time will not pair them into a stereo pair. I did remove the stereo config last night but then one of them refused to connect even though it let me put a checkmark on its settings thereby telling it to play.

I find the entire Home app to be extremely buggy and so is anything connected or managed by it. Its really been a disappointing experience from Apple. Where's Steve Job's when you need him?