HomeKit Connection Issues

Timothy Etherington wrote:

bgmeek wrote:

Sorry to hear that turning OFF the Private Wi-Fi Address (NOT "Private IP") for your home network SSID didn't sort things out for you.

Oops! Yes, it is Private Wi-Fi Address, not IP. Glad you caught that!

Sorry, yes, I knew that, then ended up following on from others :-).

Of course one thing I did forget to mention, no idea why, as it's quite significant, is that a lot of my network is hardwired using Ethernet (the Apple TVs, the iMac, the TV itself, and my iPad (when it's on the desk), so the SSID issue is not even relevant to most of the devices.

In my scenario, the only devices that are having an issue are the HomePods connected to WiFi, and connected to the AppleTV as the default speaker. These are all located very close to each other, and the router, which is just about central to the HomePods. The AppleTV is about 2ft away from the router, and connected by a very short Ethernet cable - these could not have a more direct connection.

And yes, the AppleTV has also been tried on a Wifi connection, but the issue was exactly the same.

All said, I wasn't really posting here expecting a fix, I've read enough everywhere to believe that's probably only coming in a future update, if it ever does get fixed. I was posting it just as additional information.

Cheers.

Sorry, that should have been ULA = Unique Local Address.

But, so far so good. Normally I get a speaker cut out within the first few minutes of watching something on the Apple TV (when the Pods are set as default speakers). Watched two programmes tonight, and all was OK.

Let's hope.

If that's the case, then perhaps we also need to point those struggling to look into their routers a bit more, as well as the iPhone settings.

Cheers.

Thanks for the update and the hopeful news.

I do hope that one of the Apple-employed Community Specialists who monitors these forums will insist that, or at least strongly encourage, HomePod and iOS product team members on the support, QA and/or engineering side to read these multiple threads about how effing unreliable HomePods are perceived to be because of the unnecessary-and-poorly implemented iOS "Private Wi-Fi Address" feature (call it "PWFA"). We've got a serious customer satisfaction issue here!

In my not-so-humble opinion, the PWFA feature should:

• Default to OFF or at least provide a global ON/OFF switch (rather than just network-by-network).
• Not alarm ignorant users with the dern "Privacy Warning" when someone turns it OFF on their network.
• Be completely DISABLED on HomePods (and also Apple TV devices if it activates there too). The fact that HomePods use the feature if their configuring-iPhone still has PWFA set in the default "ON" state is a BUG.

Finally, it would be cool if Apple Support could update this article: Use private Wi-Fi addresses on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple Watch - Apple Support, to explain in sufficient technical detail, about the 'privacy risk' of using the same WiFi MAC address on public networks (let alone on private and business WiFi networks that are often setup to only grant connections to a list of known/approved MAC addrs).

[stepping down from soapbox]

Thanks.

I’m just resurrecting this discussion again, as I see there are some newer similar discussions on this issue.

I’ve still no idea what’s occurring here. I’ve been kind of OK for a while with this issue. In that it could go longer between it happening and it worked fine for a few weeks, then needed a restart of everything, and fine again for a while.

Until recently that is. Now it’s become insufferable - it started a little before the upgrades to iOS (and other devices) 17, and has been even worse since.

I’ve had Private WiFi Address turned off on all devices since last posting here, as well other things that ‘seemed’ to help.

But, it’s clear that is probably not the cause of the issue, it has to be a bug in something else.

To recap. My HomePod Minis are linked as a Stereo pair. They operate flawlessly with Music, using either Siri, or sending from another device. If I watch something on my Apple TV (first 4K model), and set them up as the Default speakers, then the right speaker only cuts out periodically. It can last for a few seconds, to a few minutes (only two or three usually at most). The left speaker continues playing sound without any breaks or jumps, the right will drop out and back in again (quite smoothly really).

I tried as much as was possible. Disabling the aforementioned Private WiFi Address (and setting up the HomePods with it disabled), disabling IPv6, using manual DHCP settings and assigning fixed IP addresses where I could (using a separated IP range). I also tried letting the router assign DCHP, but told it to fix them on each device.

But now, it’s started again, all the settings unchanged. I’ve even reset everything. Back to defaults, and using normal Auto DHCP, turned back on IPv6, and Private WiFi on the devices (although I fail to see how that would matter after the initial setup), it makes no difference.

Now, if I don’t set the HomePods as the default speaker on the AppleTV, and leave it at the TV output, then set the HomePods as the Alternative speaker, then it works absolutely fine.

Also, this only happens when *watching* TV (or a movie), it does not happen if I listen to music through the AppleTV.

Sorry if that went on a bit, but I’m just trying to show the processes, and settings I’ve tried, and the conditions it happens under.

Cheers.

Good luck with it. Here's a recent 'rant' post of mine on a similar "HomePod Hates My Network" thread... HomePod Mini KEEP DISCONNECTING!!!!! - Apple Community

Certainly if your HomePod mini suddenly changes it's wifi MAC address, it'll screw up ipv6 and ipv4 peer-to-peer / local connections for a while.

Yeah. I've never heard of an actual hack or exploit enabled by tracking a WiFi hardware address across publicly-accessible WiFi networks. Anyone???

If some nefarious network snooper somehow maps my iPhone's WiFi MAC address to my user name, they may learn where I've connected to public WiFi! Oh my! Effing Google and Apple pretty much know where I am 24x7, and I almost NEVER bother connecting to guest WiFi access points when I'm out & about.

As I've said before, the "Private Wi-Fi Address" so-called 'privacy' feature seems like the ultimate solution in search of a problem, and how dare they allow the feature to spread to HomePods.

Again, sorry to hear things aren't sorted out for you.

So, you've disabled your DHCP server in favor of manually assigning IP addresses to each device? Sounds like a hassle so I'm mildly curious as to why you bother with that.

Does your WiFi router also serve as your Ethernet hub, and does it treat the WiFi and Ethernet ports as a single LAN? I would assume so. FWIW, I've seen a few posts here reporting that the ATV4K reports much better performance when connected via WiFi than when using a direct Ethernet connection (adequate bandwidth for streaming movies in both cases, but like ~100Mbps on WiFi and ~50Mbps with Ethernet). Could be hardware or code optimization for the most common use case.

Finally, on the Private Wi-Fi Address issue, did you read that reddit post reporting that his HomePod mini was frequently using random Wi-Fi MAC addresses until he turned off the feature on his iPhone? That seems like a massive bug that Apple would've fixed by now, but here we are learning that turning the dern feature off stabilizes HomePod mini (and possibly HomePod 2) functions.

While setting up my own HomePod minis, I only recall that the HomePod grabbed the network settings of the currently active connection of my iPhone - obviously this might choke if the iPhone's active connection had been manually configured - did the setup then prompt you to assign a useable IP address to each HomePod?

I understand you're confident that you've set everything up correctly, but even so, I would personally worry that Apple's QA on HomePods would be sorely lacking on such a configuration. If I were you, I'd go ahead and reactivate a DHCP server with a range of available addresses (or addresses specifically assigned to the mini's MAC addresses) to service the HomePods (and the occassional guest :-).

So, another update now.

my AppleTV and HomePod Mini pairing has been working fine since the last posting here.

So I decided to try reconnecting my AppleTV using Ethernet. After about 24 hours, it started again with the right speaker cutting out. I’ve disconnected it again, and gone back to WiFi and it’s been fine again for a couple of days now.

It does look like for that for this particular issue, that it is just about using a mixed network connection setup.

cheers.

Andy.

Thanks for the update.

I've read numerous reports here of ATV4K performance being slower (if not down-right flakey) when connected to Ethernet vs. WiFi. Not sure if it's apple's hardware and/or QA issue, or that of many modern WiFi routers optimized for WiFi and sporting ethernet ports that largely go unused.

I'd be curious if you also see slower benchmarks on Ethernet vs WiFi.

I seem to be having the same problem

since mid march and the HomeKit update to 16.5 my eve outdoor camera refuses to connect even with everything on the 2.4ghz network

from what I can tell it looks like my iPhone, for some mysterious reason, decides to turn off its WiFi when adding a new device via HomeKit and I can see the network mismatch error as well as the setup code incorrect error

any ideas?

Thanks for sharing. I actually tried this solution on my 13 HomePods that haven’t been working properly since I installed OS 16. I wish I could say it solve all the issues, but sadly it didn’t change a thing. But thanks for sharing. I'm happy it worked for you.

I just hope one day Apple will actually put efforts to fix the HomePod OS. The hardware is awesome, but the OS os comparable to Windows Vista. It convinces people to switch to the competition. It’s by far the worst OS Apple has ever released.

Hi,

I feel your pain. I've been dealing with constant issues since I made the huge mistake to update my HomePods to OS 16.0. For the past 13 months I've been communicating with Apple on a regular basis and not one single update made any improvement. As you said, OS 17 actually made it worse for me. However I did find a way to have some of my HomePods to play music without any interruption, but I wouldn't call it a solution.

Basically I unpaired all the HomePod stereo pairs. I restored one of my HomePod mini so I could reconfigure it in the same room as two other HomePods. So now I have two HomePods second generation and one HomePod mini, all in mono, all in the same room in the Home app and they play music without any issue.

As I said this isn't a solution as I cannot enjoy music in stereo anymore and I cannot divide my 13 HomePods in rooms.

Furthermore this isn't a fix for many other HomePod issues, but at least I can listen to music without song pausing or skipping in the middle and HomePods disconnecting.

I hope this will help you and some other people.

Take care!