Homepod stops playing — not a connectivity issue

We are experiencing the same issue. It will just stop playing in the middle of a play list while using airplay from my iPhone 8 which has all the updates. The phone says it is still playing. It does this every once and awhile - sometimes several times a day. Same issue from my wife’s iPhone 7 except on hers it will also from time to time cycle quickly thru the playlist names playing nothing. That is an issue we haven’t had since Apple Music first can’t out.

When the music stops while using AirPlay we touch the top of the HomePod twice to stop and start the song and it starts playing again. That is our fix. I think this is an Apple Music bug.

Same for me, it stops at the beginning of the new song but as soon as I ask Siri to turn shuffle on, it fixes it. So try and let me know if it works for you too. It's not ideal as you can't listen to your playlist in the order you chose but until Apple fixes it, I will keep shuffle on

Good luck

Francois

I have another data point. Although it seems random, I have noticed that when it stops playing, it is exclusively during a song I ripped from a CD or a song I purchased from amazon.com or HDtracks.com. This makes me think that it may be something to do with DRM. It has never stopped on a song that I purchased from iTunes. [AirPlaying a playlist from MacBookPro/iTunes]

11.4 appears to have resolved this for me, though my test was only about an hour of streaming from my iPhone X.

Having dealt with this for over a week now I do think it happens when I am actively using the iOS device supplying the stream. If I start music or a podcast then set the device down, there is rarely a problem. If however I am doing ANYTHING else on my phone it seizes up.

Try it and tell me if this also is true of your situation!

Call Apple they'll help you solve the problem. I called and they told me to unplug the unit and see if the problem persists. If that doesn't solve they have a list of solutions you can try. The problem you're experiencing is not uncommon.

I'm sorry to hear about this problem. I've had rare instances of dropouts listening to Beats 1 but not when streaming my music directly to the home pod, or playing music from my apple devices. I have multiple HPs. One is a stereo pair.

I also have 3 Sonos ones. Two of them are in a stereo pair. There is a beta program for testing airplay 2. I can stream music to all 7 speakers on my network of the same or different streams without pauses. I'm using all of this over DSL with an Eero mesh router. Have you looked at your router? Running most recent firmware on it? Bandwidth constraints on your wifi not your router?

I hope this gives you some things to check on

I have had HomePod stop responding as well, intermittently and randomly, when playing music from Spotify or using it as a conference speaker to make or receive calls using an iPhone X, iPhone 7 Plus as well as an iPhone 6 Plus. I am running it on virgin media WiFi with 300 Mbps download speed and 20 Mbps upload speed with my router linked via a wired ethernet airport extreme. The HomePod is receiving the Wi-Fi signal from the airport extreme which is located less than 2m away from the HomePod. All of the devices have the latest updates as of today’s date (iOS 11.4 on iphone).

I’ve done a hard reset on the HomePod, as well as swapped it over twice. None of this has helped. Consequently, it is clear that the HomePod has some kind of inbuilt defect with its firmware or its hardware. I’ve reported this to Apple via their online form as well as talking to the genius bar as well as their phone support, and received no joy resolving any of this. Furthermore, I have tried resetting the iPhone itself, that has not helped either. I’ve also tried resetting the network settings within the iPhone, and re-pairing the iPhone to the HomePod and again that has not alleviated the issue.

Same issue here. Not a wifi issue. Let's get to the bottom of this! Make sure you are reporting to Apple Feedback - HomePod - Apple

I don’t want to jinx anything but I just upgraded to 11.4 beta 4 and AirPlay works without any flaws on HomePod now!

Use Feedback - HomePod - Apple to make sure that Apple know that streaming radio isn't as reliable as you would expect it to be.

tt2

Make sure to share your observations with Apple via Feedback - HomePod - Apple.

tt2

Hi Brian,

I would be interested to know when you sat that your HP stops playing, do you mean that it actually 'stops' completely or do you mean that the sound ( not music ) from your HP stops, then comes back again after a second or two ?

I play my music via iTunes from my Mac Mini through 'Airplay' and every so often the sound stops coming through my HP ( only for a second or 2 ) but if you check iTunes the track is still playing.

As you say its random, same here, could play a couple of tracks with-out an issue then next track it suddenly stops several times, no rhyme or reason here. I just wish Apple would come out and acknowledge that there is an issue and explain what ( if anything ) they are doing about it.

There's enough evidence telling them that there is a problem ?

As long as others keep reporting this type of issue to Apple ( Apple Feedback - HomePod - Apple ) then perhaps one day they'll fix it .

We live in hope.

Steve