Homepod pausing music

> Our HomePods will pause randomly between songs if listening to a playlist

This sounds a lot like the issue I posted about at

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8285899

except that for me, it's stopped -- still in play mode -- at the beginning of the track before the last track played. The interfaces (happens on all devices) have lost sync with what's playing on the HPod, so everything grinds to a halt.

Still occurring after 11.3, of course, so back I go to the feedback place when I find the link. May our mighty quest lead to victory!

I’ve had the same, as have my parents 150 miles away. It’s a recent problem I noticed over the past few days which didn’t happen before. It predates iOS 11.3 and persists in iOS 11.3

Our HomePods will pause randomly between songs if listening to a playlist. If I look at my phone to see where it’s stopped, it’s always 1 second into the next track. I can ask it to resume and it continues to play as usual. It happens several times a day. It is also random...it may play a full playlist or it may stop after 2 songs. The internet connection is fine.

Power cycling doesn’t help, nor does resetting the HomePod and removing it from the home app. I have also power cycled the router but the issue remains.

I haven’t noticed the tracks skipping but this is more subtle than music that suddenly and repeatedly stops.

I reported this to Apple and it was helpfully escalated to the engineering team. I think reports are slowly emerging but there’s not much about this online currently. It’s quite a big issue from a usability point of view!

See the Change AirPlay settings section of Change settings for HomePod - Apple Support and see if using Everyone and Require Password works better for you. It might mean half the amount of traffic over the Wi-Fi network, which in turn might be enough to stop the drop out.

tt2

If you're using AirPlay then yes, in fact that is possibly the worst case scenario. Data has to come to your iPhone over the air, then back to your router, and on to the HomePod, assuming peer-to-peer isn't working, and if it is the iPhone probably has to switch between two networks. See if Remote control for HomePod, not using AirPlay helps you avoid using AirPlay. You can get remote control of the HomePod from the Control Centre too.

tt2

Not here. This is a user to user support forum. There are some community specialists who may post links to relevant support documents from time to time, but they're not going to get into a conversation. Use Feedback - HomePod - Apple if you haven't already.

tt2

Vancouver22 wrote:

Im not sure if it’s different asking it to play my playlist or air playing from my devices. I prefer the latter so I can control it from my device

See Remote control for HomePod, not using AirPlay. Control from your device without sending the data over your network twice.

tt2

I am experiencing the exact same issue!

It happens while playing an album or a playlist directly from the homepod or using AirPlay.

Extremely annoying, also can confirm that this issue pre dates the 11.3 update.

I have noticed the same problem after 1 month of purchasing it. I have discovered two fixes that works for me until Apple releases a new software:

- unplug and wait for at least 10 seconds before plugging it back

- turn shuffle on

This does not fix completely the issue but at least it stops from happening temporarily

Good Luck

I too have the same issue with HomePod randomly stops playing after 1 or 2 seconds at the beginning of a song from a playlist. I tried resetting the HomePod, resetting the router, and turning shuffle on, but nothing works. And it can be as frequent as every other song, which is very annoying. I haven't had the same problem with radio stations or specifically asking the HomePod to play a certain song; only playlists seem to be problematic. AirPlaying Apple Music from Apple TV and iPhone also seems fine.

I spoke to an Apple Care advisor today, who will forward this issue to their engineers and hopefully she will call me back in a few days for the solution.

The engineers wanted some more info on the types of music I was playing when it happens. Hope to get an update soon. Have had a 1h playlist on and so far it’s had to be resumed 3 times. Very inconvenient and not good.

I’ve been working on this same problem for a few days now, but see today that a lot of other people have had it also. I have been on the phone with Apple support several times, and have been in this discussion yesterday as well. I have tried resetting the HomePod, and also doing a “soft reset“ on my iPhone, which I am usually using through airplay. After I reset the HomePod yesterday, it worked pretty well for quite a while, but today, after perhaps an hour and a half of playing, it is happening again.

Does Apple read these discussions, or is there another place to inform Apple of the difficulty?

Hello Folks...you are not alone. I am experiencing the same problem on three HomePods!

Big investment, Bigger disappointment.

Hope to speak with Lydia senior tech today at 5 pm EST again about this.

All three worked fine for the first three weeks (got them in Feb) then my wife and I went to our cottage for a week, came back to all this malfunction. Today the HomePod won't even create a playlist of similar songs when asked to do so.

Update: after hours of working on this problem, I talked to a person who claimed to be a senior advisor. Although my Wi-Fi and Internet signal seemed to be working fine, he suggested that it might not be of a wide enough bandwidth. I’m using CenturyLink, and only getting 20 MB per second. That has been fine for regular Internet, email, surfing, and AppleTV, but the agent suggested it might not be enough to consistently drive the HomePod without problems if you are using AirPlay. So far I’m not having any problems using just Siri, but I’m not very happy about having to increase my internet bandwidth. Sometimes AirPlay works for up to an hour, but sometimes no more than five or 10 minutes.

Hi Bruce,

bad Apple advisor advice.

I just upgraded to a to a kick-butt Linksys Velop 3node mesh system and we are getting consistent throughput of 170 megabits throughout three floor levels and the fourth, being the garage where my wife and I work out and watch streaming tv getting around 160 megabits. Awesome system and all of our three HomePods are pausing or stopping and sometimes right in the middle of a song.

We wanted whole house music. We live and work from home and have smooth jazz playing 12 to 14 hours straight in background all day and night practically so this is not working for us now. I was also told incannot get my money back, so they better fix this soon we gave up our XM radio for this.

Hello and thank you for your responses. On a different thread, I heard an interesting response, which I’m trying now. He said to go to the Home app, click the little arrow in the Upper left corner, go to ”allow speaker access”, and choose “anyone“ or “only people sharing this home” rather than “everyone”. He said it may not be an issue of my network providers bandwidth, but more the way my router is set up. Anyway, I’m trying it now, but haven’t been trying it for long enough to be sure; sometimes got up to 45 minutes or an hour of playing without the problem occurring.