Homepod pausing music

Hi Bruce,

Sorry to say that's probably not going to work. My Apple Home App is set up as suggested "Anyone On the Same Network" and we still are having this pausing-stopping problem.

Also, Siri is acting up terribly now. Lydia, the Apple Senior Advisor I am working with has escalated our problem to the engineering department. I recommend everyone call and speak to a senior advisor and direct them to our thread.

Hi Bruce,

Sorry to say that's probably not going to work. My Apple Home App is set up as suggested "Anyone On the Same Network" and we still are having this pausing-stopping problem.

Also, Siri is acting up terribly now. Lydia, the Apple Senior Advisor I am working with has escalated our problem to the engineering department. I recommend everyone call and speak to a senior advisor and direct them to our thread.

~William Pilipchuk

Mine too has always been in the “anyone in the same network” setting and yet it frequently stop playing music. And tonight out of the blue I can’t even airplay from my Apple TV!

I’ve scheduled a call tomorrow with a senior advisor at Apple support to send them log/analytics files, and hopefully these will help them fix the problem.

I don’t think this is a ‘drop out’ caused by an under run of the buffer. People with high over-the-air bandwidths are reporting this issue and the issue is new and widespread meaning it’s going to relate to firmware or software on the HomePod. It’s also consistently stopping at the start of songs. I think it started from the silent firmware update before iOS 11.4 software update as it affected my HomePod on both iOS 11.3 and 11.4. Oddly it seems to affect playlists but not personal radio or generated radio stations which seem to keep going.

I’ve tried:

* Power cycling HomePod

* Power cycling router

* Power cycling phone

* Resetting router

* Resetting HomePod

* Updating HomePod and phone to iOS 11.4

...and I still can’t play a playlist from start to finish without having to ask Siri to keep going every time it stops!

Happens with Apple Music streaming whether controlling on phone or direct from Siri via HomePod. Not fully tested with Airplay.

Thanks, turingtest2. I have tried several different settings, including “everyone”. It is still dropping out occasionally. In fact now, it Seems to be skipping tracks as well. Do you think it matters that I am playing a playlist that is not downloaded to my iPhone? As a subscriber to Apple Music, I would want to be able to do this.

Thanks again, tt2! I consider myself fairly sophisticated on Apple stuff but this is a challenge for me. I’m trying controlling HomePod from iPhone w/out using AirPlay (didn’t know I could do that). The phone still shows AirPlay icon indicating HomePod, right? It’s working well so far but it’s early yet.

Bruce

Although you may still see a lit AirPlay symbol on the phone if you have done it properly the music will carry on playing even if you turn your device off, meaning it isn't involved in fetching and retransmitting the data.

tt2

I’ve tried this way and it still pauses. Way to check is to set it playing a playlist using iPhone as a remote, set volume to 1% and then check your iPhone in an hour or so to see if it’s still going. Likelihood is it will have paused 1-2 seconds into a track...

So far, I’m having the best luck I have since this problem developed. I am using the iPhone as a control tool, but not through airplay. I also have my preferences set to allow just people sharing this “home”. It’s played for about three or four hours nonstop now, I different playlists and switching around tracks.

However, I am not happy about waiting all this time until HomePod was released ( I bought mine on the first day), only to see that it hadn’t been properly tested for bugs.

Well I've tried all sorts of suggestions that i've read thus far on this Tread and still no luck, still pauses every so often.

I have the latest Router ( BT one - UK ) I also have over 70MB per second, which is pretty fast I would say.

I use iTunes on my Mac Mini via 'Airplay' ( don't use any of my iOS devices ).

One other thing I have noticed, if I try and play a movie for example with the sound coming though the HP there is a lag, as in the Lip sync is out. Does anyone else have this little problem ?

Have reported the Airplay problem to Apple, I await a fix !! But I doubt it will come :-(

Steve

Last night come on my Apple advisor, to whom I have talked several times, asked me to try not using the iOS device, but simply using the Hey Siri command. The HomePod ran uninterrupted for about three hours untilI had to turn it off. I think he wanted me to do that as part of his diagnostic process. I was pleased that the thing worked, but if I understand golf king’s note, it wouldn’t work for him, and I am unhappy about not being able to monitor the music on my iOS device.

I would like Apple to respond here. I have been having a frustrating amount of pausing issues happening with my HomePod. Almost to the point of demanding my money back for such a inferior product. I do regret not going with Amazon’s line of products. I would have bought 15 total of the Hompods but now I want to get rid of the 1 that I have because of these issues.

Apple where the heck are you at?????????

I’ve used the feedback link to complain about this issue, but haven’t got any response from Apple. So I’m not sure if they even read that. I would suggest calling Apple support directly. They might not be able to give a solution, but you can submit logs/analytics that will be sent to their engineers and will hopefully help them address this issue.

Hi, Milton. I don’t know how much you have contacted the forums or spoken with Apple. A lot of us have had the problem with HomePod pausing; I have spent a lot of time with Apple, and have finally had my issue referred to the “engineers“. So far, I have found that my HomePod works reliably through Siri, and much less so through using AirPlay; that’s with the engineers are apparently working on. For some reason, AirPlay seems to work better through my iPad than through my iPhone.

Bruce Fisher

PS: In my extensive dealings with Apple support, they haven’t seemed too interested in what I told them about the experience of the people in the community forums, pointing out that everyone’s equipment, bandwidth, etc. is different. So I would encourage everyone to go through Apple support, so they realize that this is a widespread problem. Also, a lot of people have shared my experience of the thing working well for a couple of weeks and then developing this problem.