[Homepod] Stereo pairing doesn't work anymore with iOs 12

Dear turingtest2, thank you very much for your quick reply. I am running MacOS (I am full mac), and my stereo paring was just working flawlessly with 11.4. I have only upgraded to 12.0 and never been able to do stereo pairing again.

Have you tried on your side stereo pairing since you are on 12 (HomePod as well as iPhone) ?

Turingtest2, if you are already on iOS 12 for your HomePod firmware, would you mind trying to unpair and pair them again to confirm that stereo pairing works well for you and that I need to investigate another reason than iOS 12 ? Thank you very much.

Hi tt2, thank you very much for your feedback.

A Macrumors forum member reply to my message yesterday to confirm that he has the exact same problem since he migrated to iOS 12. I fear this is a generalized problem.

I have contacted Apple support yesterday. They are investigating the problem, they took all my serial number devices and they should come back to me today. I will let you know.

In the meantime, I will try the turnaround with static IP Adress. It would be great if you could try with dynamic address and tell us if you have this stereo pairing problem.

Again thank you for your valuable help tt2 !

Hi kirofrommelbourne, thank you very much for you reply, that confirms that it is likely a iOS 12 bug. (I don't understand how this has not been seen during betas...). Let me know what apple support will told you.

On my side, Apple support has organized a call with me tonight during which they say they will gather logs and screen prints. I will let you know.

Hi kirofrommelbourne, thank you for your message.

Here are the latest news : I had 2 new exchanges with Apple Support : they are still investigating the problem - they went through a check list with me -, but at this stage, they did not confirm that the problem was global and related to iOS 12.

They say that their engineers were still investigating, but no solution at this stage. They will recontact me on monday morning. Again, I will let you know.

Please forum members, if you have this problem, please leave a reply. Thanks a lot !

Hi, thank you all for your feedbacks and advices.

I have just spent 3 hours renewing the configuration with IP address reservation. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. Declaration of 1st HomePod if flawless - it takes less than 30s - I can see and use this standalone HomePod in Airplay.

But I declare the 2nd HomePod with Stereo pairing, it takes forever - more than 4-5 minutes - it seems to end properly, but I can't see them in airplay via iTunes. It happens that sometimes I see the paired HomePod, but iTunes cannot connect to them. Of course, before every tries, I have factory resets my HomePods...

I will not wait for Apple engineers feedbacks - they say they will can me on Monday morning -. I will go to an Apple Store tomorrow morning and buy 2 new ones. I will block 12.0 update and try to do the stereo pairing in 11.4 and we will see.

I will let you know. Again thank you all for your messages.

Hi All,

I have made considerable progress today and I can confirm that this problem is indeed iOS 12 related.

I went this morning to my Apple Store : I explained my problem to an apple representative, who happens to be the store manager. He was very helpful and supportive with my proposal : that is to say buy 2 new HomePods (still with iOS 11.4, block iOS 12 update and try stereo pairing.

I went back home and ... everything worked perfectly with my 2 new iOS 11.4. HomePod Stereo pairing went flawless.

The Store manager refunded me my old bricked iOS 12 HomePods. Again thank you Apple for having such a good client relationship.

So now, updates on my HomePods are blocks until the release of a patch. I will report this to Apple support Monday morning and will let you know if they give me new information.

Hope its helps.

Hi All, this message to give you the latest news.

I had 2 new discussions with Apple support this week. They said they are still investigating, but at this stage, they did not confirm the root cause (iOS 12), neither if a patch was to be releases soon.

I am still on 11.4 (iOS 12 is blocked), the Mojave update - and iTunes 12.9 - did not impact anything.

Michael - thank you for your advices, but for now, I will not take the risk to upgrade. I prefer to wait for a patch.