HomePod Questions for owners of pair of OG HomePods.

[ric22]

Hi, this is for anyone else that has a stereo pair of HomePods.

1, Do you get the 15 second glitch? Where the music pauses/stutters at exactly 15 seconds on each song.

2, When you pause a song, or stop playing music, or skip to another song, does one HomePod respond faster than the other? For me, which ever is the ''master" (the one that Siri talks from) responds faster, leaving the other to play a second or so of music on its own.

Thanks!

 

[ric22]

I have found that some songs don't glitch/skip at 15 seconds... for those songs, when they get to about second 14, the time listed returns to second 10, even though the song didn't stutter. Here's a video to show what I'm talking about:

What bizarre jiggery pokery are Apple playing at? This happens regardless of whether Lossless and Atmos are turned on and off. If I play songs direct from my phone, rather than verbally telling the HomePods to play XYZ song, the skipping doesn't occur.

 

[ric22]

Update: I just installed 15.4.1 and now the long standing 15 second glitch can now occur at 11, 13 or 15 seconds, and actually sounds worse, and can pause the song for a number of seconds! Bravo, Apple.

Update 2: Dolby Atmos songs appear to be immune to the 15 second glitch. Bizarre. Dolby Atmos sounds surprisingly good on the OG HomePods, by the way.

 

[Five_Oh]

Very strange. I have been using a pair of OG pods for a couple years now for living room music and default audio out for an ATV. Very smooth experience most of the time. Twice I've lost audio out of one of them and had to fiddle with things to get it back, but even as annoying as that was, I can tolerate it once a year.

Seems network issues can be very important for HomePods. I've got a gigabit mesh system that has been rock solid and very reliable.

Hope you get it figured out, and agree with you re: Atmos sound.

 

[rumz]

Never noticed anything like this on my stereo pairs. How is the music being played? I generally play pretty exclusively over Airplay from another iOS device, so I wasn’t sure if that was a factor. The only time I used to have issues with the stereo channels getting out of sync was when streaming from Spotify, but I haven’t noticed that in recent months.

 

[ric22]

Thanks for the replies, gents.

The glitch that usually occurs at 15 seconds happens only when I've commanded Siri to play something directly. If I use my phone/iPad/Mac to AirPlay music it doesn't happen.

The lag/delay where one speaker pauses or skips to the next song fractionally slower than the other happens regardless of how I'm playing the music. For a long time I'd lower the volume before skipping to avoid that horrid sound effect, but now the speakers change volume out of synch and that also sounds crappy.

You don't hear any of that? Hmm, maybe I should have a chat with Apple again...

 

[ric22]

I should add: my old Wifi seemed to cause some problems with the HomePods, where one would often be playing at a much louder volume than the other. I nearly send the HomePods back, but changing the wifi improved things. I now have a mesh network with an Ethernet backbone, which is very good. The closest router to the HomePods is only about 4 feet away.

 

[Five_Oh]

Ok, I'll try a Siri command for music to see if I can replicate.

I often use Siri for Homekit stuff, but never for music. I always control playback from my phone.

 

[ric22]

Ok, I'll try a Siri command for music to see if I can replicate.

I often use Siri for Homekit stuff, but never for music. I always control playback from my phone.

Thanks, mate. I'm curious. It 100% seems like a software problem rather than a hardware problem.

I discovered yesterday that the 15 second glitch also happens on the Music app on my Mac. I've basically never played music from my M1 Mac before so didn't know. Whether I streamed music to speakers or played from the internal speakers, I got the glitch at 15 seconds. iPad and iPhone don't glitch at 15 seconds, however, though the timer on the song flicks back from 15 seconds to about 11. The exception to the 15 second glitch on my M1 Mac were the two downloaded tracks I have, and also any songs Apple uploaded from my main collection that were not matched.

I'd love to know what task Apple has set for the 15 second mark.

 

[Five_Oh]

Thanks, mate. I'm curious. It 100% seems like a software problem rather than a hardware problem.

I discovered yesterday that the 15 second glitch also happens on the Music app on my Mac. I've basically never played music from my M1 Mac before so didn't know. Whether I streamed music to speakers or played from the internal speakers, I got the glitch at 15 seconds. iPad and iPhone don't glitch at 15 seconds, however, though the timer on the song flicks back from 15 seconds to about 11. The exception to the 15 second glitch on my M1 Mac were the two downloaded tracks I have, and also any songs Apple uploaded from my main collection that were not matched.

I'd love to know what task Apple has set for the 15 second mark.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I cannot seem to replicate your issue. Is it still ongoing?

 

[ric22]

Sorry for the delay in replying. I cannot seem to replicate your issue. Is it still ongoing?

Yep. Sadly. When I get a couple of hours free I'd been planning on calling Apple to see if they can offer some advice. Now I've paid very close attention to it I can see some days the glitch/stutter appears earlier inside the first 15 seconds of a song, but is noticeable in over 9/10 songs on my Mac and Homepods. My iPhone usually copes ok on its own speakers... or it's harder to tell because of the crappy quality that speaker. Streaming from my iPhone to HomePods sometimes, not always, fixes the problem temporarily- but the seconds counted always muck up before or on 15 seconds, and go back a few... like 1,2,3,4,5,3,4,5... Some weird background task occurs early in each song, evidently.

 

[Spotlighter9]

Hi, this is for anyone else that has a stereo pair of HomePods.

1, Do you get the 15 second glitch? Where the music pauses/stutters at exactly 15 seconds on each song.

2, When you pause a song, or stop playing music, or skip to another song, does one HomePod respond faster than the other? For me, which ever is the ''master" (the one that Siri talks from) responds faster, leaving the other to play a second or so of music on its own.

Thanks!

Have you tried performing a hard reset? (unpair stereo>>unplug for 2 minutes>>plug in and hold your finger on the spinning white light until it is red and Siri says "your HomePod is about to reset, keep holding until you hear three beeps">>once reset... bring your iPhone near to setup.

 

[ric22]

Have you tried performing a hard reset? (unpair stereo>>unplug for 2 minutes>>plug in and hold your finger on the spinning white light until it is red and Siri says "your HomePod is about to reset, keep holding until you hear three beeps">>once reset... bring your iPhone near to setup.

A few times, over a couple of years...

 

[Spotlighter9]

A few times, over a couple of years...

I find that my OGs must be hard reset after each OS update to clear out the bugs and have them perform optimally. In addition, if you’re using them both as AppleTV home theater and as stand alone speakers then expect frequent bugginess after switching between those two roles…simply removing them as home theater and selecting “restart” in the AppleTV in settings tends to clear out those bugs.

 

[ric22]

I find that my OGs must be hard reset after each OS update to clear out the bugs and have them perform optimally. In addition, if you’re using them both as AppleTV home theater and as stand alone speakers then expect frequent bugginess after switching between those two roles…simply removing them as home theater and selecting “restart” in the AppleTV in settings tends to clear out those bugs.

I'll give it another go. Nothing to lose. I'll also log out of Apple Music on my Macs, PC and iPhone too, so I'm not logged in anywhere. In fact I need another hard reset, as last night the HomePods started playing a game of "I can't find that song in your Apple library" for every song I requested. ?‍♂️

 

[Spotlighter9]

Logging out and back into Apple Music might be helpful. But make sure you are logged into Apple Music account (as well as the Apple ID and WI-FI network you want to use) when setting up the OGs using your phone so that everything transfers correctly.

 

[Spotlighter9]

I also prefer to “ungroup” my stereo pairs when hard resetting and pair them back together and/or with the AppleTV AFTER the hard reset it complete.

 

[ric22]

Thanks for the tips ? I'll let you know how I get on tonight

 

[ric22]

After years of problems, the first of my two HomePods has started behaving itself on the latest software! Is it just me or is this the most stable HomePod has been since launch? It's not doing any glitching or skipping!

Sadly my other HomePod is in a different country- I'd love to know if they could finally act as a competent pair!