Music on macOS Loses Control of HomePod Stereo Pair

It's worse than that. Ventura on 24" iMac. When playing a playlist to one or more HomePods, after some time (or number of tracks, not sure yet) the Music app on the iMac will freeze. Of course the HomePod (and any device running Remote, like iPhone or Watch) will lose contact. (The Remote app on Watch has other problems that I won't get into here.) The only remedy is to force quit and restart Music.app on the Mac. It's absolutely predictable.

Music.app had a different problem on Monterey; such playback would just hang. First, the display in Remote on an iPhone would show the current track with time stuck at 0:00 though the track was playing. At the end of that track, the next track would play, while the Remote display still showed the previous track. After this, the playback would just freeze. Not pause, just freeze. But there was a workaround: if I used the Prev button either in Remote or in Music.app on the Mac, song #2 (the one that played while the previous track was shown) would play again, and playback would continue properly -- for a while. Rinse and repeat. At least Music.app didn't need to be forced to quit.

Because in fact I'm often in another room, or at the other end of the room that has the iMac, and want to control playback and see track information. And I don't want to use Siri. And generally I place the HomePods where they're not easily accessible. Everyone's situations are different.

Since the Watch Remote app has issues, I usually end up using the Now Playing app and selecting one or the other HomePod. And it's that connection that is naturally broken when Music.app on the Mac freezes.

In fact I *was* using AirPlay, from the Mac. I thought it was the only way I could play music on the iMac itself (I'm quite impressed with the 24" iMac's speakers) and HomePods simultaneously. But I find that AirPlay from the iPhone does the trick. (I'm glad I got a phone with room for my entire 155GB music library!) Thanks for the tip. I just hope the iPhone's Music app doesn't crap out after a dozen tracks.

In any case, I want to call attention to a nasty bug. Even if there's a limit on the number or duration of consecutive songs that a Mac can stream to a HomePod (as has been suggested in another thread), there is no way Music.app should need to be forcibly quit ever, let alone on a regular basis. But thanks.