apple music cutting off song and/or skipping ahead

Over the last few weeks or so I've run into an issue with the way Apple Music behaves on my iPad and iPhone. I have not played it on my MacBook Pro enough to notice, and it definitely happens more on the iPad vs iPhone. I'm using airplay to two HomePods as a stereo pair in my office. If a song is playing, about 20% of the time, Apple Music is abruptly ending the song before it is actually over. It will cut off the last 10-20 seconds. About 20-30%, it's starting the next song at 15-30 seconds in, playing for about 5-10 seconds, before restarting itself back at the beginning. I have restarted all devices with no luck. I'm not sure if it could somehow be related to new iPhone 15 pro max that I switched to recently? My iPad also recently completely froze up- requiring me to reset it as if it were a brand new device (from an iCloud back up via usb-c to my computer). I've tried Sound Check on and off with no change. I have crossfade off because it says right in the setting it does not work with airplay. I tried to turn off sync library on the iPad, but it switches itself back on. I tried it on the mac and iphone- it made no difference. So, it happens mostly on the iPad, and a bit on the iPhone, and haven't noticed it yet on the mac. I thought it might be a bug with the new crossfade option (even though I have this off)? Welcome any thoughts or ideas. Thanks.