As said, there is a static and crackling sound lasting up to 5 seconds when I’m playing music from Spotify on my HomePod Mini. It comes up every couple of minutes and then music resumes playing normally. So far I had no issues, and after this emerged, I updated all softwares to latest versions and updated the Spotify app. Any ideas what to do next?
HomePod mini, 18
It WORKS!
I have been having this issue for months with my setup of 3 HomePods and 2 HomePod minis over an extended wifi across the house on different floors. A disaster scenario pretty much :D
So, I feel so stupid to promote a non-Apple platform when I am a subscriber of their Apple Music but I downloaded Qobuz yesterday and it works perfectly across the whole **** system with hi rez 192kHz Miles Davis beautifully flowing thru these amazing speakers.
I am going to keep on testing this the rest of the day but it's been now playing for 30 mins with no hiccups, hisses or crackling. Pretty much as it is suppose to work. I am so happy now.
I am using the iPhone App for this, the desktop version has not been optimised for multi speaker use although there are instructions how to get them work.
I can no longer reliably use any of my HomePods with OS18. I have two homes in two countries with more than 8 HomePods at each site. After upgrading to OS18, it's not possible to reliably listen to music:
It goes without saying that these bugs destroy any listening pleasure using HomePods with OS18. Such a shame.
I opened a support ticket with Apple yesterday and they told me that "engineering is aware of the issue" with HomePods during AirPlay. Whether they will have a fix or not remains to be seen. I'm gobsmacked.
Excellent troubleshooting!
I had locked the 5GHz band on my router to 20MHz a little more than a week ago, and it seemed more stable for a few hours but then the issue reappeared.
I would second the advice to open a support ticket with Apple. The more noise we make, the more likely it will be that our HomePods will soon make less noise.
Originally this ‘distortion’ broke out on one stand-alone mini, and it was so profound I thought that the speaker had blown a cone, it was beyond intolerable. I made an audio file of it as ‘evidence’. On playback it was obvious that it couldn’t be a physical fault as the original audio was still perfect but in the background, the ‘overlay’ of distortion and crackle was independent to this. Repetitiveness then suggested commonality between both the stream provider and the time of day. Whilst the time of day may still stand (mid afternoon) the fault now appears in various stream providers including Apple Music and BBC Sounds.
Subsequently, this ‘infection’ has now spread to any stand-alone/mono mini. The linked stereo originals are as good as gold (now probably jinxed) but the rest, utterly infuriating and very inviting for them to become very expensive one off baseballs ! - All are auto-updated to current OS.
We did the ‘red light’ reset, frankly if anything, it made the reoccurrence more frequent.
For those that may appreciate or understand: the premises has a split 2.4G & 5G router, both have the same passwords. 2.4 of course predominantly for ‘stuff’ around the place to do their things. The router software always invites to combine both, but as an ignorant user, I assume this to mean loosing the separation for 2.4 peripherals only - do advise if I am in la-la land on this point!
When I tried to log the fault Apple system said the units were out of their support period.. being in a hurry I aborted the attempt, but reading the conversations here, I am going to revisit and try again, as it looks like that was a red herring.
With the holidays on their way, the fear of this distortion breaking out as and when the festive tunes are contributing to the ambiance of various parties and such is an extremely disheartening thought (is it time to brush off the iPod and link it back into the Cinema System once more…? - Oh please Apple anytime sooner than soon would be seriously appreciated by far too many loyal customers…
I have 12 HomePods. Three sets of the first release HomePod's that are stereo paired, and six mini's that are not paired. The first time I encountered the static issue was with the 18 update. The 18.1 update has seemingly made things worse. I find that touching the top of the HomePod/Mini and then restarting will sometimes fix the issue; however, it seems to swiftly return or move to another speaker. Both the HomePod and the Mini's are affected. Sometimes they go out of sync, or fall into an echoing loop. This is extremely annoying. I have an Eero network in my home and have not had problems with these speakers for some time until now. When I first got the speakers they would not all play when told, then there was the popping issue, now Apple has introduced this annoying issue that makes using the speakers a real hassle. What makes it worse is I am paying for Apple Music!
I can no longer reliably use any of my HomePods with OS18. I have two homes in two countries with more than 8 HomePods at each site. After upgrading to OS18, it's not possible to reliably listen to music:
It goes without saying that these bugs destroy any listening pleasure using HomePods with OS18. Such a shame.
This is affecting all 4 of my HomePod minis. Since updating, I have to constantly restart my HomePods because they are crackling and out of sync with each other. This is horrible
Since I swapped places with my HomePod Minis I haven’t had any static. That’s 4 full days. Now that I’ve posted that I fully expect the static to start again. 😉
Play around with the multicast dns option in your router.
One of my home pod minis is having static periodically since updating to iOS 18. It also got into a funny state where the light was lit like it was playing, but I couldn’t hear anything. When I turned it up it was making a pulsing sound. I unplugged it and after it restarted it was fine for a while.
I’m also experiencing lots of intermittent static and crackling sounds on my HomePods and Minis that I’ve never encountered before. Sometimes lasting a lot longer than 5-10 seconds. Also, syncing issues with multiple units playing at the same time. This does seem like it started with the ios18 update for HomePod. This is really annoying since I am paying for Apple Music and using Airplay on my devices. Apple please look into this and issue a fix!!
My homepod 2's and my mini's have all been crackling several times a day, even before the 18 update. I've reset them all several times but it hasn't stopped. Some times the static/crackling comes on and the music starts stuttering, like it's stuck in a static loop. I use Apple Music.
Same for me on HomePods (minis and regular) after installing iOS 18. Crackling and even just had music get stuck on a skipping sound like it used to do when listening to a CD. This is happening when playing Apple Music.
I've been experiencing the same problem after updating to OS 18. It happens whether I'm using the HomePod minis as tv speakers or while listening to music. I've also noticed an echo that comes and goes like the speakers aren't playing the audio at the same time.
My paired HomePod 2's are always crackling, falling out of sync and dropping out. Sometimes they will get into a echoing loop. Hitting stop and play in the home app will fix it for a few minutes.
This is terrible. We have 8 HomePods throughout the house and ALL of them are doing this after updating to iOS18.
I also have HomePods in my business ... I can't use them because of this issue.
Static and crackling sound on HomePod Mini
