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Static and crackling sound on HomePod Mini

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

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 2:52 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 7, 2024 7:34 AM

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:


  • syncing issues within 10 minutes of play (resolve with a pause/reply
  • sudden loss of connectivity for a moment in some situations.
  • sudden loss of connectivity to a single HomePod pair, resolved on advance to next song
  • honking on one ore more HomePods
  • static on one or more HomePods


It goes without saying that these bugs destroy any listening pleasure using HomePods with OS18. Such a shame.

62 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 7, 2024 7:34 AM in response to CyberMizzou

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:


  • syncing issues within 10 minutes of play (resolve with a pause/reply
  • sudden loss of connectivity for a moment in some situations.
  • sudden loss of connectivity to a single HomePod pair, resolved on advance to next song
  • honking on one ore more HomePods
  • static on one or more HomePods


It goes without saying that these bugs destroy any listening pleasure using HomePods with OS18. Such a shame.

Sep 24, 2024 10:08 AM in response to thefieldman412

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!!

Oct 12, 2024 12:33 AM in response to thefieldman412

I had some time this weekend to verify if the sync issue was related to paired HomePods. It appears to not be related. After playing to an unpaired set of homePods (Gen 2 and Mini), the issue recurs. The only way to fix it is to stop/start/replay/skip.


This effectively means that Apple Music can no longer be used, which is pretty serious for one who's been a paid subscriber for years.

Oct 9, 2024 7:04 AM in response to thefieldman412

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.

Oct 27, 2024 10:59 PM in response to thefieldman412

I can confirm that the issue already started with iOS 17.x, as someone else already mentioned. I'm pretty sure that, for me, it started with iOS 17.6. I experienced delays with one of the HomePod pairs (HomePod 2gen) and had opened a case at my network manufacturer (Ubiquiti) for investigation. We optimised a couple of things but nothing improved the situation. I received a custom firmware for my U6 Pros and this solved the stereo pair delay, but with iOS 18 I had this static and crackling sound on exactly this pair. I also have it very rarely with a single HomePod 2gen.


What the Ubiquity support and I had discovered are:

1) Sometimes the HomePods showing an unexpected high latency for a couple of seconds. Like they are busy with something. This latency jumps happen independently from playing music, or not.

2) The 5GHz Wifi is offering a channel width of 40 MHz. But all the HomePods just using the 20MHz channel width. AppleTVs and all other devices using the 5GHz Wifi are using the 40MHz channel width. In case the HomePods are deciding by themselves to use 20MHz, then I have this static/crackling sound and audio delays. Sometimes, they are using the 40MHz channel width and from what I have experienced, then the issue is gone and the playback is rock solid. Unfortunately, I have found no way to force them to use the offered channel width and it happens rarely, that they are using it by themselves. So, no hard evidence on this.


I will try to set the channel width to 20MHz and check, how the HomePods are behaving.


I already have a case open at Apple and I can just encourage everyone to do the same. Probably you don't get a solution right at your hand, but just with cases we can bring up this topic to attention.

The first days the Apple support was very committed to the topic, but since the last days there is no response from them. If I don't receive any feedback, I will start an official escalation at Apple about this (living in Germany, so we have some options due to laws to support end-customers).

Oct 22, 2024 10:40 AM in response to thefieldman412

I have 4 HomePods. I switched the one from the pair that was showing the issue with another outside of my pair. all other things equal, the problem repeated even with a new hardware. I had reset and ensured latest software on the new speaker. Problem has occurred since iOS 18 release playing through Apple Music on speakers either through Airplay or player directly from speakers. All same symptoms as described in this support trail: crackling, pair falling out of sync, stopped play on one or both speakers. Before new iOS upgrade all speakers played fine.


this leads me to believe software update quality was lacking in this case.


hoping a soon to release update to fix it (if Apple is paying attenation).

Oct 23, 2024 1:24 AM in response to thefieldman412

Does anyone have a solution to this annoying issue? We have a Mac mini and a stereo pair of HomePods. After a few minutes they start to crackle, loose sync, drop out, echo - all the same stuff that others are reporting.


I was so annoyed that eventually I bought another Denon Home 150 speaker. When I connect it via Airplay, it has the same issues. Over bluetooth it is better but also occasionally drops out. It seems that the problems are more on the airplay side than the Homepods themselves.


In any case - I would appreciate learning how to solve this problem. The way it is renders the HomePods absolutely useless.

Static and crackling sound on HomePod Mini

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