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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
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.
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 here!! Since upgrading to IOS18 my HomePod minis keep getting audio interference and coming out of sync. The HomePod has upgraded ok!
I have had less occurrences the last few days. It seems to increase frequency of static when I’m using more than 3 HomePods at the same time. Since iOS 18, the audio control center has been much more finicky as well (when I tap a particular speaker, it often doesn’t take, it just goes back to an unselected state).
Hoping for updates soon!
I have a stereo pair of HomePod 2's as the default audio output for my Apple TV 4k in the living room, and stereo pairs of minis in all the other rooms. Everything has been fine for more than a year, but recently when I try to AirPlay Apple Music it works fine for a few minutes, then, static, crackling, off-sync echos, and dropouts that don't stop even when I move to a video app (like Netflix) until I literally shut down the entire system and restart the homepods. Doesn't happen if I'm using a video app and AirPlay to any or all homepods, only when I play Apple Music. Too intermittent to nail down for reproducing in a support call. I really want to be able to painlessly listen to music throughout my house again.
Saturday Oct 13 UPDATE:
About every 5 min the crackling sound showed up in different speakers around the house from 12:15pm -3:30pm. Mostly, it was in the Homepod 2, so I unlinked them and it continues in different pairs of mini's around the house! Interestingly, they all stayed in sync today, just the static/crackling sounds. This all sucks. All speakers and apple products are updated, but it still happens. Restarting all speakers didn't help either.
I have 9 HomePods throughout my house, having 2 stereo pairs of original units, and 2 stereo pairs of minis, and a single mini in a bathroom. All of my minis have had this horrible issue until the last software update. I’m not saying it’s fixed, only so far, so good. I was planning on buying 4 minis as Christmas gifts for nieces and nephews, but that isn’t gonna happen until this discussion thread goes dormant because the issue is fixed for all. Have a good day wonderful people!
I spoke too soon. For a few days there was no static, but today it started again.
Same here! Apple TV + HomePod mini Stereo Pair.
Workaround: Pause, wait, resume.
Waiting for a fix.
I just bought 3 HomePods mini and I am having the same problem. I switched from Sonos I hope apple will fix this problem soon bc I’m really unhappy with this issue. I wanted to be able to listen in multiple rooms to the same tv show while doing chores and this totally messes my experience up. And yes, I updated to iOS 18 when it came out
Finally, some logical "possible" explainations! Mine also started crackling shortly before iOS 18. I will now, also, start a ticket with apple support, as I truly believe that they will respond quicker if more people contact them. Thanks for the detailed info!!
I just updated my 20 or so HomePods to OS 18.1: Gen 1, Minis and Gen 2 at both locations...both with a single wifi SSID 5ghz and no conflict with 2.4ghz. Will report back after a few days if the problem hasn't recurred.
I updated all HomePods of all versions to OS 18.1.
I have been playing for about 2 days now and notice no static; the music stays synchronized across stereo pairs and non-paired HomePods. There also appears to be less latency when a) starting to play music when HomePod needs to exit sleep. Another improvement is that volume control doesn't show latency, so it's easy to increase/decrease volume for multiple HomePods.
Unless the problem recurs, I'm assuming that my issues are fixed with HomePod OS 18.1.
I’m also experiencing this issue with crackling, distortion and out of synch dropouts when airplaying Apple Music to my HomePods and I have now logged a formal support case with apple
Apple Case ID: 102444010836
Mine has magically quit having the static sound. I did report it to Apple via the feedback email address.
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
Static and crackling sound on HomePod Mini
