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HomePod 15.1 breaks Podcast integration - "Sorry there was a problem with Apple Podcasts"

rhaezorblue

rhaezorblue

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2012
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15.1 appears to have broken the podcast integration on HomePods. OG And Minis now can’t play the latest news if you ask Siri to play the latest news. They both say "Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts." Tried restarting and it doesn't resolve the issue. I can't find any settings in the Home app that relates to the Podcast app. Playing music works fine.

Edit: I removed and re-added one of my OG HomePods. Still not working. I may try the nuclear option and remove all 6 devices (2 OG, 4 minis) completely and then re-add them but dont have the time right now.

Edit2: I contacted Apple support and after doing some troubleshooting they ended up submitting a ticket for Apple Engineering to take a look. He speculated it may be tied to Siri permissions on the Homepod. I have a follow-up call next week Monday 11/1/21.

Edit3: So this magically fixed itself overnight - I didn't do anything to resolve it. All 6 homepods are still showing version 15.1 still, not 15.1.1 or anything. Weird

Edit4: Ok I was only partially right. It fixed itself on my office OG homepod, the kitchen OG homepod, but none of my 4 mini's work still.

Edit5: Fixed! 15.1.1 resolved the issue on all 4 homepod mini's.
 
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rhaezorblue said:
15.1 appears to have broken the podcast integration on HomePods. OG And Minis now can’t play the latest news if you ask Siri to play the latest news. They both say "Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Podcasts." Tried restarting and it doesn't resolve the issue. I can't find any settings in the Home app that relates to the Podcast app. Playing music works fine.
Click to expand...
May be a different problem but I had the same issue with Apple Music.....2 stereo Original HPods. Not sure how it got resolved but may have 'fixed' itself when I went from using my phone to work with them and instead used my iPad. Then all was well. Could be that since all are on the same home wi-fi they had to 'shake' or something? No idea but my wording was the same as yours but for 'Apple music'.
 
I contacted Apple support and after doing some troubleshooting they ended up submitting a ticket for Apple Engineering to take a look. He speculated it may be tied to Siri permissions on the Homepod. I have a follow-up call next week Monday 11/1/21.
 
rhaezorblue said:
I contacted Apple support and after doing some troubleshooting they ended up submitting a ticket for Apple Engineering to take a look. He speculated it may be tied to Siri permissions on the Homepod. I have a follow-up call next week Monday 11/1/21.
Click to expand...
Please let us know how it goes. Good luck!
 
same issue here! Very frustrating. It's happening on both my OG HomePod and on a HomePod Mini. I've tried restarting the devices.

I notice that if I start playing something on Apple Podcasts on my phone, it won't hand off from the phone to the Pod either. Handing off Apple Music playback works fine.
 
Same problem with Podcasts and playing local radio stations.

EDIT: I guess I should add that playing songs from my iTunes Match library has no issues.
 
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Same here - 2 Biggies (Apple TV 4K Stereo Pair) and 2 Minis. The minis work fine but the biggies don’t even show up in my AirPlay options (and if they randomly do, my iPhone said ‚couldnt connect to Apple TV 4K‘
 
Me too. 2 OG's and 2 Minis. All of them have this problem. This stinks. I use this several times a day.
 
lance-a-lot said:
Me too. 2 OG's and 2 Minis. All of them have this problem. This stinks. I use this several times a day.
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Yeah I didn't realize how often I have two different OG HomePod's say the latest news, as I WFH full time. Pretty annoying. I can Airplay (from iPhone) the podcast app to any homepods, but just can't use Siri to activate it from any OG or Mini's. It's like they forgot to check if Homepod's had the proper permissions to access the Podcast app.
 
Yes, same here on my HomePod mini stereo pair. Did numerous factory resets, including with Apple Support over the phone. They submitted a RTA and will follow up with me once they know what‘s going on. I think this issue is definitely a widespread one, and very frustrating; the thing that HomePod is supposed to do really well doesn’t even work after this latest update!
 
Off-topic: Does anyone know how to 'choose' which of a pair of Original HomePods will respond to Siri requests? Mine used to respond from the Left but is now responding from the Right. Is there a way to change this? Thanks.
 
Blowback said:
Off-topic: Does anyone know how to 'choose' which of a pair of Original HomePods will respond to Siri requests? Mine used to respond from the Left but is now responding from the Right. Is there a way to change this? Thanks.
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Manually tap and hold to activate Siri on the HomePod you want to respond going forward. Eg, manually activate Siri on the left HomePod and going forward, the left HomePod should answer "Hey Siri" requests.
 
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Also had the same problem today when I went to play some podcasts on my OG HomePods. I didn't even realize 15.1 was out so neither my iPhone or iPad had 15.1 installed. It has to be from 15.1 on the HomePods as it must have installed automatically on them overnight.
 
While the Podcasts still won't play (as of last night, 10/27), the OG HomePod did play my local radio stations. I doubt this was anything similar (or same) to the Podcast issue; once in a while I run into this, but only for a brief time.
 
So this magically fixed itself overnight - I didn't do anything to resolve it. All 6 homepods are still showing version 15.1 still, not 15.1.1 or anything. Weird
 
ouimetnick said:
Manually tap and hold to activate Siri on the HomePod you want to respond going forward. Eg, manually activate Siri on the left HomePod and going forward, the left HomePod should answer "Hey Siri" requests.
Click to expand...
Ouimetnick,
Thanks very much! Have added to Notes for future reference.
 
Ok I was only partially right. It fixed itself on my office OG homepod, the kitchen OG homepod, but none of my 4 mini's work still.
 
I'm having issues handing Podcasts to my OG Homepod as well. I'm able to make it happen, but it's clunky. The first time this morning I had to restart my phone (iPhone 13 Pro) because the Podcasts app was frozen. Now I'm able to hand it off but I have to manually hit Play on the Homepod to make it actually play.
 
Still can’t play podcasts on the HomePod mini. Srsly I just wanna throw them out of the window at this point. So frustrated!
 
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My HomePod and HomePod mini stopped playing news after the latest update, tried resetting them and few other troubleshooting measures but nothing worked. Everything else works fine, Apple Music, hands off, weather, radio etc, the only thing that broke was apple podcast integration.

I got hold of the engineering team on phone and they did some troubleshooting over the phone and logged a bunch of data and said it’s a bug and has been escalated. They said they will get back in 3 days.
 
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