HomePod Devices not responding since HomePod mini 14.4 update

[sajr]

I updated my HomePod Mini to 14.4 earlier this week and now my lights (Vocolink and Meross) and my Eufy camera keep on going into a state of Not responding. Powering them off and back on again resolves it for a short period but soon after they stop responding again. Reset the HomePod and reset and added all the devices again but they still keep going into a state of not responding. All were working fine for months before the 14.4 update. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dotme]

Are these showing No Response in the Home app on your iPhone? When you say a restart resolves for a short period, how short? Minutes? Hours? Days?

 

[sajr]

They are showing as no response in home app on both iPhone and iPad Pro and when I ask Siri to turn on the lights it reports they are unresponsive. After adding them again to the home app they become unresponsive in under 5 minutes. The same is applied to home app on A MacBook running Catalina and a Mac mini running Big Sur. waking my Apple TV up from the HomePod still works. At first I though it was because my iPhone is running iOS 14.5 but I have a work phone running 14.2 and that’s fine. I have also reset the HomePod to factory settings and the same still happens.

 

[dotme]

Wow that is strange. No possibility your router did an automatic firmware update at about the same time that could explain this? I assume you've checked the obvious stuff like DHCP lease times etc? I had some weirdness a few weeks ago where IP-based accessories would struggle on DHCP renewal and sometimes fail to advertise _hap._tcp on renewal. I could ping them, but they no longer appeared under _hap._tcp in the free Discovery app. After much hair pulling, I ended up tracing it to a bad access point. Replaced it and things settled down again. But that seems an unlikely possibility here.

 

[sajr]

Both the bulbs and the HomePod are on the same WiFi network and appear to hold their connections because I can play music and podcasts via the HomePod. I can also use the Bulb's manufacturers app to turn them on and off.

 

[Calumma]

I find that when my homepods do a system update I usually need to turn them off at the wall and then turn them on again. Note this isn’t a reset, just a power cycle. Worth a try.

 

[rob559]

Try signing out, then back into your icloud account. That has worked for me when Siri was not turning on or off my devices, but they were working with the Home app and the Meross app.

 

[sajr]

Try signing out, then back into your icloud account. That has worked for me when Siri was not turning on or off my devices, but they were working with the Home app and the Meross app.

Thanks. So you mean signing out of the iCloud account associated with my HomePod in my Home app?

 

[rob559]

Thanks. So you mean signing out of the iCloud account associated with my HomePod in my Home app?

Yes, that cleared up the issue I had that Siri would not turn on or off what I had "linked/connected" to my Homepod Mini. I could operate the items with the Home app or the Meross app, but not Siri. It worked for me.

 

[sajr]

I will give that a try, thanks. I have a call with Apple support this afternoon anyway.

 

[rob559]

Good Luck. This Smart Home internet of everything stuff is very finicky. It can be fun, but at times it gets weird and starts acting wonky. I really can turn on my light switch by hand. I've been doing it for years
Let us know if the icloud trick worked for you , and what apple advises.
Rob