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HomeKit HomePod Command Fails First Time on OS 16.3

A

Alfie

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 22, 2004
150
26
South Dakota
I updated all my devices to iOS 16.3 when it came out, and for the most part things are pretty stable. At first, the FindMy feature to ask about your family members' locations wasn't working, but after rebooting all the home hubs, that seems to have cleared out. The one problem I still have is that when asking a HomePod to turn on lights or a scene, it will fail. It says something like "I can't do this right now, try again in a minute". I immediately try again and it works right away. Then I can ask it to turn on any light in the house and it works fine. It's just that first request that fails. If I move to another HomePod, it's the same thing, first time fail, then works fine.

Anyone else seeing this behavior? Before I go any further with troubleshooting, I wanted to see if it's a system-wide Homekit thing, or something specific to my network.
 
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Alfie said:
I updated all my devices to iOS 16.3 when it came out, and for the most part things are pretty stable. At first, the FindMy feature to ask about your family members' locations wasn't working, but after rebooting all the home hubs, that seems to have cleared out. The one problem I still have is that when asking a HomePod to turn on lights or a scene, it will fail. It says something like "I can't do this right now, try again in a minute". I immediately try again and it works right away. Then I can ask it to turn on any light in the house and it works fine. It's just that first request that fails. If I move to another HomePod, it's the same thing, first time fail, then works fine.

Anyone else seeing this behavior? Before I go any further with troubleshooting, I wanted to see if it's a system-wide Homekit thing, or something specific to my network.
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I get this with a timed request but it’s been like that since iOS 16 was first released.

Eg “Hey, Siri, turn off the lights in 10 minutes” results in a fail on the first time but success on a second attempt right after.
 
Same issue on an OG HomePod. Started with 16.3. My first HomeKit request will almost always say “There was a problem completing your request. Try again in a moment.” It is guaranteed to work if I immediately ask again. Doesn’t matter what the HomeKit request is… it will always fail on the first ask.

HomePod mini seems unaffected in my environment. Tried unpairing the OG HomePod and re-pairing it. Same symptoms. Using an AmpliFi Alien as my router.
 
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anzio said:
Same issue on an OG HomePod. Started with 16.3. My first HomeKit request will almost always say “There was a problem completing your request. Try again in a moment.” It is guaranteed to work if I immediately ask again. Doesn’t matter what the HomeKit request is… it will always fail on the first ask.

HomePod mini seems unaffected in my environment. Tried unpairing the OG HomePod and re-pairing it. Same symptoms. Using an AmpliFi Alien as my router.
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Interesting….I had not realized that it’s only an issue with the original HomePods until you just said it. I just tested here and it’s the same. No problem on minis, but requests often fail the first time on the OG’s.

I have a Netgear Orbi mesh network, but it doesn’t seem to be network related. Everything else on the network is working well.
 
Alfie said:
I have a Netgear Orbi mesh network, but it doesn’t seem to be network related. Everything else on the network is working well.
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Ah cool. I figured I’d mention it on the off chance that there’d be a common denominator in our networks. I agree that this seems to be solely related to the new update. It’s odd that it’s so quiet across the web though, with almost no mention of this issue. Maybe we’ll start to see reports of it as HomePod’s start automatically updating.

Since it is not network related, and I’ve tried factory resetting the HomePod… I’m not really sure there’s anything we can do except sit tight for now. Maybe I’ll file a bug report in Feedback Assistant.

Very odd behaviour though!
 
anzio said:
Since it is not network related, and I’ve tried factory resetting the HomePod… I’m not really sure there’s anything we can do except sit tight for now. Maybe I’ll file a bug report in Feedback Assistant.

Very odd behaviour though!
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I agree. I think I’ll wait and see if it corrects itself or wait until the next update. If a reset doesn’t fix it, I don’t know what else to do. I will probably file a report with Apple too.
 
OG HomePod on 16.3 here and I've not noticed any failures with HomeKit accessory commands this morning so far. Still an occasional "working on it" before the success tone, but that's nothing new.
 
dotme said:
OG HomePod on 16.3 here and I've not noticed any failures with HomeKit accessory commands this morning so far. Still an occasional "working on it" before the success tone, but that's nothing new.
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Thanks for the info. Out of curiosity, how may Homepods do you have in your Homekit Home? I've got one OG Homepod at my office that has been running Homekit commands just fine since 16.3. But it's got the Homekit Home all to itself....no other hubs. At my house, I've got multiple Homepods and a couple Apple TV's acting as hubs, and I have the problem of failed commands in that environment. I wonder if the number of hubs sometimes causes things to get out of whack with all the primary hub switching they do.
 
Alfie said:
Thanks for the info. Out of curiosity, how may Homepods do you have in your Homekit Home? I've got one OG Homepod at my office that has been running Homekit commands just fine since 16.3. But it's got the Homekit Home all to itself....no other hubs. At my house, I've got multiple Homepods and a couple Apple TV's acting as hubs, and I have the problem of failed commands in that environment. I wonder if the number of hubs sometimes causes things to get out of whack with all the primary hub switching they do.
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15 HomePods... and I so wish I could disable Hub functionality on some of them. Chasing down a problem isn't made easier with that many hubs. Still on old architecture.

FWIW I saw similar complaints on Reddit today so you're not alone. One person reported power cycling their router (ISP-connected firewall, not APs) and said that fixed it for them. I sometimes wonder if these failures are due to some servers at Apple being down, while others are up, and success/failure is a random luck-of-the-draw deal as a result.
 
dotme said:
15 HomePods... and I so wish I could disable Hub functionality on some of them. Chasing down a problem isn't made easier with that many hubs. Still on old architecture.

FWIW I saw similar complaints on Reddit today so you're not alone. One person reported power cycling their router (ISP-connected firewall, not APs) and said that fixed it for them. I sometimes wonder if these failures are due to some servers at Apple being down, while others are up, and success/failure is a random luck-of-the-draw deal as a result.
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Thanks again. I guess rebooting the network is worth a try. Just hate doing it because it takes a while for the mesh nodes to sync up… then I’ll probably have to go around and reboot all the HomePods again since they always seem to get out of whack after a network outage. It’s a shame because other than this one thing 16.3 and the new architecture are working fine.
 
Alfie said:
Thanks again. I guess rebooting the network is worth a try. Just hate doing it because it takes a while for the mesh nodes to sync up… then I’ll probably have to go around and reboot all the HomePods again since they always seem to get out of whack after a network outage. It’s a shame because other than this one thing 16.3 and the new architecture are working fine.
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Let us know. I tried rebooting my network on day 1 and while my first few requests worked okay, it started behaving the same way shortly after.
 
Definitely having the same problem after 16.3. “There was a problem completing your request. Try again in a moment.” Always works the second time. My house has OG's and mini's.

I am on the new architecture. My router is an eero Pro 6E mesh.
 
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I think it might be helpful to know, per @anzio above, if those having this issue are all on New Architecture. My OGs are working fine but I did not update the architecture during that short window it was offered. I miss the days when software was carefully and lovingly "crafted" rather than just slapped together, and I just had a feeling it was going to be problematic.

Might also help others if folks post what brand of network gear they are running in case that has anything to do with it.
 
dotme said:
I think it might be helpful to know, per @anzio above, if those having this issue are all on New Architecture. My OGs are working fine but I did not update the architecture during that short window it was offered. I miss the days when software was carefully and lovingly "crafted" rather than just slapped together, and I just had a feeling it was going to be problematic.

Might also help others if folks post what brand of network gear they are running in case that has anything to do with it.
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I am on the new architecture.

I am using a Netgear Orbi mesh network with 1 main router and 2 satellites.

Today, I rebooted everything... cable modem, Orbi router and satellites and Apple Home hubs. It did not help. I was hopeful on my first tests because the big Homepods answered commands right away. However, by the time I got to my third big Homepod, it was back to the "try again in a moment" message. Then I went back to the first one that worked the first time, and that one failed it's first attempt. Very hit and miss.

I think at this point all I can do is wait until the next update comes and keep my fingers crossed that it gets fixed. I did fill out a feedback form....hope somebody reads those.

In the meantime, I've moved one of my Homepod minis to the living room where my stereo-paired big Homepods are. I turned off Siri on those and will just use the mini for Homekit commands.
 
Same here, 3 original HomePods (1 in on its own and one pair) since 16.3 get the message “there was a problem completing your request try again in a moment” on the first request turning on lights but second request immediately works. Seems very consistent to what you have all said here, so hopefully fixed with an update soon
 
I too have same issue . 4 x OG ( two pairs ) first request fails immediately asking again works . Complete pain . From the app zero issues
 
I noticed as I'm sure some people have already that the OG's have the issue while the mini's don't. At least at my house.
 
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I'm wondering if Apple will release a 16.3.1 this week for the Homepods to try and fix some of this stuff. 2nd Gen Big HomePods start arriving on Friday and if people start trying to add them to the current messed up infrastructure of 16.3, it could be a disaster....
 
My guess is the new HomePod will be like the Mini and work fine out of the box, but this whole issue feels like an example of a stunning lack of attention to detail.

Did nobody at Apple ask OG HomePod Siri to turn on a light bulb in a test home with new architecture before releasing 16.3?
 
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I noticed this eve the behaviour has changed . Now it’s something went wrong . A second attempt results in same message . Complete pants
 
16.3 feels like 16.0 re-released with some added features. It came out way too fast after 16.2. It’s been awful so far, for me at least. Have the same update AppleID account for all my HomePods no matter how many times I enter in the credentials.
 
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