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tvOS 14 cutting out audio when outputting to HomePods?

J

joesegh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
338
157
So I recently updated to tvOS 14 and I basically do all my watching and listening while outputting to a pair of stereo HomePods. The tvOS 14.0 update appears to create an issue where intermittently but frequently (maybe every 5-10 minutes), the audio will cut out for a second, and then re-establish itself.

What is especially annoying about this is that the *other* bug that is common with stereo HomePods also rears its ugly head on occasion when this audio cuts out: the two HomePods get out of sync, creating a really annoying echo effect. Cue pausing, resuming, and hoping the systems sort themselves out.

On tvOS 13, I never had this issue. The HomePods are still on audioOS 13.4.8 or whatever their latest available public release is.

Has anyone else had this issue? Is it just a software bug and we need to wait for Apple to fix it?
 
it might be a bug, this wasn't the cleanest release they've done.

about the only thing you can do is try rebooting your router and other network gear, airplay depends very heavily on stable network.
I know it happened when you update OS, but it might help, and shouldn't hurt.

there is a public beta for 14.2, I upgraded to see if some other issues went away, but they didn't
if you're feeling daring, you can do that update.
 
Thanks for your suggestion. I'll test it again later after a network reboot, but I tend to doubt it's that considering that this wasn't present on tvOS 13, it doesn't occur when outputting directly to the TV over HDMI, and when the ATV is connected to the HomePods but not playing any content, there is some occasional popping noises from the speakers. Really regretting that I upgraded now and of course there's zero way to downgrade the 4K 😐
 
as an fyi for anyone who might stumble upon this, it appears to be fixed with the release of audioOS 14.1 (tvOS 14.0.2)
 
Also having this issue and it’s pretty bad with audio coming from shows watched on our Apple TV
 
tvOS/audioOS 14.2 seemed to make the issue completely go away for me. The other thing I would suggest is to completely remove/reset the ATV/HomePods from Home.app and set them up as new. I did that to the HomePods and re-added the ATV to Home, and it seemed to resolve most issues I was having. The speakers do still pop every 5-10 minutes when not playing content but that is a minor annoyance.
 
Same problem here ... resetting the Apple TV did not help.

Another Apple TV 4K ( same TV OS Release ) on the same network doesn't have this issue.
(Wifi network very stable - Apple TV's wired connected)
 
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