HomePod: iPhone Airplay notification “unable to connect to HomePod” after playing a couple songs

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

Hello I get a little AirPlay pop up window saying “unable to connect to HomePod” on my iPhone after playing about 3 or 4 songs on the app.  

I'm playing from my iPhone and connecting to my HomePod. Everything is up to date. I’ve tried resetting my iPhone, HomePod, and router/internet. Nothing helped. At this point I don’t know what else to try. Can anyone help?

[TannerPandora]

Hi @RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK 

Welcome to the Pandora Community! Sorry to hear you're running into trouble listening on your HomePod.

It sounds like you've already done quite a bit of troubleshooting, so I'd like to gather some additional information and pass this along to our engineering team for further investigation.

When you have a chance, could you let me know the following?

• Pandora app version:
• HomePod software version:
• iPhone iOS version:

If you're not sure where to find any of that information, just let me know and I'd be happy to help.

In the meantime, I've enabled a trace on your account to help with my review. I'm also going to remove the existing iPhone and HomePod device connections associated with your Pandora account. This will sign you out of Pandora on those devices, so you'll need to reconnect them.

After that, please:

1. Uninstall and reinstall the Pandora app on your iPhone.
2. Sign back in to Pandora.
3. Reconnect to your HomePod.
4. Try listening again.

If you receive the "Unable to connect to HomePod" message again, please let me know the approximate date, time, and time zone when it happens. That will allow me to review the logs further.

Thanks for your help!

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

So I reinstalled the app today, and it hasn’t done it since. I’ll keep trying over the next couple of days, but so far that has worked. 

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

Well it started happening again =(

somethings to point out. I just updated my iPhone to the newest update released yesterday.

iPhone: 26.5.2

HomePod: 26.5

Pandora: 2606.3

I reinstalled Pandora once again to see if that helps. I’ll update here to let you know what happens. 

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

Update:

After reinstalling again it seems to have fixed it. I’ll listen to music again tomorrow to see if this is just a temporary fix, or not. I’ll let you know what happens. 

[MariaPandora]

Hi @RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK , thanks for the updates.

Please let us know if you start having trouble again.

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

It’s happening again. I’m kinda stumped on what causes it to happen. 

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

Been happening a bunch today. The frequency it’s happening it very random. I listened to like 20 songs then it happened. Now it’s doing it like every couple songs.

I can’t tell what’s making it happen. It happens precisely at the end of a song playing. 

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

So I’m almost positive I found the problem. I had an offer for no ads for an hour, and the entire hour I had it, it didn’t happen once. Right after the hour ended it happened again. 

[TannerPandora]

Hi @RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK 

Thanks for the helpful feedback!

Question, do you get the message after the ad completes or does it resume playing music and then you get the message shortly after? 

Also, if you use voice commands to start Pandora on your HomePod, do you have a similar issue with either an error message or music stopping after an ad?

Thanks!

[RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK]

I get the pop up right after a song ends. It makes sense with the test I did, as it probably disconnects due to an ad about to come on. It also never happens after an ad. Only after a couple songs play. Maybe a certain ad is causing the disconnect to happen?

If i get offered ad free listening again I’ll repeat my test again, and let you know what happens. 

As for playing directly from my HomePod I never reconnected my HomePod to Pandora after I had to remove that when troubleshooting.