iOS: HomePod Stops Playing Music After Ads

[Srensmon]

Hello all - is anyone have an issue with their HomePod mini not continuing to play music after an ad?  The Pandora app continues to play music but no sound comes out for a song or two. I have tried to switch to my phone from the mini but no sound here. 

I tried the suggested resets by unplugging and resetting the mini as well as deleting and reinstalling the pandora app but no luck. 

mod edit: changed title for clarity

[AlyssaPandora]

Hi there, @Karatechop79. 👋

I moved your post over to this existing thread as this fits your issue more: iOS: HomePod Stops Playing Music After Ads

I've passed your experience and feedback along to the appropriate parties for further investigation. We'll follow up with you if we need any additional details.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime! 🎧

[BeowulfSchmidt]

Any resolution to this at all?  It's still happening, at least to me, with iOS 16.2 and 2212.1 of Pandora.

[GeraldPandora]

Hi @BeowulfSchmidt 👋

Welcome to the Community and thank you for your first post!

Sorry to hear that you're experiencing this issue as well. I've enabled a trace on your account so that our engineers can take a closer look. Please complete our iOS Troubleshooting Steps in order for this trace to be helpful.

In addition, Could you tell me more about your device?

• Device & Generation: (e.g. iPhone X, iPad Air (3rd gen), etc.)
• Carrier:
• iOS version: iOS 16.2
• Pandora version: 2212.1

Are you connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data when this is happening?

Have you identified any other patterns or notable information?

Thanks for your help with this! 🤝

[Bumblexd]

This is also happening to me.. was there a solution? 

[dmjeri]

This has recently started happening for me as well, guessing over the last few months... when I'm playing Pandora via AirPlay (HomePod or Apple TV or Receiver) from iPhone Pandora app, as soon as an ad finishes, Pandora stops playing. When I look at my phone/Pandora app, it shows that the song is playing, yet I don't hear anything..  I'm on the latest version of Pandora and all my devices and modem have the latest updates.  I've tried factory resetting the home pod as well as trying all the steps to troubleshoot as per this post.   

In addition, Could you tell me more about your device?

• Device & Generation: iPhone XR and iPhone 11
• Carrier:  Frontier
• iOS version: iOS 16.3.1
• Pandora version: 2302.1

Are you connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data when this is happening?  Wi-Fi (required for airPlay with HomePod and HomePod Mini)

Have you identified any other patterns or notable information?   this only happens when playing Pandora.  No other music apps have this issue.

[AdamPandora]

@Bumblexd If you're still experiencing issues, could you please tell me more about your device?

• Device & Generation: (e.g. iPhone X, iPad Air (3rd gen), etc.)
• Carrier:
• iOS version: 
• Pandora version: (Pandora > Profile tab > Settings gear & scroll to the bottom of the screen)
• Are you connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data when this is happening?

Thanks for working with me on this.

[AdamPandora]

@dmjeri I've passed this along to the appropriate parties for further investigation. We'll follow up with you if we need any additional details.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

[Arkie1]

Issues has not been resolved.  iPhone 11, iPad 12 pro, iPhone 11 max, iPhone 12.   Yes we have plenty of devices.  I have Sonos, Yamaha, and couple of other Air Play devices.  Problem has excited since January of 2022, yes ongoing for over a year.  I posted so many times about this issue that it’s crazy.  

Music starts and then when commercial comes on the music will stop playing but the pandora’s app continues to play but no sounds.  It you just leave it in about 30 minutes or so the sound will come back on and then an add than no sound again.  

Issue is not your device and not your air play device this is a problem with Pandora   Problem does not occur with any other app sending sound to Air Play and does not have an issue with Blue Tooth or playing on the device and no issues on Car Play. 

Pandora please fix your app.  

[GeraldPandora]

Thanks for the update @Arkie1!

I've included your experience and feedback with our engineering team for further investigation. We appreciate your patience in the meantime! 🎧

[dougtallacksen]

Pandora engineering - please be upfront about your likely desire to push folks into a paid subscription which avoids the ads and likely the problem.  It seems like there's a one-way feed from Community to engineering and never any feedback.  This should be easy for Eng. to replicate.  Get a HomePod, connect it to an iPhone (or Mac) via Airplay, and use a free Pandora account.  Play until an ad finishes and voila!

Glad to share details, but Pandora clearly does not care.  Problem not solved after 14 months?!?

• Device & Generation: iPhone Xr
• Carrier: Mint
• iOS version: 16.3.1
• Pandora version: 2302.2
• Are you connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data when this is happening? Wifi

Pandora will eventually start playing on its own on the HomePod mini.  Here are experienced timings:

I started a stopwatch to track elapsed times (MM:SS).  I'll let you do the calculations

Music restarts eventually after ad 06:41

Ad ends, music continues playing silently on iPhone but not on HomePod mini: 10:36

Music comes back on HomePod: 16:53

Ad starts: 21:09

Ad ends (again, music silence): 22:13

Music comes back on HomePod: 28:55

Assuming engineering actually cares, pass it along. Not holding my breath.

The music will eventually come out of the HomePod on its own again when playing over AirPlay:

Moderator Edit: Merged posts

[MacUser83]

Unfortunately I too have been batting this exact issue as well with my iPhone 13 Pro and Apple HomePod. All devices are up to date with most recent firmware. It's really annoying. Wish there was a fix. 

[edminney]

Didn't help....still have the exact same problem....stops playing after first commercial.

I and many others have the exact same issue. I can't understand why Pandora engineers can't solve this problem. I've searched all over the internet and can't find anything that works. What's up Pandora???

Pandora - do you really have engineers? All I've seen on posts over the last year and a half has been the engineers are being informed and appreciate your patience. Patience ran out a year ago. You don't need anymore feedback. I'm sure anyone can replicate the disfunction of no sound after adds. You just need to really get some engineers, which you don't seem to have had over the past year. I don't understand why no one at Pandora is embarrassed over this issue. Caring about such a lengthly customer complaint is clearly a corporate value that hasn't existed for a while. It's too bad because the app, if it actually worked using airplay, is really a good one. But in the airplay mod it is nothing but aggrivating. I think its probably time to fire those posing as engineers and get some real ones to work on fixing this problem - unless you just don't want to fix it. Come on - can't you all get your act together?!?!?!

mod edit: merged comments

[edminney]

Didn't help....still have the exact same problem....stops playing after first commercial.

[Chananay]

I couldn’t agree more with edminney. Same canned response over a year of everyone having this issue. No excuse for this. 

[crazedfox1313]

The app may have to be rebuilt from scratch & in giving a new app they could code in machine learning to spot when no sound is being output.

I don’t know, just spitballing here.

[edminney]

I don't know why things went south to start with since a couple years ago
it worked fine. Something changed with a new version maybe.....but I really
think this has been going on way too long and maybe for a reason they don't
want anyone to know about. If they really cared they would have fixed it by
now....or maybe thay just can't because they don't have the
expertise needed.

[SkippyFlipper]

So it’s been over a year apparently this is not going to get fixed by Pandora. So here’s what I have found to resolve the issue I use XM radio, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and every single other online streaming service to circumvent the issue that Pandora refuses to address. So very simple, use any other service to play over your Bluetooth and you will not have any issues.

[crazedfox1313]

Got it working for airplay. But most won’t like the fix. I had a clue when it would always break after a commercial set. So decided to try a payed plan. & guess what, it’s working…

For others here, save this comment just in case it gets removed.

[TannerPandora · Accepted solution]

Pandora Update: 5/24/23

Hi all! Thanks for posting your experience with playback stopping after an advertisement when using HomePod.

The Community team has received an update that this should now be resolved. Be sure that the Pandora app is on the latest version and please try again.

If you're still having trouble, let us know.

Thanks for being part of community!

[MacUser83]

12+ months to fix a bug? This should be interesting. Will test and report back for sure.