HomePod Mini/Airplay not available

[djiwondee]

What version of Music Assistant has the issue?

2.6.3

How is the MA server installed?

Home Assistant OS Addon

Carefully read the Troubleshooting FAQ and confirm that

• I have examined the logs and tried to resolve this issue
• I have fixed any errors in the logs that relate to tags
• I am not running MA across a VPN, VLAN, subnet, behind a firewall, or using local SSL or have any other complex network setup
• I have disabled tool such as AdGuard, Pi-hole or pfSense and retested
• I have checked my network setup to ensure mDNS/multicast is not being blocked
• If using HA, I have confirmed the internal URL is set correctly
• I have tried a wired connection for issues related to interrupted or poor playback quality
• If the problem relates to a device then I have checked the device settings
• If it is a frontend issue, I have tried a different widely used browser
• I have reviewed the applicable player or music provider documentation
• For voice problems, I have sought help elsewhere before returning here
• For playback problems, I have recycled power to the physical device
• I have tried restarting MA and rebooting the host

Have you reviewed the Open and Closed Issues and Discussions to resolve this yourself?

• Yes

The problem

Apple HomePod not available when using the AirPlay player provider in Music Assistant.

Problem description

Music Assistant is running on the same host as Home Assistant.

Apple HomePods are fully controllable from Home Assistant, but they are not available as players in Music Assistant when using the AirPlay provider.

The affected HomePods don't show up in the Music Assistant UI and cannot be used as playback targets.

From Home Assistant side, the HomePod media_player entities work as expected:

• Text-to-speech actions work reliably.
• Media playback (for example via the Radio Browser integration) starts and plays without issues.

The overall HomeKit setup is stable and reliable:

• Three different HomePods and two Apple TV devices are part of the HomeKit home.
• Playback and control via Apple’s Home app are uninterrupted and do not show connectivity issues.
• Controlling the HomePods from Home Assistant (play/pause, volume, radio, TTS) works consistently.

To rule out configuration problems, Music Assistant and the Home Assistant Music Assistant integration have already been completely removed and reinstalled, following a hints from another GitHub issue. Despite this clean reinstall, the behavior did not change:

• HomePods not available in Music Assistant.
• They cannot be used as a target for playback or as members of a player group via the AirPlay player provider.

Expected behavior

• HomePods should appear as available AirPlay players in Music Assistant.
• It should be possible to start playback and include these HomePods in player groups, similar to other AirPlay-capable devices.

Actual behavior

• HomePods are not available for playback.
• They cannot be selected as output devices or added to any player group, even though they work fine in HomeKit and as media_player entities in Home Assistant.

Environment

• Music Assistant: Version: 2.6.3
• Home Assistant: Version 2025.12.2
• Host/OS: Raspberry Pi5, Home Assistant OS
• AirPlay provider: enabled and configured with defaults
• Apple devices: three HomePods, two Apple TV (all stable in HomeKit)

How to reproduce

Steps to reproduce

1. Run Home Assistant and Music Assistant on the same host.
2. Have multiple HomePods and Apple TVs configured in a stable HomeKit environment.
3. Ensure HomePods are visible and fully controllable as media_player entities in Home Assistant (TTS and radio playback working).
4. Open Music Assistant, go to the players / AirPlay provider section.
5. Observe that the HomePods available and cannot be used as players or in player groups.

Music Providers

Player Providers

Full log output

d5369777_music_assistant_2025-12-11T13-28-12.057Z.log

Additional information

Player Control of the Home Assistant plugin is configured as follows

I'm running a small Ubiquity network with the applied Multicast setting according to the trouble shooting page

What version of Home Assistant Core (if used) are your running

2025.12.2

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

On what type of hardware are you running?

Raspberry Pi

Have you included ALL of the information specified in the Troubleshooting FAQ or explained why you cannot

• Yes

[MarvinSchenkel]

We made a lot of improvements to Airplay in 2.7, which we are releasing next week. You can already test this by running the beta to verify if your specific issue is resolved.

[djiwondee]

Hello @MarvinSchenkel ,

thanks for you quick response. I've just installed the Beta 2.7.0b25 as HA Add-on (after removing the HA Music Assistant PlugIn and the Music Assistant Add-On from my HA host and restart)

The situation remains the same, the HomePods doesn't appear:

Btw.: quite nice improvement of the UI!

[MarvinSchenkel]

I see you are running Ubiquity. Just checking, are MA and your Airplay speakers on the same VLAN?

[djiwondee]

Yes, all devices are in the same VLAN

some more network insights, if helpful for discovery:

[MarvinSchenkel]

Interesting.

I just tried it here with a homepod mini and that gets discovered just fine. It's strange that it just seems to be the homepods that are not discovered. Can you confirm that an apple tv (after pairing) just works as it should? (trying to rule out any other network related issues).

Also, are they all homepod mini's?

[djiwondee]

Hello @MarvinSchenkel,

Also, are they all homepod mini's?

--> yes they are!

I tried to pair both the AppleTV (Gästezimmer)

as well as on an iMac (CradleMountain)

I'm not aware/have never seen any pairing code prompt on macOS...

With the current general available MA version on Mac I got at least a notification asking for allowance for Airplay streaming, something like this (its not a screenshot from my screen)

With the beta not...but the Mac explicitly allows airplay streaming in the same network

same setting as for the AppleTVs

[MarvinSchenkel]

Are you testing this on the beta? Pairing does not work on 2.6. Apple TV's should work fine with 2.7 when paired. Can you confirm you are pairing the apple tv on the latest beta?

[djiwondee]

The Pairing test and the screenshots you see above about this are based on Beta 2.7.0b25 which I've installed this morning.

[marcelveldt]

Did you already try to restart the full HAOS host ?
Also does it have just a single network interface ? So e.g. only LAN and wifi interface disabled in case of a pi5.

If that still does not help, I would enable debug logging on the AirPlay provider and keep an eye on the logging, especially after startup. It should log exactly what devices it had discovered on the network

[djiwondee]

Did you already try to restart the full HAOS host ?

Yes, after reboot of the pi, at least one HomePod appears now, but with hour glass:

Wifi on the Host seems to me disabled. This is th only output in the terminal for network config:

I would enable debug logging on the AirPlay provider

...working on that w/ Verbose log level für the Airplay Provider.