Yearly Archives: 2018

Homepod issues…

Apple animation of iphone setup to homepod
So I am a first adopter of Apple’s Homepod. It worked well until I realized that it only plays music from a subscription to Apple Music (I don’t have). It will play as an Airplay speaker, so I can tell Siri (Hey Siri) to play music and She (I have mine as an Irish-female or Aussie-Female) will play my itunes on shuffle (as I have it set on my mac, with itunes open and songs set to shuffle).
After the latest iOS 12 update, I found the homepod to be unresponsive to commands. I have it located up on a beam, in my kitchen, to allow better sound dispersion. Well, it requires a ladder to access and to unplug power. I also discovered the unit was very warm. After powercycle (unplug, wait a bit, then replug to good power outlet), it came back to life and was useful. For another week or so.
Same thing again.
Troubleshooting it now a week later, after same issue, I did a manual reset (unplug, press down on the top of the speaker WHILE plugging into power, Siri will speak about reset, KEEP HOLDING DOWN ON TOP, lighting will change to RED and then three FAST beeps. Now let go. You will need to add it again to your iPhone HOME app (keep iphone close and it will pair and start setup).
Most annoying feature of setup: it advertises if you want 3 months of free Apple Music … not really free as you have to add credit card and it will continue to bill after the 3 month period.
If this happens again, I am taking into Apple store. I paid way too much for this…dumbspeaker.

UPDATE: It has been over 10 days since I reset the Homepod and so far it hasn’t locked up. Perhaps the reset helped? Time will tell. IMHO, its not worth $350…

UPDATE #2: It’s been several months and no issues. I believe it was resolved with applying the last update of iTunes (12.9.2.5) in that Airplay + iTunes library being open on my mac, would no longer hang. Apple tends not to disclose details of “security” patches or other dev-discovered patches.

Apple Airport RIP

 

Apple announces no longer supporting the Airport products.

“We’re discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last.”

 

RIP AE.

Beware email scams and phishing!

Virus Total

Seems someone was using my domain name (not my domain server, that is hosted by InMotion and my WordPress is updated regularly) to spam a phishing URL (it was someone named Les at Performance Sales that sent me the email…but I couldn’t verify it that was a spammer trying to use my domain…since the contact phone number was Illinois but fax number was in Nevada.

And his website of “performancesales dot com” was some marketing site for … well his phone and info didn’t match their site so I decided not to reply. If it is legit, maybe Les will visit here and read this.

The link sent was clearly deceptive… a space was between the www in is was ww w.macanix.com. This was also a doc file name but no attachment. Another clue, hover over the URL and its nothing as it appears. I copied that, and pasted into virustotal.com URL checker and bingo, malicious.

(I won’t post the malicious URL but it goes to a walstinefa domain which is 403-forbidden.)

If you aren’t sure of a URL sent to you, Visit virus total and paste it in.

Also, whether on a mac or windows, always use some antimalware. I recommend purchasing Malwarebytes Antimalware.