Why Do My AirPods Keep Pausing? Top Causes and Easy Fixes
You lost it when your AirPods pause over and over again? We understand you, Dude. We were jamming our last favorite song yesterday when they simply stopped. Mid-chorus. Like, seriously?
It all began with this bad dream after we purchased our second pair of AirPods, believing that the first ones were defective. Well, this was to turn out, no. Same problem. It is then that we began wondering why our AirPods keep pausing. It was not only a combination of ill luck.
We became addicted to figuring out this. We sent out messages to everybody we knew, searched YouTube, and we even pestered the Apple Store guy until he was tired of us, maybe. The majority of the AirPods' pause problems are basically quite simple things that Apple does not tell you.
The irritating part is? Subjects of random pause of AirPods are varied. In some cases, they are dirty. Other times your phone is screwing up. We have also watched people using a cleaner on their AirPods, and Zam, there goes the problem. Other people were obliged to do something quite different.
We have done everything during the last few months. With other repairs, time would stand still; with some, it would be instant. Some of them made things worse in some way. We were able to figure out the code on what actually works.
Common Causes of AirPods Pausing And Solutions
1. Automatic Ear Detection
All right, so these AirPods have these smart sensors. When they are out, they stop the music. That is a cool concept, but I have found it to work great about half as much.
There was a week that we were running last Tuesday, and our music kept on stopping. It was found that sweat was mixing with the sensors. They would think that we would constantly take off our AirPods when we were simply... sweating like human beings.
Solution:
Turn on Bluetooth in Settings → Bluetooth → tap your AirPods → kill that automatic ear detection
The sensors want to be wiped with a dry cloth; they become gross quickly.
2. Bluetooth Is Inconvenient
Bluetooth simply sucks. Your phone and AirPods develop communication issues like a long-married couple.
We tested this by walking around our house. The music became choppy at around 20 feet away from our phone. Throw in a microwave or some other phone close by? It never existed.
Solution:
Gave greater proximity to our phone (tedious, nevertheless, effective).
Disabled Bluetooth for ten seconds, followed by enabling it again.
Unpaired and re-paired our AirPods.
When we went insane, restarting our phone helped us out.
3. Low Battery
Before AirPods switch off, they become odd in the way they work. We observed that ours started skipping songs about 10 percent of battery remaining.
Your phone will also not always give you a heads up. We listen to music, thinking that everything is okay, and we check 5% battery. It is not a surprise that they were misbehaving.
Solution:
See how much power is remaining on your phone through your widget thing.
They should be charged at 20 percent or so.
Ensure that you do not have a dead case as well.
4. Sensor Glitches
Such proximity sensors are supposed to sense when AirPods are in your ears. Other times, they simply refuse to work properly, and you take them out only to find that you did not.
We know little-eared friends, who have to put up with this all the time. The sensors simply cannot make out what is happening.
Solution:
Squeeze them in the ears in a different way occasionally - that is all that is required.
By holding that button on the case, you can reset your AirPods within 15 seconds.
If you use AirPods Pro, use other ear tips.
5. Accidental Taps
Have you ever incidentally held your AirPods and stopped everything? It is something we perform constantly when we are adjusting them or when scratching our ears. The two-tap trick works well until you end up tapping it accidentally. There are individuals who, by their nature, tend to touch their ears more than others.
Solution:
Adjust the functionality of a double-tap in Bluetooth settings.
Switch it off in full when it is annoying you.
Curb the ear touching (which is easier said than done).
6. Weird App Behavior
Occasionally, the problem is that your AirPods are great, and it is Spotify being stupid, or YouTube or whatever, an idiot. Various apps treat AirPods differently, and they simply do not get along.
Mostly, we use Spotify, and it is fantastic. YouTube Music? Our AirPods pause randomly, that thing all the time.
Solution:
Quit other applications that could be distracting.
Delete and reinstall the issue app.
Less Rare Causes
1. Receiving Notifications
Interruptions by Notifications: Interruptions of the form of notifications when wearing AirPods may lead to automatic pauses, such as when making calls or listening to media.
Solution:
Activate Do Not Disturb or the Focus Mode to reduce distractions.
Private notification settings so that it does not interrupt so often.
2. Overpopulation in the City
The impacts on AirPods: Interference can happen when a crowded network is present in such public areas, and leaves your AirPods vulnerable to Bluetooth signal interference, thus preventing able from playing back.
Solution:
Take advantage of the noise-cancellation program like Krisp.
Change the location where a place that is less crowded to help enhance better signal.
3. Bad Connection Net
Effect of a Weak Network: A poor Wi-Fi or cellular access may interfere with the streaming of the media, and your AirPods may stall in the middle of their play.
Solution:
Make sure that there is a good Wi-Fi or cellular data connection.
You can attempt moving nearer to the router or use a more powerful network.
Bugs in Software and Firmware Problems
Software Updates
Your AirPods are literally miniature computers, and like any computer, the AirPods experience glitches. We learned the answering way that this way because our AirPods had outdated firmware, and they stopped in the middle of a call.
Now, this is one thing that nobody tells you about the AirPods: they do not update automatically like your phone. They update at their discretion, that is, when you are not even looking. Some updates are there weeks later before the install.
AirPods of our friend began to cut in last month. As it happens, his iPhone was two updates behind, and his AirPods were on antique firmware. After all the updates were made - boom - solved.
Update Fixes:
Place your AirPods in a case and leave them connected to your phone.
The first thing you should do is update the software of your phone – go to the settings page, then to General → Software Update.
Leave your AirPods plugged in even at night – they tend to be updated during sleep.
To check what version you have installed, check Settings → General → About → AirPods.
When the firmware on AirPods is available, Apple does not communicate it. You simply need to hope that they can occur sometime. When you are trying to troubleshoot, it is rather frustrating.
Conclusion
Other times, your AirPods need a bit of a reset. It feels like your computer freezes and you are expected to restart it, but this one is more frustrating.
We were able to do nothing but cleaning, reconnecting, and updating. Nothing worked. Our AirPods would keep pausing after every two minutes. Eventually, we decided to reset them back to zero, and this really cured the problem.
Rebooting is quite easy, and yet you must do it properly. We pressed it incorrectly the first time around since we did not press down the button long enough.
Reset Steps:
Place AirPods in the case charger.
Press down that small button on the backside till the light is orange flashing.
Wait till it flashes white and release it.
Activate them on your phone as if they were new ones.
Reset Fixes:
This deletes all of your settings; as a result, you will need to configure the functions of a double-tap once more.
It normally resolves strange connectivity problems that other solutions do not address.
FAQs
he random pause of AirPods is frustrating as all hell, but can normally be fixed. We have observed that most of the problems are in the dirty sensors, the automatic ear problem, and the Bluetooth.
Quick Fixes for AirPods Pausing Issues
Delete your sensors, switch off that auto ear detection that is annoying you, and reconnect the Bluetooth. These three quick fixes address some 80 percent or more of the pause issues that we have encountered.
Additional Tips:
Always update your AirPods and charge up the battery before lengthy listening. It doesn’t take more than two minutes and blocks most headaches before they begin.
When nothing helps, then your true AirPods may be faulty. These solutions are not guaranteed, but they do the trick most of the time and are better than Apple support.
Table of Contents
Why Do My AirPods Keep Pausing? Top Causes and Easy Fixes
You lost it when your AirPods pause over and over again? We understand you, Dude. We were jamming our last favorite song yesterday when they simply stopped. Mid-chorus. Like, seriously?
It all began with this bad dream after we purchased our second pair of AirPods, believing that the first ones were defective. Well, this was to turn out, no. Same problem. It is then that we began wondering why our AirPods keep pausing. It was not only a combination of ill luck.
We became addicted to figuring out this. We sent out messages to everybody we knew, searched YouTube, and we even pestered the Apple Store guy until he was tired of us, maybe. The majority of the AirPods' pause problems are basically quite simple things that Apple does not tell you.
The irritating part is? Subjects of random pause of AirPods are varied. In some cases, they are dirty. Other times your phone is screwing up. We have also watched people using a cleaner on their AirPods, and Zam, there goes the problem. Other people were obliged to do something quite different.
We have done everything during the last few months. With other repairs, time would stand still; with some, it would be instant. Some of them made things worse in some way. We were able to figure out the code on what actually works.
Common Causes of AirPods Pausing And Solutions
1. Automatic Ear Detection
All right, so these AirPods have these smart sensors. When they are out, they stop the music. That is a cool concept, but I have found it to work great about half as much.
There was a week that we were running last Tuesday, and our music kept on stopping. It was found that sweat was mixing with the sensors. They would think that we would constantly take off our AirPods when we were simply... sweating like human beings.
Solution:
Turn on Bluetooth in Settings → Bluetooth → tap your AirPods → kill that automatic ear detection
The sensors want to be wiped with a dry cloth; they become gross quickly.
2. Bluetooth Is Inconvenient
Bluetooth simply sucks. Your phone and AirPods develop communication issues like a long-married couple.
We tested this by walking around our house. The music became choppy at around 20 feet away from our phone. Throw in a microwave or some other phone close by? It never existed.
Solution:
Gave greater proximity to our phone (tedious, nevertheless, effective).
Disabled Bluetooth for ten seconds, followed by enabling it again.
Unpaired and re-paired our AirPods.
When we went insane, restarting our phone helped us out.
3. Low Battery
Before AirPods switch off, they become odd in the way they work. We observed that ours started skipping songs about 10 percent of battery remaining.
Your phone will also not always give you a heads up. We listen to music, thinking that everything is okay, and we check 5% battery. It is not a surprise that they were misbehaving.
Solution:
See how much power is remaining on your phone through your widget thing.
They should be charged at 20 percent or so.
Ensure that you do not have a dead case as well.
4. Sensor Glitches
Such proximity sensors are supposed to sense when AirPods are in your ears. Other times, they simply refuse to work properly, and you take them out only to find that you did not.
We know little-eared friends, who have to put up with this all the time. The sensors simply cannot make out what is happening.
Solution:
Squeeze them in the ears in a different way occasionally - that is all that is required.
By holding that button on the case, you can reset your AirPods within 15 seconds.
If you use AirPods Pro, use other ear tips.
5. Accidental Taps
Have you ever incidentally held your AirPods and stopped everything? It is something we perform constantly when we are adjusting them or when scratching our ears. The two-tap trick works well until you end up tapping it accidentally. There are individuals who, by their nature, tend to touch their ears more than others.
Solution:
Adjust the functionality of a double-tap in Bluetooth settings.
Switch it off in full when it is annoying you.
Curb the ear touching (which is easier said than done).
6. Weird App Behavior
Occasionally, the problem is that your AirPods are great, and it is Spotify being stupid, or YouTube or whatever, an idiot. Various apps treat AirPods differently, and they simply do not get along.
Mostly, we use Spotify, and it is fantastic. YouTube Music? Our AirPods pause randomly, that thing all the time.
Solution:
Quit other applications that could be distracting.
Delete and reinstall the issue app.
Less Rare Causes
1. Receiving Notifications
Interruptions by Notifications: Interruptions of the form of notifications when wearing AirPods may lead to automatic pauses, such as when making calls or listening to media.
Solution:
Activate Do Not Disturb or the Focus Mode to reduce distractions.
Private notification settings so that it does not interrupt so often.
2. Overpopulation in the City
The impacts on AirPods: Interference can happen when a crowded network is present in such public areas, and leaves your AirPods vulnerable to Bluetooth signal interference, thus preventing able from playing back.
Solution:
Take advantage of the noise-cancellation program like Krisp.
Change the location where a place that is less crowded to help enhance better signal.
3. Bad Connection Net
Effect of a Weak Network: A poor Wi-Fi or cellular access may interfere with the streaming of the media, and your AirPods may stall in the middle of their play.
Solution:
Make sure that there is a good Wi-Fi or cellular data connection.
You can attempt moving nearer to the router or use a more powerful network.
Bugs in Software and Firmware Problems
Software Updates
Your AirPods are literally miniature computers, and like any computer, the AirPods experience glitches. We learned the answering way that this way because our AirPods had outdated firmware, and they stopped in the middle of a call.
Now, this is one thing that nobody tells you about the AirPods: they do not update automatically like your phone. They update at their discretion, that is, when you are not even looking. Some updates are there weeks later before the install.
AirPods of our friend began to cut in last month. As it happens, his iPhone was two updates behind, and his AirPods were on antique firmware. After all the updates were made - boom - solved.
Update Fixes:
Place your AirPods in a case and leave them connected to your phone.
The first thing you should do is update the software of your phone – go to the settings page, then to General → Software Update.
Leave your AirPods plugged in even at night – they tend to be updated during sleep.
To check what version you have installed, check Settings → General → About → AirPods.
When the firmware on AirPods is available, Apple does not communicate it. You simply need to hope that they can occur sometime. When you are trying to troubleshoot, it is rather frustrating.
Conclusion
Other times, your AirPods need a bit of a reset. It feels like your computer freezes and you are expected to restart it, but this one is more frustrating.
We were able to do nothing but cleaning, reconnecting, and updating. Nothing worked. Our AirPods would keep pausing after every two minutes. Eventually, we decided to reset them back to zero, and this really cured the problem.
Rebooting is quite easy, and yet you must do it properly. We pressed it incorrectly the first time around since we did not press down the button long enough.
Reset Steps:
Place AirPods in the case charger.
Press down that small button on the backside till the light is orange flashing.
Wait till it flashes white and release it.
Activate them on your phone as if they were new ones.
Reset Fixes:
This deletes all of your settings; as a result, you will need to configure the functions of a double-tap once more.
It normally resolves strange connectivity problems that other solutions do not address.
FAQs
he random pause of AirPods is frustrating as all hell, but can normally be fixed. We have observed that most of the problems are in the dirty sensors, the automatic ear problem, and the Bluetooth.
Quick Fixes for AirPods Pausing Issues
Delete your sensors, switch off that auto ear detection that is annoying you, and reconnect the Bluetooth. These three quick fixes address some 80 percent or more of the pause issues that we have encountered.
Additional Tips:
Always update your AirPods and charge up the battery before lengthy listening. It doesn’t take more than two minutes and blocks most headaches before they begin.
When nothing helps, then your true AirPods may be faulty. These solutions are not guaranteed, but they do the trick most of the time and are better than Apple support.