I’m finding that, with increasing frequency, some days my AirPods Pro will just randomly stop playing audio. In most cases, I can squeeze the stem or hit play on my iPhone X and it picks right back up again (so far I’ve only noticed when listening to various podcasts in Overcast but this use case accounts for around 90% of the time I’m using my AirPods). Less commonly, this won’t work and I’ll have to open up the BT menu in settings and reconnect them, or take both buds out, put them back in the case, close the case, then put them back in my ears again. This seems to happen several times an hour if it’s happening at all, but again, it’s seemingly random, day-to-day.
But wait, there’s more! Also increasingly, I will be driving with my phone sitting in a cradle on my dashboard, sometimes listening to a podcast through stereo BT, other times not listening to anything, and will get the little pop-up from the top of the screen saying AirPods connected. Somehow. From my gym bag, in the trunk, inside a closed AirPods case. 
This, too, can happen a few times a day or not at all, but even disconnecting the device from BT menu in settings usually only fixes it temporarily, and it will reconnect again a few minutes later and I have to do this dance over and over again, and often enough that when I actually want to put my headphones in, one of them is inevitably dead (presumably from continuously trying to connect to my phone all day long from inside the case) and I need to recharge them before I can use.
Why is this happening? Are these issues related? I bought these new in January so I can’t imagine they’re going bad on me already. These issues started about a month ago and are becoming increasingly more frequent. I’m not on any betas except for Overcast. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated, I am slowly going insane.
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The first thing I would to is to reset the AirPods Pro. Disconnecting the AirPods from the Bluetooth menu is not enough.
- Put your AirPods in their charging case, and close the lid.
- Wait 30 seconds.
- Open the lid of your charging case.
- On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the “i” icon next to your AirPods. (If you don’t see your AirPods in Settings > Bluetooth, just go to the next step.)
- Tap Forget This Device, and tap again to confirm.
- With the lid open, press and hold the setup button on the back of the case for about 15 seconds, until the status light flashes amber, then white.*
- Reconnect your AirPods: With the lid open, place your AirPods close to your device. Follow the steps on your device’s screen.
If you have done so and the issue keeps happening as often as you described, you definitely should contact Apple.
I am using the AirPods Pro daily for about 2 to 3 hours per day. Maybe, it happens 2 or 3 times per month (!!!) that I have issues in different variations:
- only one of two AirPods is working,
- the AirPods are out of sync,
- putting the AirPods back into the case does not lead to charging the AirPods and disconnecting them from the iPhone.
Most of the times, the issues are resolved by putting the AirPods back into the case, closing the lid, waiting a few seconds and putting them back into my ears. That basically means that the firmware is doing its shutdown and start again. If that does not help, I reset the AirPods (I have done so about 3 to 5 times during the last year).
If you have ongoing issues with signal loss and with AirPods not charging and stuff like that often and a reset does not help, then there is something defective.
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Cool, thank you for the tips. I followed as you described and a few things had changed during the pairing process – it renamed them to “Matt’s AirPods Pro” (before were just “AirPods Pro”) and the bit about the spatial audio was new as well. Hopefully that will do it but as you suggested if still having problems will take it to the Apple store. Thanks again!
No problem! 
Regarding the name: AirPods Pro is a custom name, resetting the AirPods leads to resetting the name to Apple’s default which is “Matt’s AirPods Pro” in your case. Regarding spatial audio: going through the process not only does reset the AirPods, but it potentially also triggers a firmware update.
Keep your fingers crossed that the issues are gone. If they keep happening on such a frequent basis, do not hesitate to contact Apple. Have fun with your AirPods! And enjoy spatial audio. I love it.
The reset process works for me, but I need to shut down and restart the phone between steps #6 and #7. If I don’t do the shutdown/restart, then in step #7 I get a popup message “Not Your AirPods” and a big red exclamation mark.
That does not sound nice. I am not sure, but I do not remember that I had to restart the phone when I did this whole dance the last time.
Update on this: the problem never got any better. I spent an hour at one point troubleshooting via text chat with Apple support and it was ultimately suggested that I should prob just take it in to Apple for testing. I finally had a chance to do so last weekend and evidently they failed some hardware test. Was in and out with a brand new set of buds (I retained my original case) in about 20 mins without even having made an appointment. Very satisfied, no recurrence of the issue since. 
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