ios 17.5 and/or homepodos broke airplay

i have 13 homepods. 12 in stereo pairs for 6 pairs and one single. i use to be able to play them all in sync with apple music no issue through the whole house. now anything over 6 causes other homepods to crackle or stop producing noise. the ring says its playing. home says its playing and fully connected to wifi but nothing. you uncheck one to drop the number playing from 7 to 6 the other speaker that wasn’t playing just starts playing. you add back another speaker for 7 and crackle until it stops making sound. it appears it doesn’t stop playing the music just doesn’t make any sound period.

i use an apple tv 4k with homepods in a stereo pair as the apple tv speakers. trying to airplay live 4k video from my 14 pro max to the apple tv is a jumbled mess. it plays for a second, then stops and goes back to my phone. then will connect again then just won’t connect. phone says its connected but nothing on screen. if you force close safari then reconnect the live video feed back to the apple tv, it usually will ask if you want to replace whats currently playing. will connect but will randomly stop playing on the apple tv. if i stop using the homepods as the apple tv speakers and use the apple tv with the tv speakers everything works fine.

bogus